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b. Pragmatic of Humor
The pragmatic constituent of humor in this research is constructed when there is a violation of Grice’s cooperative maxims. Humor can be seen as
conversational implicature Hassan, 2013. Conversational implicature is a type of pragmatic inference in which the meaning is conveyed through non-conventional
means Grice, 1975. Humor in linguistic level has three levels, derived from linguistic devices: vocalization, lexis, syntax. Those devices are important to
construct humor. The linguistic levels of humor are phonetic levels, lexical level, discourse level He, 2008. This research has a tendency for humor at discourse
level since it focuses on humor which resulted from rule-breaking, explicit or implicit meaning conveyed through the speakers’ utterances in conversation. As
Dolitsky 1992 said humor is based on the bending and breaking of rules. Thus, it is necessary to understand some basic underlying theories of conversation.
2. Conversation Theory
According to Brown and Yule 1983 there are two main forms of conversation which are transactional and interactional. However the discussion in
this research zooms in the theory of interactional conversation to meet the research finding as founded in the subject data. Interactional conversation, according to
Brown and Yule 1983, refers to a form of spoken language used to allow people
to interact with each other – which features a phatic use of language whose purpose
is to establish an atmosphere and allow people to socialize.
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a. Basic Structure of Conversation
In a conversation, there is always local management organization operating within every conversation. Sequence and structure within conversation can be
summarized below. 1
Opening Conversations Opening takes place in the first slice of conversation which most common
example of opening usually chances in telephone conversation. For example, first expression to utter is a summons i.e. call by name, the second is an answer to the
summons in return. The pair establishes an opening channel for talk.
1 Child: Mommy
summons Mom: Yes, dear.
answer Child: Can I have chocolate?
reason for summons
In the telephone conversations, the ringing of the telephone acts as the summons. Additional potential problems are identification or recognition.
2 A: call B
summons B: Hello
answer + display for recognition A: Hi
greeting 1 claim that A has recognized B + claim that B can recognize A
B: Oh hi greeting 2 + claim that B has recognized A
2 Closing Conversations
Closing conversation can be done by saying, ‘ok, bye, anyway, or other parting phrase like see you, bye.’
3
Turn Taking
Turn taking is a basic finding which characterizes conversation at where one participant, A, talks, stops; another, B, starts, talks, stops; and it will be obtained A-
B-A-B-A-B distribution talk across two participants Levinson, 1983, p. 296. Every time the participant has the right to speak, they are called as having the floor
18 and can attempt to get the floor. Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974, proposed
basic rules about turn-taking, includes: 1
If current speaker selects next speaker, he’s obliged to take the next turn 2
Otherwise, any speaker may self-select the next turn 3
Otherwise, the current speaker may continue In having the conversation, there are two possible phenomena which
sometimes the participants try to speak at the same time, which is called overlap Yule, 1996, p. 72. As the reverse of overlap, sometimes there is an absence of
vocalization between the participants which is called as silence or gaps Cutting, 2002. Silence is an absence of vocalization between the participants. It is a
lengthened transition space results in a silence in the talk. If any speaker actually turns over the floor to another and the other does not speak, which produce a silence,
intending to carry meaning, the silence is called as an attributable silence Cutting, 2002, p. 29. When a silence occurs at the end of a completed action in the talk,
such as after the answer to a question, the silence is not attributable to any particular speaker. Some others may interpret it as ignorance. Silence is sometimes interpreted
as distance, or the absence of familiarity.
3 A: Is this seat taken?
2 seconds A: Excuse me, is this seat taken?
B: Oh, no. Grab her bag You may sit here.
For many younger speakers, overlapping the utterances appears to function like an expression of solidarity or closeness or excitement in expressing similar
opinions. Also, overlap can communicate competition.
4 Joe: When they were in power las -- wait CAN I FINISH?
Jerry: that’s my point I said –
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