On politicians in big women’s sunglasses driving buses with their feet in mouths: Late-night political humour and conceptual integration theory

Abstract: The paper focuses on political jokes from late-night shows, which contain modified idiomatic expressions. The aim of the present paper is to show that conceptual integration theory, proposed by Fauconnier and Turner (1998, 2002), can explain the construction of meaning in political jokes on these types of shows. In conceptual integration, the meaning of a joke involves the construction of a blended space in which two worlds, usually opposing, ‘clash’, which results in an incongruity. The incongruity in the blended space produces humorous effects. Apart from the fact that conceptual integration theory can explain the creation of humor and its meaning, it can also reveal why humor is an effective means of criticizing political reality.