What are the linguistic cues that enable one to detect sarcasm in writing (from an unknown stranger)? If any.
(Hardmode: What are the linguistic cues that enable one to detect more complicated forms of sarcasm like ‘trolling’? If any.)
Tone, context – as opposed to grammar and syntax.
Same answer for hardmode, but I don’t think that trolling is necessarily sarcastic.
Sarcasm and irony are, firstly, literary techniques that ‘prove’ a point by either exaggeration of reductio ad absurdum or by using words that mean something different from accepted definitions. I’ve always had difficulty recognizing irony.
Jonathan Swift was a satirist who used both sarcasm and irony in his works–mainly Gulliver’s Travels and “A Modest Proposal.”
A forum ‘troll’ isn’t really intelligent enough to do anything other than throw an idea out into the internet ocean of possible ‘biters’ of his lure. S/he does it primarily to start an argument, or ‘discussion.’ The forum troll is looking for a fight–not because s/he is necessarily interested in either the topic or the responses–the main object of a troll is to ‘win’–to show s/he is intellectually ‘superior’ to the trollee. If they feel threatened, they revert to debasement of the trolled–which often results in name-calling and/or other means of dismissal. The best defense against trolling is to not feed it.
Unless, of course, you feel you can expose her/him for the troll s/he seems to be.