Abstract:

The objective of the present work is to analyze one of the vivid trends in language of business, namely a more active use of ironic utterances in any communication formats, including formal ones, and how it has to be reflected in Business English courses. The reasons for special attention to ironic rhetoric in business circles are quite substantial.

Irony has always contributed to English native speakers' mentality (see, for instance, works by Peter Mandler, George Mikes, Frank Stringfellow Jr., Robin Shoaps, Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone, etc.). But as for institutional discourses, they have traditionally restricted the free use of figurative language devices including irony. And this has been well-grounded, as the necessity to interact on a mutually beneficial and stimulating basis usually drives business partners to being cautious in order to avoid any possible misunderstanding, psychological discomfort or offence; while irony may be perceived by the recipient as a dubious, unpleasant or even unacceptable mode of verbal behaviour. Still today more and more experts in business communication admit that, following the general process of social and professional interaction democratization, ironic utterances are growing in number in Business English of different discourse registers.

The authors of the current presentation focus on two main aspects of the topic:
1) which linguistic facets are typical, acceptable and/or advisable for ironic business communication;
2) what should Business English teachers do to elaborate the optimal methods of teaching entrepreneurs and other representatives of business to make the best use of irony in their professional activity.

The problem is considered with the help of methods of functional linguistics. As is known, functional linguistics is aimed at disclosing the communicative functions of language units, the purposes of their use and their pragmatic loading which affects people’s mindsets, opinions, feelings, intentions. Applying some adapted forms of linguistic functional analysis so as to reveal these aspects of ironic rhetoric in Business English courses enhances students' awareness of language being an efficient tool of handling various professional matters.

The authors come to the conclusion that analyzing ironic rhetoric in business from this perspective and implementing it in the teaching process have proved highly efficient for developing students' professionally relevant competences, especially those belonging to the analytical, systemic and communicative competence blocks.

Keywords:

Business English, linguistic education, ironic rhetoric, functional linguistics, pragmatics of business communication, functional approach to teaching English.