Linguapragmatic Means of Satirical Methods Realisation in British Media Discourse

Abstract

The article investigates linguopragmatic means of satirical methods realisation in British media discourse. The material for the research includes texts from British satirical magazine Private Eye (2019-2020). The aim of the survey is to establish linguopragmatic means of realisation of satirical methods in British media discourse within the framework of discursive approach to satire. To achieve the aim, we turned to the method of discourse analysis and functional pragmatic analysis. In terms of discursive approach to satire suggested by P. Simpson this article singles out two categories of satirical methods – metaphoric satirical method and metonymic satirical method. The study argues that metaphoric satirical method is realized with the help of intertextuality which presupposes overlapping of different domains. The article establishes that metaphoric satirical method is realized through the following intertextual figures: transformed quotation, allusion, calque, pastiche and precedent-related phenomena. The metonymic satirical method embraces stylistic techniques of saturation, attenuation and negation. The research claims that saturation is accomplished by means of repetitions, stylistic inconsistencies, abundance of academic style and terms, jargons, slang expressions and even vulgarisms. Linguistic means of attenuation include undercoding, euphemisms, litotes and paraphrasing. Means of negation embrace indefinite pronouns, the negative particle “not”, the adverb “never” and the lexemes which imply negation. Further research in this direction could be done in the investigation of correlation between satirical targets and prototypical linguopragmatic means of satirical methods realization in British media discourse.