Although not typically classified as a humor strategy, impoliteness has proven to be entertaining in many cases, starting from showing solidarity in different situations, to relieving negative emotions in a humorous manner. The link between impoliteness and entertainment had been uncovered by Culpeper (1996; 2003; 2005; 2010; 2011), among others, but little research was done to investigate entertaining impoliteness in the Egyptian culture. Hence, this study attempted to describe the nature of entertaining impoliteness in the Egyptian as opposed to the American cultures, identify its types and explain how the viewers react to impoliteness to provide a better understanding of cultural disparities and the extent to which Egyptian and American viewers differ in performing and reacting to entertaining impoliteness. To achieve this, the current research study examined the quantity and quality of entertaining impoliteness triggers employed in the original, American version of the variety TV show Saturday Night Live and compared it to its Egyptian counterpart SNL بالعربي [SNL bil {u2018}arabi] (SNL in Arabic) as examples of satire TV shows in light of Culpeper{u2019}s conventionalized and non-conventionalized impoliteness (2011) and Spencer-Oatey{u2019}s rapport management (2002). The study concluded that in both versions of the show, form-driven implicational impoliteness was the most frequent impoliteness trigger, followed by pointed criticism and complaints.The study also found that the recurrence of instances iv of impoliteness goes hand in hand with the amount of laughter it generates. However; the amount of laughter sparked by entertaining impoliteness in the Egyptian version is much less than that in the American SNL

Thesis (M.A.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Arts - Department of English

Issued also as CD