2023/12/28 by Zoe Walker · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Humor Studies and Applications #Language, Metaphor, and Cognition #Rhetoric and Communication Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/pq/pqad121
openalex publication_date 2023/12/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/19
Abstract In this paper, I discuss two roles for the concept of joking in political speech. First, I discuss how claiming to have been joking can provide speakers with a powerful form of deniability. I argue that the aesthetic dimension of jokes makes such a denial especially well placed to undermine both a hearer's evidence for an utterance having been sincere, and, separately, their belief that it was sincere—I call the latter ‘aesthetic gaslighting’. Second, I discuss the use of jokes to influence hearers’ thinking and behaviour under the radar. I show that not only does the fact that an utterance was a joke fail to prevent it from influencing hearers, but in some cases, the fact that it was a joke actually makes it more influential than a sincere utterance would have been.