“The weather is quite nice today”: Irony in the Japanese Language

Abstract This article discusses the phenomenon of irony in written Japanese language, exploring its expression, usage, and interpretation. As a first step, the definition of irony within the German and English academic literature is examined to facilitate the development of a framework for identifying hiniku and aironī , the Japanese equivalents for the investigated concept. A comprehensive analysis based on Japanese literature has revealed definition criteria akin to those found in German and English research literature. Based on the identified criteria, the empirical section of this article examines ironic passages from the novel Rivers of London (2011) by Ben Aaronovitch. Furthermore, the Japanese translation of the novel (2013) is analysed and compared with the English original to determine if and how the intended irony has been conveyed in the Japanese edition.