Irony and Its Differences with Satire, Sarcasm, and Other Similar Rhetorical Devices

Irony is a literary term that contemporary translators have attempted to translate as satire, sarcasm, caustic remark, innuendo, and ridicule in Persian; however, this paper will represent that each of these words will convey only one aspect of this concept. This study is aimed at explaining the differences between Irony, satire, sarcasm, and similar rhetorical devices. Satire is a literary genre similar to such literary genres as facetiousness, ridicule or lampoon, comedy, and humor. Therefore, to give an understanding of the term “satire”, such literary genres have been briefly defined along with an explanation of the basic difference between irony and satire. Afterwards, irony and its various types have been represented and in order to recognize the difference between this literary term and similar figurative and rhetorical terms, Persian literary devices have been consulted to explain how irony differs from them in terms of meaning. This will lead the readers to acquire a good knowledge of irony, because a term or concept will be understood well if and only if it is explained in parallel with its similar concepts with their differences being appropriately clarified. It should be noted that regarding the explanations proposed in this study about the term “irony”, the writer is not going to translate it into such words as satire, sarcasm and any other words implying these two concepts.