Abstract

The aim of this paper is to establish a common ground model for multi-layered communication in drama. In particular, we will focus on the concept of irony. We will show that in drama ironic effects can be achieved by presenting lies, fallacies or misunderstandings. Whilst these phenomena are communication failures in the internal communication system, they lead to second-order implicatures in the outer communication system, i. e. the communication system between text and audience. In Rapp & Wolman (2022) an evidence-based common ground model was presented in order to describe communications failures in single-layered communication. To capture the interaction of an inner and an outer communication system we will combine their parts in a specific manner: whereas the discourse commitments are taken from the inner system, all other components (common ground, beliefs, facts) belong to the outer system. Importantly, the outer system also includes second-order implicatures arising from communication failures in the inner system. We will illustrate this model by examining crucial passages of the bourgeois tragedy Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich Schiller.