Analyzing Political Satire in the Dawn Newspaper through the Lens of Relevance Theory from December 2024 to February 2025

Abstract

This study investigates how does Dawn Newspaper ensure the use of political satire in the form of humor and irony through the lens of Relevance Theory. This research explores the satirical element used in the Dawn newspaper from December 2024 to February 2025. The study uses the Relevance Theory as a theoretical framework to understand how writers communicate and convey complex and critical messages through irony, humor, exaggeration and indirect language. Instead of saying things directly, the newspaper uses the techniques of embedding the deeper massage in an implicit utterances; it relies on reader’s ability to understand the context and read between the lines. By applying Relevance Theory like the role of implicature and shared knowledge, this shows how satire creates political critique, often in ways to avoid censorship. The analysis explores that how Dawn’s content especially headlines, articles and cartoons uses the satire to implicitly and indirectly intends readers to think deeply and critically about political situation in Pakistan. Overall, the study goes deeper into the insights of how context, language and readers interpretation work together in political satire critically in Pakistan’s media, and journalism.

Keywords: Relevance Theory, political satire, irony, hyperbole, humor