“I did not actually hear George Washington say that”

The topic of US presidential humour has been investigated in the past, specifically as it was used in presidential debates, press conferences, and at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. However, no such investigation has been dedicated to the study of the use of humour in the State of the Union Address. The current research used the four roles of humour in communication: differentiation, clarification, identification, and enforcement to assess the use of humour in such addresses, and the research also used the four styles of humour: affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating to determine how those styles were used. The research found that most Presidents used humour frequently and they did so, for the most part, for the purpose of enforcement of their policy proposals. The study also found that as it comes to the style of humour that was used by Presidents, in most occasions they used either the aggressive or affiliative styles of humour. There were also differences that were found in how each President used humorous remarks in their address.