Laughing at revolutionary times: the socio-linguistic and pragmatic functions of Jordanian political humour after the Arab Spring

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the socio-linguistic and pragmatic functions of Jordanian political humour after the Arab Spring revolutions from the perspective of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of carnival and the carnivalesque (folk humour). The analysis undertaken here of Jordanian political humour reveals a peculiar use of carnivalesque political humour via the use of humour as a socio-linguistic and pragmatic device that allows the ridicule of the government but not of the monarch. This occurs through the use of (1) conversational implicature, (2) rhetorical question, (3) malapropism, (4) taboo language and (5) reference and inference. This humour appears to be a form of ‘licensed disruption,’ an idea that is used extensively by some scholars of Bakhtin to talk about the popular politics of resistance and its limits and targets – what can and cannot be said within legal frameworks and societal expectations. Such humour, I found, has constantly called for reform of the government but not for regime change or revolution and has led to significant socio-political changes in Jordanian society, through which people are more willing to criticise and mock the government in social media platforms, such as Facebook.

KEYWORDS:

• Political humour
• Jordan
• Arab Spring
• sociolinguistics
• pragmatics

Acknowledgements

The author of this article would like to extend his deepest thanks and gratitude to the four Jordanian humourists who gave him permission to reuse their art works for research purposes. I also would like to thank Natalya Vince, Graham Spencer, Maggie Bower, Imene Medfouni, Mohammed Farghal and Jona Fras for their comments on the earlier drafts of this article. Special thanks go to Sarah Irving and the two anonymous reviewers from Contemporary Levant for their insightful feedback and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yousef Barahmeh

Yousef Barahmeh is assistant professor of English language and linguistics at Isra University, Amman, Jordan. He received his PhD in 2020 from the University of Portsmouth, UK, on the politics of Jordanian humor after the Arab Spring.