Humorous Genres and Modes in Greek Political Discourse

In the context of Greek political discourse, and various discourses about Greek politics, the present study investigates aspects of humor as well as humorous genres commenting on contemporary political affairs. Based on an overview of research on humor in Greek culture and specifically in Greek politics as a strategy of im/politenessIm/politeness, the aim of this paper is to discuss representative examples of humorous texts, namely politicalSatire satirePolitical satire, as well as texts pertaining to the sphere of serious discourse, namely parliamentary speeches and media talk that interact with the humorous mode in various ways. The research questions posed concern political humorPolitical humor in the context of Greek cultural trends that favor high degrees of confrontational and combative encountersConfrontational encounters in private and public/institutional communication. The methodological approach is interactional, seeing texts as locally negotiated communicative acts. It is also critical; effort is made to trace the overall trends in the texts under examination i.e., the macro level of cultural preferences in contemporaryGreece Greece.