الفهرس 
Chapter oneOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Humor and satire play an important role in human interaction, especially when people began to
watch new types of T.V Programs. Humor is an umbrella term that covers all categories and genre of
the funny. Satire is a literary genre in which comedic forms, as well as ridicule and exaggeration, are
used to focus on human weakness and societal problems. Satirical comedy T.V shows are programs
that poke fun at social institutions or social policy. This type of programs tackles social and political
issues and faults in government or society, and presents them for criticism. The present study
represents a linguistic analysis of the Egyptian TV show and contrasts it with its American TV show
version in order to determine the linguistic nature of understanding in both programs for native or
non-native viewers. It additionally investigates the differences and similarities between both shows,
with emphasis on the pragmatic devices such as deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts and
politeness that are utilized to convey the intended meaning. It analyzes the verbal humor through
incongruity, i.e. disagreeing, being unsuitable and inappropriate from pragmatic perspective so as to
appreciate the language style of this kind of TV show. Moreover, the present study discusses the
relation between pragmatics and humor that both stand on the concept of implicitness through flouting
Grice’s maxims. It aims to recognize the pragmatic nature of humor and its explanation according to
observing or flouting Grice’s cooperative principle. The research method is a descriptive qualitative
method since it utilizes data that reflects phenomena that frequently occurs in both Egyptian and
American community, particularly in the satirical comic programs. The database of the present study
consists of excerpts taken from selected two episodes from each TV. Show American SNL’S season
forty-second, besides the Egyptian SNL’S season one, focusing on the weekend update sketch and the
sketch of major news. The Arabic version was translated into English. These episodes were selected
as representative samples to apply the pragmatic study, along with the framework of incongruity
theory. The Arabic language reflects a high-context culture, in which what is not said is sometimes
more important than what is said. On the other hand, Americans prefer communicating straight and
stating explicitly what has to be said. English language reflects a low- context culture in which words
represent truth. The Arab culture exhibits an indirect, symbolic, ambiguous and implicit style; While
American culture shows a preference for direct, accurate, clear and explicit communication. However,
it sometimes depends on indirectness and implicitness to draw the attention or attract the listener for
its speech. Both resort to a metaphoric way to convey its implicitness to their audiencs.