Abstract

Political humor has always been a powerful tool to convey messages of resistance, criticism, sarcasm, etc. The growth of digital tools and social networking sites has provided a new platform for the creation and sharing of political humor. This study explores the functions of political humor employed by Egyptian users of Facebook (FB) in reaction to a number of political events and difficult circumstances through investigating the pragmatic functions of a number of humorous posts published on two satirical public FB pages /portō ṭora min ʔajlika ʔant/ and /sōbar faʃxa/. Fifty-nine posts have been selected for analysis. The selected posts focused on two main themes: The Egyptian presidential elections in 2018, and price inflation, the latter including the subcategories of metro tickets, fuel, vegetables, clothes and others. Results of the study revealed that posts during the elections performed assertion of the lack of real democracy, as well as protest against the bad electoral process. On the other hand, posts addressing price increases performed complaint about the impact on citizens’ life. Furthermore, the pragmatic functions detected in this study show that humor functions as a tool to vent frustration, and to express resistance indirectly in the absence of more direct tools to implement change and express resistance, and in an environment where both the lack of democracy and fear of suppression dominate

Department

Applied Linguistics Department

Degree Name

MA in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language

Graduation Date

2-1-2019

Submission Date

January 2019

First Advisor

Kamel, Mona

Committee Member 1

El Essawi, Raghda

Committee Member 2

Abdou, Ashraf

Extent

103 p.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Not necessary for this item

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