Background of the Analysis

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Analysis

Language plays an important role in human lives. Language is a tool for communication. It means language is used to deliver messages from one to others or from the writer to the reader; human beings interact to convey information to one another. In addition, people can put forward their ideas, either spoken or in written. Language is considered to be a product of social contact. Lado 1962:2 says, “Language is primarily an instrument of communication among human beings in a community.” Sapir 1921:17 says, “Language is purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.” Human beings put a large part of their lives appealing in conversation. In conversation, language has important role in bringing message from one self to others. In daily conversation consciously or unconsciously people in expressing intentions and ideas to their partner do not always say what they mean in explicit. What they mean sometimes larger than what they say. For example if I say, “It’s hot in here” what I mean is someone to open the window. The problem is most people sometimes do not understand this in their daily conversation with their partner. The writer would like to link this analysis to pragmatics because pragmatic is used to analyze humor because according to Yule 1996: 4; by pragmatic’s analysis one can talk about people’s intended meanings, their assumptions, their purposes, and the kinds of actions such as requests and apologizes when they speak, so by dealing with pragmatics the writer would find the meanings as communicated by some utterances in humor, in this case the written humor. Leech 1983:1 says, “… We cannot really understand the nature of language itself unless we understand pragmatics: how language is used in communication.” Peccei 1999:2 says, “… Pragmatics concentrates on those aspects of meaning that cannot be predicted by linguistic knowledge alone and takes into account knowledge about the physical and social world.” Yule 1996:3 says, “Pragmatics is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker or writer and interpreted by a listener or reader. It has, accordingly, more to do with the analysis of what the participants mean by their utterances than what the words or phrases in those utterances might mean by themselves.” Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics developed in the late 1970s. Pragmatics studies how people comprehend and produce a communicative act or speech act in a concrete speech situation which is usually a conversation. Yule 1996:3-4 shows areas which pragmatics is concerned with. First, pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning. It involves the interpretation of what people mean in a particular context and how the context influences what is said. It needs concern of how speaker arrange what they want to say in line with whom they are talking to, where, when, and under what situation. Second, pragmatics is a study of contextual meaning. It explores how listener can make implication about what is said in order to arrive at interpretation of speaker’s intended meaning. Then, pragmatics is the study of how more get communicated than is said. It means that what decides the choice between the said and the unsaid is the closeness between speaker or writer and the listener or reader, whether physical, social, or conceptual. Pragmatics can be concluded as a study that deals with the meaning which is bound with context. One of principle subjects of pragmatics that deals with how utterance may be interpreted differently by the listener or reader is implicature. The hidden meaning is somebody’s uttering may be interpreted differently by the hearers. It depends on the implicit knowledge belonged by hearers, the relationship between the speaker and the hearers, and the context or situation when the utterance occurred. The hidden meaning can be analyzed by using the theory of implicature in pragmatic. In daily conversation people in expressing intentions and ideas to their partner are sometimes put humor in it, to reduce the tensions that exist around them. Ross 1998: 1 says, “One definition of humour is: something that makes a person laugh or smile.” Humor as a condition or sign that can cause laugh is a common part in everyday life. Humor can be found everywhere, and it does not regard any social class, educational background and level of human intelligence. Humor exists in all class of society, in villages or cities. Humor is conducted by individuals or groups to utter their feelings of distress and aims to reduce the tensions that exist around them. Magazine is a periodical publication containing a variety of articles in various subjects. Magazine usually published weekly or monthly. Magazines usually have articles on popular topics, addressed to the general public and written in a style that is easily understood by many people. This analysis examines about humor that is connected to speech act in Reader’s Digest. Reader’s Digest is a monthly magazine co-founded in 1922 by Lila Bell Wallace and DeWitt Wallace , and based in Chappaqua, New York , United States . The reason why Reader’s Digest was chosen, especially in the humor line, is because the data for this analysis are taken from this magazine and the humor line in Reader’s Digest is consists of many jokes, more or less seven jokes in every edition. Humor can be created from misinterpretation that happens in the conversation between the speaker and the hearer. Misinterpretation can be funny because when the speaker utters something to the hearer, the hearer can not catch what actually the speaker means, but the hearer feels that he or she understands it and replies it with the answer which is unrelated to the speech. Thus, the humor occurs by the time the answer is spoken. Generally, humor is shown up from the misinterpretation that happens between the speaker and the hearer. Both of them have different interpretation of each speech. This is one example of speech act in humor; the humor is taken from Reader’s Digest September 2008: It’s really humid in the woods, so the two hiking buddies remove their shirts and shoes. But when they spot a sign saying “Beware of bears”, one of them stops to put his shoes back on. “What’s the point?” the other says. “You can’t outrun a bear.” “Actually,” says his friend, “all I have to do is outrun you.” The context of conversation above is between the two hiking buddies in the woods. The two hiking buddies remove their shirts and shoes, but when they spot a sign saying “Beware of bears” one of them stops to put his shoes back on. The humorous part is interpreted on the meaning of the sentence all I have to do is outrun you. It can be seen from this dialog; “What’s the point?” the other says. “You can’t outrun a bear.” “Actually,” says his friend, “all I have to do is outrun you.” The sense of humor rises because the different perceptions about the spot “beware of bears”. Actually, both of the two hiking buddies realize that the spot is kind of warning, so they must be careful. The boy’s perception is he should run well than his hiking partner; it means that if the bear is chasing them, maybe his partner will be caught first, not him, because he runs well than his hiking partner he can save himself. Whereas, his hiking partner’s perception is the boy cannot outrun a bear. Pragmatic deals with interpretation of speaker and contextual meaning , so through pragmatic analysis; the speakers suppose the hearer to recognize the meaning of the sentence they speak to act accordingly. There are misinterpretations in the conversation between the speaker and the hearer that caused humor and the misinterpretations that happen in conversation are often caused by different interpretation.

1.2 Problems of the Analysis