ABSTRACT
Since ancient times, philosophers have attempted to conceptualising the ethical controversies of humour. The discovery of excessiveness, depravity, vulgarity, and even sinfulness of humour and laughter led to the idea of “restraining” and “controlling” it. Scholars discussed normative boundaries that were viewed as beneficial, on one hand, and unacceptable and immoral laughter, on the other hand. Based on these criteria, ethical evaluations of humour were expressed in verbal form. In modern media communication, humour is used not only as a means of evaluating the world according to norms and values, but it also becomes the object of evaluation itself. The chapter establishes an approach to the linguistic study of deontic discourses in media communication.
