Detecting Sarcasm in Communication on Twitter

master's thesis

• Author: Ines Kečkeš
• Mentor: Marina Grubišić (mentor)
• Committee member: Janja Čulig (predsjednik povjerenstva)
• Committee member: Anđel Starčević (član povjerenstva)
• Granter: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; (Department of English language and literature); Zagreb
• Defense date and country: 2022-09-13, Croatia
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: HUMANISTIC SCIENCES; Philology; Anglistics

Abstract

Sarcasm is a complex multimodal phenomenon that can be difficult to detect even in face-to-face communication, meaning it may be even harder to recognize in communication on social media, considering the absence of intonational and gestural cues. This thesis deals with the ways in which sarcasm is delivered and recognized on Twitter. A manual qualitative analysis of 31 tweets showed that Twitter users try to replicate the same principles that are used in oral communication, firstly, by using the same fixed lexical expressions, interjections and intensifiers, and secondly, by substituting intonational cues with punctuation, word and phrase capitalization and letter duplication, and gestural cues with emojis, images and GIFs. Although the presence of most of these cues by itself does not necessarily indicate sarcastic intent, the results showed that most Twitter users combine multiple multimodal cues, which makes sarcasm detection easier.

• Keywords: sarcasm; sarcasm detection; Twitter; cues; multimodality
• Language: english
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:131:904278
• Study programme: Title: English Language and Literature (double major); specializations in: Linguistics, Literature and Culture, Translation; Course: Linguistics; Study programme type: university; Study level: graduate; Academic / professional title: magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti (magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti)
• Type of resource: Text
• File origin: Born digital
• Access conditions: Open access
• Created on: 2022-09-13 13:36:31