Linguistic humour in Polish media: a study into wordplay mechanisms in TV news headlines

The present paper is a data-driven study targeted at investigating the peculiarities of wordplay found in the headlines in a popular TV news program, Fakty, screened live on a daily basis at 7 p.m. on TVN, one of Polish commercial broadcasters. The principal reason for bringing this linguistic phenomenon into focus is not only its liberal use in the program, the headlines being larded with plays on words, but also its rich diversity. For the purposes of the present study wordplay has been defined broadly as a blanket term covering phenomena as discrete as genuine puns, typographical play, portmanteau words, oxymoronic play and other forms of verbal acrobatics. As such, it is here considered roughly synonymous with what is elsewhere labelled verbal play, verbal/linguistic humour or play on words/language. The entire body of data culled from the above-mentioned news programme is comprised of c. 150 examples of miscellaneous playful forms. Primarily, the study seeks to categorize them into separate groups, depending on the type of linguistic mechanisms they rest on. On top of that, some remarks are passed on wordplay quantity-quality relationship in the examined corpus as well as on its function in TV news headlines in general.