Graded Salience Hypothesis is the theory regarding irony processing developed by Rachel Giora, that assumes the priority of salient over less salient meaning in the process of language comprehension.
Contents
Lexical salience
The meaning of a word is considered salient, if it is coded in the mental lexicon. Still, the degree of salience of a given word meaning cannot be viewed as a permanent, defining characteristic, but rather as a function of a number of factors, such as frequency, conventionality, familiarity, and prototypicality. The more frequent, conventional, familiar, or prototypical a given word meaning is, the greater degree of salience it holds.
Hypothesis
The graded salience hypothesis revolves around two major assumptions: 1. Salient meaning of a word is always activated and cannot be bypassed. 2. Salient meaning is always activated first, before the less salient meanings.
Role of context
In the view of the graded salience hypothesis, context has a very limited role. Even though it can facilitate activation of a word meaning, it cannot inhibit the process of the more salient meaning activation.