摘要：This paper is part of a broader research project. Precisely, it is based on a section of the doctoral thesis entitled: Discursive Strategies in The Basque Prose of Koldo Mitxelena: A Study of Parenthetical Statements. The article posits that the linguist Koldo Mitxelena often makes use of the syntactic-discursive structure of parenthetical statements to convey irony. The paper aims to demonstrate that the Basque author does, in fact, make use of such structures purposely and, thus, such constructions mirror the ironical intention of Mitxelena. Likewise, the article tries to decipher the communicational intention of these syntactic-discursive structures. The purpose of the present article is not to analyze the concept of irony in depth; but, rather, to scrutinize interpolative structures in terms of the author’s ironical intention. Hence, the analysis highlights the extent to which these structures constitute a calculated discourse strategy and the fact that the latter contribute to unveiling irony even in the cases where interpolative structures are not used, since parenthetical statements are loaded with cues that help the purported addressee infer the underlying message.
