ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns metarepresentation as it relates to communication and language use. It explores the idea that the intentions underlying communication are metarepresentational. The chapter describes the widely accepted claim made by Sperber and Wilson that verbal irony is a tacitly metarepresentational use of language. It sets out the attempt made in relevance theory to provide a unified account covering interrogative sentences, in addition to quotation, metalinguistic negation and verbal irony, in terms of the interpretive use of language: that is, use of language to represent an utterance or a thought other than the speaker's own. Relevance theory has developed the most comprehensive picture of the role of metarepresentation in communication, putting it in the context of work in psychology on 'theory of mind' or 'mindreading', the human ability to attribute thoughts to others on the basis of their behaviour.
