‘Ha-Ha’ and ‘Really?’ or About the Serious in the Humorous in the TV comedy show "Masters of the AIR"
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22364/BJELLC.06.2016.03Keywords:
humour and entertainment, humour and satire, humour in spontaneous errorsAbstract
In the paper a discourse analytic approach is used to analyze the humour in a Bulgarian TV show in its cognitive and social context. In the show, fragments from TV news programmes are incongruously recontextualized to expose, criticize and mock the follies of the powerful. Humour is also used for placing under scrutiny injustice, voicing a public opinion or expressing citizens’ standpoint on important political and social issues. The communicative goal of the show in relation to viewers is not to believe politicians, public figures and TV news presenters blindly, but to critically scrutinize the news and form their own opinion. The humour in the show goes beyond entertainment: it laughs with the viewers at the powerful.
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