Understanding Satirical Texts in Kenya’s Television: A Pragmatic Study of Selected Episodes of Bull’s Eye on Kenya’s Television station ntv.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the character, form and structure of satirical texts in Kenya’s T.V programme Bull’s Eye. Data from the study was drawn from 2012 episodes of the programme. The main data for the study comprised 3 episodes of Bull’s Eye purposively selected from 2012 video clips. The selection of the episodes was guided by the length and characteristics of the video clips. Analysis of the data is based on Schmitt’s (2010) Theory of Pragmatics that analyses how the form and structure of a text constitutes to varied readings. The results showed that the programme has distinct characteristics such as irony, ridicule, humour, exaggeration and a distinct structure; narration, variation of the journalist’s voice (inflection) and inter-texted images. The study revealed that these characteristics and structure of the satirical texts resulted in different readings among from their original contexts.

Keywords: Theory of Pragmatics, Structure, satirical texts, characteristics, inter-texted images.