What is it about?
The article is a linguistic analysis of ridiculing in the French presidential debate of 2022, interpreted in the key of language as dialogue, proposing a prototype of the ridiculing act within a dialogic sequence of action and reaction and four heterogeneous expressions of ridiculing, as manifestations of “the complex whole”. The selected sequences illustrate ridiculing as a macro speech act of negative humour, formulated most popularly through irony and sarcasm. As variations of the mentioned prototype, ridiculing expressions initiated within the uninterrupted speech sections of the debate were noted to be reactions to evoked propositions made by the opponent on previous occasions, containing embedded reactive lines, turning the ridiculing act into a remote reaction to actions initiated outside the dialogue, and several particularised types of reactive acts.