This book advances a model for the analysis of contemporary satirical humour. Combining a range of theoretical frameworks in stylistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, Simpson examines both the methods of textual composition and the strategies of interpretation for satire. Verbal irony is central to the model, in respect of which Simpson isolates three principal “ironic phases” that shape the uptake of satirical humour. Throughout the book, consistent emphasis is placed on satire’s status as a culturally situated discursive practice, while the categories of the model proposed are amply illustrated with textual examples. A notable feature of the book is a chapter on the legal implications of using satirical humour as a weapon of attack in the public domain.
A book where Jonathan Swift meets Private Eye magazine, this entertaining and thought-provoking study will interest those working in stylistics, humorology, pragmatics and discourse analysis. It also has relevance for forensic discourse analysis, and for media, literary and cultural studies.
“I find the book to be a significant contribution to the study of British 20th century satire. It is full of interesting insights on the satirical works of Private Eye magazine and other uniquely British characters and events. The chapter on the legal repercussions of satire is a must-read.”
Salvatore Attardo, Editor-in-chief, HUMOR. International Journal of Humor Research.
“This excellent book offers new insights on satire based on a thorough overview of the extant work on humor and satire. Moreover, it provides a credible theoretical model of satire based on contemporary theories of pragmatics and discourse analysis. This book belongs in the personal library of linguists and literary critics.”
Frank Nuessel,University of Louisville, in Journal of Literary Semantics Vol. 34:1, 2004
“Simpson's On the Discourse of Satire presents an in depth treatment of satire as a special case not only of humor in general but of humor as discourse specifically. He accomplishes this with the aid of satirical examples throughout the text. This text should prove valuable to the specialist.”
David J. Bennett, North Park University, in Language, 2004
“This is an excellent book. As always, Paul Simpson writes clearly and humorously, using interesting and enlightening examples while at the same time giving the reader new insights and perspectives in an already much studied area. I would recommend anyone who has an interest in satire, be they linguist or literary critic, seasoned academic or beginning student, to read this book they will find it a rewarding experience.”
Malcolm Coulthard, University of Birmingham
Cited by (151)
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Bury, Beata
2025. A multimodal analysis of humour in Internet memes: A case study of the Podlaskie voivodeship’s promotional campaign. Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 142:2 ► pp. 57 ff.
Cothren, Alex
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Godioli, Alberto
2025. Laughing on the edge. The European Journal of Humour Research 13:4 ► pp. 138 ff.
2025. Election Satire: The Evolution of The Daily Show as a Cultural Artifact Reflecting Democratic Processes. Journalism and Media 6:1 ► pp. 18 ff.
Nicolaï, Jonas
2025. Five theses on humor literacy in the public sphere. HUMOR 38:4 ► pp. 495 ff.
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2025. Lire le quatrième voyage de Gulliver’s Travels avec Jean-Jacques Lecercle : « Interpellation » / « contre-interpellation » du genre utopique et déplacement des frontières génériques. Etudes de stylistique anglaise 20
Prakken, Beer
2025. Humorous political rhetoric in the US. The European Journal of Humour Research 13:4 ► pp. 36 ff.
Páez, Daniela
2025. La historieta en la prensa feminista argentina: aportes a la construcción de una genealogía feminista (1924-1987). Impossibilia. Revista Internacional de Estudios Literarios :29
Reger, Rhonda K., Chaoqun Deng, Brandy Mmbaga & Nick Mmbaga
2025. How Memes Affect Constituents’ Social Approval and Intention to Support Firms. Journal of Management
2025. Satire, honey and tears: how The Onion and The Babylon Bee do satire. HUMOR 38:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Sobe, Noah W.
2025. A Modest Proposal to Recuperate a Joysome History of Education. History of Education 54:1 ► pp. 117 ff.
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2025. Dogwhistles, Discrimination, Humour and the Law: Regulating Implicit Messaging. Open Library of Humanities 11:2
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2025. САТИРА ЯК ІНСТРУМЕНТ РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦІЇ КРИЗИ: ПРАГМАТИЧНИЙ АНАЛІЗ БЮДЖЕТНОГО ДИСКУРСУ В ЖУРНАЛІ THE ECONOMIST. Grail of Science :55 ► pp. 582 ff.
Biesok, Andra, Matthias Ziegler, Christiane Montag & Ivan Nenchev
2024. Adding a Piece to the Puzzle? The Allocation of Figurative Language Comprehension into the CHC Model of Cognitive Abilities. Journal of Intelligence 12:3 ► pp. 29 ff.
Doichyk, Oksana, Vita Yurchyshyn & Yuriy Velykoroda
2024. Double Consciousness and Speculative Worlds in Oryx and Crake. In The Language of Margaret Atwood [Palgrave Studies in Language, Literature and Style, ], ► pp. 159 ff.
Kuipers, Giselinde & Dick Zijp
2024. Humour and the public sphere. The European Journal of Humour Research 12:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Tsakona, Villy
2024. Liquid racism in Greek online satirical news. The European Journal of Humour Research 12:1 ► pp. 135 ff.
Zhang, Ruichen & Bo Kang
2024. From Propaganda to Memes: Resignification of Political Discourse Through Memes on the Chinese Internet. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 40:11 ► pp. 3030 ff.
Balakrishnan, Vinod & Vishaka Venkat
2023. A Communicative Framework of Humour. In The Language of Humour and Its Transmutation in Indian Political Cartoons, ► pp. 59 ff.
Chambers, Faye
2023. Unifying the Humour Theories: A Stylistic Approach. In Humour Theory and Stylistic Enquiry, ► pp. 39 ff.
Chiaro, Delia
2023. Linguistic Creativity and Humor in Context. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language in Context, ► pp. 353 ff.
Droog, Ellen & Christian Burgers
2023. Metaphorical Humor in Satirical News Shows: A Content Analysis. Metaphor and Symbol 38:3 ► pp. 275 ff.
Dynel, Marta
2023. Irony and Humor. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 237 ff.
Lichtenstein, Dennis & Cordula Nitsch
2023. Content Analysis in the Research Field of Satire. In Standardisierte Inhaltsanalyse in der Kommunikationswissenschaft – Standardized Content Analysis in Communication Research, ► pp. 277 ff.
Lugea, Jane & Brian Walker
2023. Humour. In Stylistics, ► pp. 227 ff.
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2023. Exposing impropriety and the degeneration of ubuntu through satire in selected isiZulu poems. South African Journal of African Languages 43:2 ► pp. 131 ff.
Mohammed, Wafaa Dahham
2023. A Socio-Pragmatic Study of Satire in English Political Speeches with Reference to Its Arabic Translations. JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE STUDIES 7:4 ► pp. 236 ff.
Oloruntoba-Oju, Taiwo
2023. “Shamuz, Shamuz, Everything Is with Shamuz”—Making Sense of Humour Theory and Stylistic Enquiry: An Overview. In Humour Theory and Stylistic Enquiry, ► pp. 1 ff.
2023. Counter-discourse production in social media: A feminist CDA of a Weibo post. Discourse & Communication 17:3 ► pp. 319 ff.
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2023. Satire in Eighteenth-Century Medical Discourse: Elizabeth Nihell, Tobias Smollett and the Advent of Man-Midwifery. English Studies 104:8 ► pp. 1363 ff.
Adriaensen, Brigitte, Andrew Bricker, Alberto Godioli & Ted Laros
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Kriza, Elisa
2022. “This does not interest the court!”: the 1966 Soviet Satire Trial and its persistent legacy. HUMOR 35:3 ► pp. 415 ff.
Le, Thuy Hien
2022. Umorismo come strumento di critica all’Occidentalizzazione nel romanzo vietnamita Số Đỏ (Vũ Trọng Phụng, Hanoi, 1936). Annali Sezione Orientale 82:1-2 ► pp. 141 ff.
Le, Thuy Hien
2022. Translating humorous literature from Vietnamese into Italian language: an empirical study of humour reception. The European Journal of Humour Research 10:1 ► pp. 199 ff.
Norledge, Jessica
2022. Towards a Poetics of Dystopia. In The Language of Dystopia [Palgrave Studies in Language, Literature and Style, ], ► pp. 1 ff.
2022. Artificially Intelligent Solutions: Detection, Debunking, and Fact-Checking. In Misinformation and Disinformation, ► pp. 207 ff.
Schumann, Christina
2022. When News Topics Annoy—Exploring Issue Fatigue and Subsequent Information Avoidance and Extended Coping Strategies. Journalism and Media 3:3 ► pp. 538 ff.
Brugman, Britta C., Christian Burgers, Camiel J. Beukeboom & Elly A. Konijn
2021. From The Daily Show to Last Week Tonight: A Quantitative Analysis of Discursive Integration in Satirical Television News. Journalism Studies 22:9 ► pp. 1181 ff.
Brugman, Britta C., Christian Burgers, Camiel J. Beukeboom & Elly A. Konijn
2023. Humor in Satirical News Headlines: Analyzing Humor Form and Content, and Their Relations with Audience Engagement. Mass Communication and Society 26:6 ► pp. 963 ff.
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2021. Caveat emptor: boycott through digital humour on the wave of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Information, Communication & Society 24:15 ► pp. 2323 ff.
Gibbs, Raymond W.
2021. “Holy Cow, My Irony Detector Just Exploded!” Calling Out Irony During The Coronavirus Pandemic. Metaphor and Symbol 36:1 ► pp. 45 ff.
Herbers, Martin R. & Dennis Lichtenstein
2021. Scandalous Criticism in the Speakers’ Corner: Online and Offline Reactions to Rezo’s “The Destruction of the CDU” and Jan Böhmermann’s #Neustart19. In Scandology 3, ► pp. 25 ff.
Khan, Muhammad Khalil, Fei Wu, Cornelius B. Pratt & Nadeem Akhtar
2021. Satires, narratives and journalistic divides: Discourses on free speech in Western and Islamic news media. The Social Science Journal 58:4 ► pp. 458 ff.
Lichtenstein, Dennis, Cordula Nitsch & Anna J. M. Wagner
2021. Jokers or Journalists? A Study of Satirists’ Motivations, Role Orientations, and Understanding of Satire. Journalism Studies 22:13 ► pp. 1756 ff.
Lugea, Jane
2021. Linguistic Approaches to Fake News Detection. In Data Science for Fake News [The Information Retrieval Series, 42], ► pp. 287 ff.
Nilsson, Per-Erik
2021. “The new extreme right”. Nordicom Review 42:s1 ► pp. 89 ff.
Ogbodo, Jude Nwakpoke
2021. Mixing “Nonsense with Substance”: Negotiating Satirical and Investigative Journalism Hybrid Genre in Nigeria. African Journalism Studies 42:4 ► pp. 137 ff.
Pașca, Roxana
2021. Insults – between dysphemisms and markers of emotional closeness. Diacronia :13
Pașca, Roxana
2021. Insulta – între disfemism și marcă a proximității afective. Diacronia :13
Philip, Susan
2021. Satire and community in the time of COVID-19: An analysis of Ernest Ng’s Covidball Z. Journal of Postcolonial Writing 57:5 ► pp. 709 ff.
Yurchyshyn, Vita
2021. Types of satire interpretation in British media discourse. Synopsis: Text Context Media 27:2 ► pp. 77 ff.
2019. Charlie Hebdo’s controversial cartoons in question: stances, translational narratives and identity construction from a cross-linguistic perspective. Social Semiotics 29:5 ► pp. 698 ff.
Dupeyron-Lafay, Françoise
2019. The Music and (dis)harmony of (anti)utopia in Samuel Butler’s Erewhon. Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens :89 Spring
P. Young, Michael
2019. Such Schadenfreude – Unpacking The Medley of Caustic Humor and Politics in Veep. AM Journal of Art and Media Studies :20 ► pp. 61 ff.
Pedrazzini, Ana & Nora Scheuer
2019. Modal functioning of rhetorical resources in selected multimodal cartoons. Semiotica 2019:230 ► pp. 275 ff.
Prichard, Caleb & John Rucynski
2019. Second language learners’ ability to detect satirical news and the effect of humor competency training. TESOL Journal 10:1
Raish, Michael
2019. YaskoT 7OKM EL3aSKaR. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 5:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
SKALICKY, STEPHEN
2019. Investigating satirical discourse processing and comprehension: the role of cognitive, demographic, and pragmatic features. Language and Cognition 11:3 ► pp. 499 ff.
Skalicky, Stephen
2022. Modeling Satirical Uptake Using Discourse Processing Methods. Discourse Processes 59:9 ► pp. 702 ff.
Skalicky, Stephen
2023. Verbal Irony Processing,
Skalicky, Stephen
2025.
Free speech as a unifying punchline for
The Onion
and
The Babylon Bee
. Comedy Studies► pp. 1 ff.
Skalicky, Stephen & Scott A. Crossley
2019. Examining the Online Processing of Satirical Newspaper Headlines. Discourse Processes 56:1 ► pp. 61 ff.
Skurka, Chris, Jeff Niederdeppe & Robin Nabi
2019. Kimmel on Climate: Disentangling the Emotional Ingredients of a Satirical Monologue. Science Communication 41:4 ► pp. 394 ff.
Stevens, Elise M. & Karen McIntyre
2019. The Layers of The Onion: The Impact of Satirical News on Affect and Online Sharing Behaviors. Electronic News 13:2 ► pp. 78 ff.
2017. Book Review: Joanna Fowler and Allan Ingram (eds), Voice and Context in Eighteenth-Century Verse: Order in Variety. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 26:3 ► pp. 265 ff.
2016. Using counterfactuals to display facts – the case of satirical humor. ExELL 4:2 ► pp. 116 ff.
Mourão, Rachel, Trevor Diehl & Krishnan Vasudevan
2016. I Love Big Bird. Digital Journalism 4:2 ► pp. 211 ff.
Olubode-Sawe, Funmi
2016. More Than a Joking Matter. In Analyzing Language and Humor in Online Communication [Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies, ], ► pp. 38 ff.
Peifer, Jason T. & R. Lance Holbert
2016. Appreciation of Pro-Attitudinal Versus Counter-Attitudinal Political Humor: A Cognitive Consistency Approach to the Study of Political Entertainment. Communication Quarterly 64:1 ► pp. 16 ff.
2016. Discursive Power Relations in Naijabookofjokes.com. In Analyzing Language and Humor in Online Communication [Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies, ], ► pp. 177 ff.
Boukes, Mark, Hajo G. Boomgaarden, Marjolein Moorman & Claes H. de Vreese
2015. At Odds: Laughing and Thinking? The Appreciation, Processing, and Persuasiveness of Political Satire. Journal of Communication 65:5 ► pp. 721 ff.
2015. Satire, racist humour and the power of (un)laughter: On the restrained nature of Swedish online racist discourse targeting EU-migrants begging for money. Discourse & Society 26:6 ► pp. 733 ff.
Mayer, James Mark
2015. Revisiting the Relationship between Need for Cognition and Humor: Evidence from Multiple Manifestations of the Humorous Experience. SSRN Electronic Journal
LaMarre, Heather L., Kristen D. Landreville, Dannagal Young & Nathan Gilkerson
2014. Humor Works in Funny Ways: Examining Satirical Tone as a Key Determinant in Political Humor Message Processing. Mass Communication and Society 17:3 ► pp. 400 ff.
Mohammed, Shaheed Nick
2014. “It-Getting” in the Colbert Nation Online Forum. Mass Communication and Society 17:2 ► pp. 173 ff.
Mondal, Anshuman A.
2014. Satire, Incitement and Self-Restraint: Reflections on Freedom of Expression and Aesthetic Responsibility in Contemporary Britain. In Islam and Controversy, ► pp. 185 ff.
Mondal, Anshuman A.
2018. Taking Liberties? Free Speech, Multiculturalism and the Ethics of Satire. In Comedy and the Politics of Representation, ► pp. 25 ff.
Simpson, Paul
2014. Just what is narrative urgency?. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 23:1 ► pp. 3 ff.
Sorlin, Sandrine
2014. Ideological crossings: ‘you’ and the pragmatics of negation in Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place. Etudes de stylistique anglaise :7 ► pp. 11 ff.
2013. Comedy, the Civic Subject, and Generic Mediation. Television & New Media 14:1 ► pp. 31 ff.
Malpass, Matt
2013. Between Wit and Reason: Defining Associative, Speculative, and Critical Design in Practice. Design and Culture 5:3 ► pp. 333 ff.
Nilsson, Johan
2013. Introduction. In American Film Satire in the 1990s, ► pp. 1 ff.
Nilsson, Johan
2013. American Film Satire. In American Film Satire in the 1990s, ► pp. 107 ff.
Nilsson, Johan
2013. Satire and the Media. In American Film Satire in the 1990s, ► pp. 61 ff.
Phiddian, Robert
2013. Satire and the limits of literary theories. Critical Quarterly 55:3 ► pp. 44 ff.
Phiddian, Robert
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Sidoruk, Elżbieta
2013. "Recycling" Tadeusza Różewicza jako poemat satyryczny. Czytanie Literatury. Łódzkie Studia Literaturoznawcze :2 ► pp. 134 ff.
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Becker, Amy B.
2012. Comedy Types and Political Campaigns: The Differential Influence of Other-Directed Hostile Humor and Self-Ridicule on Candidate Evaluations. Mass Communication and Society 15:6 ► pp. 791 ff.
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2012. Introduction: The Simpsons, Satire, and American Culture. In The Simpsons, Satire, and American Culture, ► pp. 1 ff.
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2012. Conclusion: American Culture, Satire, and The Simpsons. In The Simpsons, Satire, and American Culture, ► pp. 201 ff.
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2012. The year’s work in stylistics 2011. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 21:4 ► pp. 402 ff.
Stewart, Miranda
2012. A cross-cultural approach to the negotiation of individual and group identities: parliamentary debates and editorial meetings. Language and Intercultural Communication 12:4 ► pp. 302 ff.
Forman, Ross
2011. Humorous Language Play in a Thai EFL Classroom. Applied Linguistics 32:5 ► pp. 541 ff.
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 february 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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