Cognitive processes and multimodal communication in the parody of politicians

To single out the cognitive processes implied in the production of a parody, viewed as a distorted imitation of a text or behavior aimed at eliciting laughter and mocking someone, a corpus of parodies of politicians has been collected and multimodal communication analyzed through a devoted annotation scheme. Analysis allows to distinguish between surface and deep parodies, to single out the steps required for making a deep parody when the bare imitation of the Target is not enough for the Parodist’s satiric goals, and to see the intertwining of various modalities in conveying the crucial information of a parody: identification and characterization of a Target and of its flaws through allusion to some event.