Diese Dissertation untersucht das Verstehen figurativer Sprache, im Besonderen die zeitliche Verarbeitung von verbaler Ironie. In sechs Experimenten wurde mittels ereignis-korrelierter Potentiale (EKP) die Gehirnaktivität beim Verstehen ironischer Äußerungen im Vergleich zu entsprechenden nicht-ironischen Äußerungen gemessen und analysiert. Darüberhinaus wurde der Einfluss verschiedener sprachbegleitender Hinweisreize, z.B. von Prosodie oder der Verwendung von Satzzeichen, sowie außersprachlicher Hinweisreize, wie bspw. pragmatischen Wissens, auf das Ironieverstehen untersucht. Auf Grundlage dieser Ergebnisse werden verschiedene psycholinguistische Modelle figurativer Sprachverarbeitung, d.h. 'standard pragmatic model', 'graded salience hypothesis', sowie 'direct access view', diskutiert. / This dissertation investigates the comprehension of figurative language, in particular the temporal processing of verbal irony. In six experiments using event-related potentials(ERP) brain activity during the comprehension of ironic utterances in relation to equivalent non-ironic utterances was measured and analyzed. Moreover, the impact of various language-accompanying cues, e.g., prosody or the use of punctuation marks, as well as non-verbal cues such as pragmatic knowledge has been examined with respect to the processing of irony. On the basis of these findings different models on figurative language comprehension, i.e., the 'standard pragmatic model', the 'graded salience hypothesis', and the 'direct access view', are discussed.

Title: “All roads here always lead to irony”. Verbal irony as a mean of presenting dandyismin the novels ‘Faserland’, by Christian Kracht and ‘Att komma hem ska vara en schlager’, byPer Hagman. A contrastive analysis. Author: Hanna JulinSupervisor: Bärbel WestphalExaminator: Corina Löwe Summary: The aim of this study is to investigate how verbal irony is used in fiction to indicatedandyism in pop-modern literature. It is a contrastive study based on Christian Kracht’s novelFaserland (1995), which is considered to be a romana à clef in the German popliterature. Attkomma hem ska vara en schlager (2004), by Per Hagman is a Swedish novel comparative tothe German „pop-novel“. The analysis has shown that the verbal irony primarily has threefunctions: social criticism, distancing and self-criticism. These elements correspond withdistinctive features which are typical of the dandy. Irony itself, according to Barbey (1987),Schickedanz (2000) and Rauen (2010) among others, is a distinctive feature of the classicaldandy figure, as well as of the pop-modern one. However, further research consisting of bothsynchronic, diachronic and contrastive analysis is relevant, as the dandy, according to Hörner(2008) and Tietenberg (2012) among others, always renews himself – so that his image alwaysappears elegant, modern, original and rebellious in his contemporary society.