Variation parameters in verbal parodic echoing partiality, inaccuracy, and complexity

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Published: May 15, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6035/clr.8099
Keywords:
echo, echoic complexity, echoic mention, echoic variation, irony, parody, partial echo

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Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez
Universidad de La Rioja
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1200-2850
María Asunción Barreras Gómez
Universidad de La Rioja
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5000-9025

Abstract

This article contrasts ironic and parodic echoes. An echo conveys speaker’s dissociation from its source material. In irony, echoes convey content-based criticism, whereas parodic echoes are used to achieve form-based comic effects. Echoic mention is not necessarily an exact repetition. Echoes can vary from their sources along three dimensions: partiality, inaccuracy, and complexity. In irony, partiality has a focal function, which can be complemented with modification and complexity strategies, whereas full echoes are used when no special focal attention is needed or when modification and complexity strategies are enough to highlight particularly significant elements of the utterance. Parody is generally based on partial echoes since it chooses the aspects of the source behavior where imitation can create comic effect with inaccuracy and complexity being used for emphasis. Irony and parody share three complexity strategies: compounding, cumulation, and chaining. Compounding results from combining two relatable echoes into a single communicative act and cumulation from sequencing meaning or form alternates. Finally, in an echoic chain an echo becomes the source material of a second echo that is used to cancel out the meaning implications of the first.

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How to Cite
Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, F. J., & Barreras Gómez, M. A. (2025). Variation parameters in verbal parodic echoing: partiality, inaccuracy, and complexity. Culture, Language and Representation, 36, 201–217. https://doi.org/10.6035/clr.8099
Issue
Vol. 36 (2025)
Section
ARTÍCULOS / ARTICLES
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Author Biography

Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Universidad de La Rioja

Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez is Full Professor of Linguistics at the University of La Rioja. He works in cognitive linguistics, inferential pragmatics, functional grammar, construction grammar, and discourse analysis. He has been the head of different national research projects and has supervised several doctoral dissertations on these topics. 

He has written articles and book chapters most of them published in such journals as Journal of Pragmatics, Language and Communication, Language Sciences, Cognitive Semantics, Language and Cognition, Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics, Folia Linguistica, Metaphor and Symbol, Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics, and in book series such as Human Cognitive Processing, Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics (John Benjamins), Applications of Cognitive Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics Research, Mouton Series in Pragmatics (Mouton de Gruyter), Functional Linguistics (Equinox), Łódź Studies in Language (Peter Lang). He has edited or co-edited several books, among them, Cognitive Linguistics: Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction (2005, Mouton), Cognitive Linguistics: Current Applications and Future Perspectives (2006, Mouton), Defining Metonymy in Cognitive Linguistics: Towards a Consensus View (2011, John Benjamins), Theory and Practice in Functional-Cognitive Space (2014, John Benjamins), The Functional Perspective on Language and Discourse: Applications and Implications (2014, John Benjamins). He has authored or coauthored several books on metonymy and linguistic theory, the most recent one being: Figuring out figuration (2022, John Benjamins).

He has been invited to present his research in universities and other research institutions in Beijing, Bogotá, Castellón, Copenhagen, Córdoba, Düsseldorf, Galati, Hamburg, La Laguna, Las Palmas, Lima, Lodz, Madrid, Murcia, Pisa, Provo, Thessaloniki, Timisoara, among other places. He has also been an invited speaker in national and international conferences. Some of them are: International Conference on Cognitive Linguistics (Pavia, 2003), International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (Santiago, 2005) and the 10th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (Krakow, 2007), 3rd Conference on Metaphor in Language and Thought (Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, 2008), Languages and International Business: First Forum across Disciplines (Beijing, 2010), Cognitive Perspectives on Contrastive Grammar (Bielsko-Biala, Poland, 2011), First International Conference on Meaning and Knowledge Representation (Madrid, 2012), Constructionist Approaches to Language Pedagogy  (CALP, 2013) (Brussels, 2013), 1st International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language (Thessaloniki, 2014), Researching and Applying Metaphor 2014). Post-conference workshop “Metaphor from embodied cognition to discourse” (Cagliari, 2014), 3rd International Conference on Meaning and Knowledge Representation (Valencia, 2014), 33rd International Conference of the Spanish Association of Applied Linguistics (Madrid, 2015), 2nd International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language (Pavia, 2015), International Conference: Cognitive technologies of theoretical and applied linguistics (Tyumen, Russia, 2016), 3rd International Symposium on Figurative Language and Thought(Osijek, Croatia, 2017).

He serves on the editorial and scientific boards of journals such as Miscelánea, Estudios de Filología Moderna, Jezikoslovlje, Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense, Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses, Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics, ITL-International Journal of Applied Linguistics, International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics, Revue Romane, and Cognitive Linguistics.

He was the editor of the Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics from 1998 to 2005 and is currently the editor of the Review of Cognitive Linguistics, and co-editor of the series Applications of Cognitive Linguistics (Mouton de Gruyter). Since January 2012 he is co-editor of the Bibliography of Metaphor and Metonymy (Metbib), published by John Benjamins. He was president of the Spanish Association of Applied Linguistics from 2005 to 2011.

He has been the head organizer of two major international conferences, the 8th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (University of La Rioja, 2003) and the 44th International Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (University of La Rioja, 2011). He has also organized other smaller conferences, such as the two conferences of the Research Center on the Applications of Language, CRAL 2009, 2013, and over twenty workshops and seminars. He has had held administrative positions as Head of the Department of Modern Philologies (University of La Rioja, 1994-1995, 2000-2004), Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education (University of La Rioja, 2004-2008), and Head of the Doctoral Program of the Department of Modern Philologies (University of La Rioja, since 2001). Since 2008 he has been the Head of the Center for Research in the Applications of Language (University of La Rioja) and from January 2015 to October 2016 he has served as a member of the Commission for Accreditation of Tenured Associate Professors in Spain (National Agency of Quality Evaluation, Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports).

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