Techniques of Image Construction in Texts of Cabaret Performance

The article analyses selected techniques of image construction in texts of cabaret performances. It is assumed that cabaret discourse is an interaction arrangement in which the standard objective of communicative behaviour of cabaret artists is to amuse the audience and the standard objective of the audience is to be entertained. Since the creators of cabaret performance make use of other discourses, the authors attempt to answer the following research question: What means of operating on discourse(s) lead to the accomplishment of the interactional goal? The cabaret sketch Teachers by a popular Polish cabaret group Nowaki constitutes the empirical material. The methodology of the research is based primarily on the communicative grammar model. The analysis shows that cabaret discourse uses image construction techniques that create non-standard points of access to scripts, scenarios or stereotypes, which are based on their violation or negative reinforcement, and which use a varied repertoire of linguistic devices such as metaphor, intertextuality, polysemy, operations on the phonological level and reference to hyperdiscourse