The Analysis of Couple Jokes Using The Non-Observance of The Gricean Maxims in 'www.getfrank.com'.
ABSTRACT
Skripsi ini membahas pelanggaran bidal yang ditemukan di dalam situs
Getfrank, yang merupakan situs majalah pria.
Pelanggaran – pelanggaran bidal tersebut akan dikaji menggunakan teori
pelanggaran bidal yang dicetuskan oleh H.P. Grice. Teori pelanggaran bidal
terdiri dari beberapa jenis, di antaranya, flouting the maxim, yang lebih jauh lagi
dibagi menjadi: flouts maxim of quality, flouts maxim of quantity, flouts maxim of
relation, dan flouts maxim of manner dan, diikuti violating a maxim, infringing a
maxim, opting out a maxim, dan suspending a maxim.
Untuk mempertegas analisis humor ini, saya menggunakan juga theory of
incongruity dari Victor Raskin. Teori Raskin sendiri umumnya berbicara
mengenai bagaimana perpindahan konteks cerita, atau dalam hal ini disebut script,
dapat menyebabkan efek humor yang memicu tawa.
Salah satu temuan dari analisis saya adalah bahwa dari sejumlah data yang
ditemukan, flouting maxim of quantity merupakan pemicu efek humor yang paling
sering muncul, diikuti dengan flouting maxim of relation pemicu nomor dua.
ii
Maranatha Christian University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENT .......................................................................................... i
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................ ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study .......................................................................
Statement of the Problem ......................................................................
Purpose of the Study ..............................................................................
Method of Research ...............................................................................
Organization of the Thesis.....................................................................
1
4
4
5
5
CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK..................................... 6
CHAPTER THREE: THE EMERGENCE OF HUMOUR DUE TO
THE NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE GRICEAN MAXIMS
IN WWW.GETFRANK.COM ......................................................................... 12
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION .................................................................... 41
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 47
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................ 49
i
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
As human beings, it is undeniable that we need to communicate with each
other. Aristotle says that man is by nature a social animal. Humans always need to
talk to other human beings, like friends or parents, or sometimes we even talk to
themselves. When we talk to other people, we are involved in a conversation
process. Conversation is an ‘oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinion,
or ideas’ (“Conversation,” def. 2). In this process, we say things: it could be news
about our cousin’s wedding, our new shoes, our problem and its solution, or
maybe we just want to say ‘Hi’.
One more thing that we cannot exclude when we have a conversation is joke.
According to Dictionary.com, a joke is something spoken, written, or done
1
Maranatha Christian University
with a humorous intention. The key word here is humorous. Furthermore,
humorous means ‘causing laughter and amusement’ (“Humorous,” def. 1). Thus, a
joke is something which makes us laugh or causes amusement.
This is an example of the joke taken from Richardwiseman.com which is
said to be the joke which received the highest rating than other jokes:
“Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't
seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his
phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead!
What can I do?". The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's
make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the
phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"
Most of us may always deal with this kind of story, which is usually used
to ‘refresh’ a conversation. Some people may use this to give color to a
conversation so it would not be too assertive, for example, as an opening to a
speech.
Some of us may now wonder what the measurement of a joke is.
Therefore, we may ask, when can a joke be funny while others could be very wry?
What makes laughter? What makes a joke a joke? Semantic-Script Theory of
Victor Raskin is one humor theory that attempts to answer these questions aside
from the other two theories of superiority which ‘accentuate the (negative)
attitude of the producer and/or user of humor towards its target’ and theories of
release or relief which focus on ‘the recipient of the humor or more specifically,
on the psychological effects humor allegedly brings about the recipient’
(Krikmann 1, 2).
2
Maranatha Christian University
In the Semantic-Script Theory of Humor, or, as it is sometimes called,
theory of incongruity, it is assumed that a joke contains two different scripts and it
becomes funny when there is a change between these two scripts. One of the ways
these scripts can change is when someone does not observe the set of rules of
conversation, which we know as the Gricean maxims.
The non-observance of the principles includes adding more or less
information when speaking, saying something that is believed to be false or untrue,
saying something that is unrelated to what is required, and also saying something
in an obscure way or not in a brief way, etcetera.
When we talk with other people, we sometimes do not say what we intend
directly because we want to be polite or to reduce harshness. Some people violate
the principles also to mislead another person or to hide what they really want to
say. These forms of non-observance is said to trigger the scripts to change from
one script to a different script.
I will use Raskin’s theory as the foundation of my thesis. The topic of my
thesis is The Analysis of Couple Jokes Using the Non-Observance of the Gricean
Maxims in Getfrank website. This topic is chosen to help people who study jokes,
especially myself, to deeper understanding of Raskin’s theory of incongruity and
also to help sharpen the sensitivity of linguistic phenomenon that happens around
us. Furthermore, since this topic deals with the Gricean maxims, people are
expected to comprehend more about what is meant behind an utterance. The
Getfrank Website itself is chosen as the data source because this website provides
3
Maranatha Christian University
a great number of data I need and all of them are compatible with what I want to
discuss.
(702 words)
Statement of the Problem
I will discuss some problems in this thesis:
1. What type of non-observance of Gricean maxims is found in the joke?
2. How does the non-observance of the Gricean maxims lead to the
incongruity process and create the humorous effect?
Purpose of the Study
1. To find out what non-observance of Gricean maxims is found in the text.
2. To explain how the non-observances create incongruity and how they
create a humorous effect.
Method of Research
To complete this thesis, I take the data from Getfrank Website by
finding some jokes related to the topic and make sure that those jokes fit to
my purpose – one joke should contain at least one violation of Grice’s
cooperative principle and it also has to be incongruous. After that, I will try
to find the violation of Grice’s cooperative principles and the implicatures.
The last step is that I analyze the scripts that are in the text, find the words
4
Maranatha Christian University
that are related to the scripts and explain how they shift and create the
incongruity.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is about
Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study,
Method of Research and the last is Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two
is about the basic theory that I will use to analyze all my data which includes
Raskin’s Theory of Semantic-Script Theory of Humor and also Grice’s
cooperative principle. Chapter Three contains my data and my analysis of
those data. The last chapter is the conclusion of the analysis I conduct. This
thesis also contains Table of Contents and Abstract before the first chapter,
and also Bibliography and Appendix after the chapters.
5
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
There are fifteen data I have gathered and analyzed in the Chapter Three.
From those data, it is found that there is one datum which flouts maxim of quality:
Data 1; there are five data which flouts maxim of quantity : Data 2, Data 3, Data
5, Data 7, Data 9; there are three data which flouts maxim of relation : Data 4,
Data 12, Data 13; there are six data which flouts maxim of manner : Data 8, Data
10, Data 11, Data 12, Data 14, and Data 15; there is one data with infringed
maxim: Data 6.
The number of data which flouts maxim of manner is the biggest than the
other data. From the number of the data itself, it can be concluded that the flouting
maxim of manner is the most prominent trigger of the shift of the couple jokes'
script in Getfrank website. This shows that give a long-winded or to provide
information in not brief way is potential to cause laughter. Most of the speakers
who flout this type of maxim are women, like in Data 7, Data 9, Data 11, Data 12,
and Data 16.
41
Maranatha Christian University
In my opinion, this may be related to the ‘fact’ that women are hard to be
understood. Probably, one of the reasons of why they are considered to be hard to
understand is because they mostly talk in a not-brief way. Or, women flouts maxim of
manner the most probably to soften what they are about to say, for example, like in
Data 11, the woman can be said to soften her expression of hatred to her mother inlaw.
The second most prominent non-observance found in the data is the flouting
the maxim of quantity. This shows that adding information is apparently also
potential to create humorous effect.
The third most prominent trigger of the scripts shifts is flouting maxim of
relation. The flouting maxim of relation is just another effective way to make a joke a
joke. This type of non-observance creates such humorous effect from its ‘weirdness’.
The ‘weirdness’ itself refers to disconnection-like connection. If we look at some
jokes which depend on flouting maxim of relation to be the trigger of incongruity, we
will see a disconnection between the speakers in the story. Still, at the same time we
know that, a connection does exist and the speaker is not impaired. This connection
matter is proven to be another way to create humorous effect.
The types of non-observance which exist rarely from the collection are
flouting maxim of quality and infringing the maxim. Compared to the flouting maxim
of manner, quantity and relation, these two types have lower prominence. This might
show that in Getfrank website, funny jokes are mostly those which based on talking
42
Maranatha Christian University
in a long-winded or not brief or ambiguous in responding to someone’s utterance,
adding information or giving unrelated response to what someone is required instead
of lying, in form of sarcasm, or be ambiguous when responding to someone.
Infringing the maxim itself is also the least prominent in this website. It is simply
because there are only a few data which involve drunkenness of someone, children
who still have imperfect linguistics performance, or misunderstanding between a
native speaker of a place and a foreigner. There are only a few jokes which are based
on those things; it may be because those jokes could not always be understood by all
joke readers. Some jokes based on infringing a maxim might also need certain
knowledge. In Data 6, however, infringing a maxim happens because of drunkenness.
Violating a maxim, opting out a maxim and suspending a maxim are the types
which do not exist at all in all data I found. Opting out a maxim and suspending a
maxim are two types of non-observance which I think to be difficult to use as base of
jokes. Opting out a maxim involves code using, which I do not find in the website.
Code using itself, is usually found when people are talking using certain terms to
refer to something to someone so that other people would not know about it. If I can
relate this to Raskin’s theory of scripts, code using simply does not change script. For
example, two people are talking to each other about a friend they hate. When they use
X to address the friend they hate, there will be no change with the scripts in the story.
The story just goes straight, without any surprise like what we find in other data. This
is the same as suspending a maxim. Suspending a maxim could be said not to trigger
scripts change.
43
Maranatha Christian University
Refusal to cooperate with the speaker here is proven to be another ‘No’ for
making a joke.
Another thing I find from the analysis is about the scripts. The scripts’ change
in a joke is said to be the trigger of laughter, and it does. I’d like to say that script
change is like a speed hump which is built to limit the speed of any kind of
transportation which passes through it. Let us imagine ourselves driving a car. We
follow the road smoothly and unconsciously fast. However, as we drive the car faster
and faster, and become less aware, we pass the speed hump and we are surprised
because of it. We finally go back to our awareness and probably say, “I didn’t see it
coming!”
Reading jokes is the same thing. Script change can be also referred to be a
limit. It is a limit for our expectation, or, for our imagination. A story has this
component, which I would address as ‘fence’. When we follow a story, we are
actually made to, as I mention before, drive our car in a road with fence on its left and
right side. When we read a joke, we follow the story, until we reach one point when
every of our expectation of the story fails. This is the sense of incongruity that is
somehow ‘ticklish’ and makes you us want to laugh. The ‘ticklish’ sense here can be
said to be the result of unexpected ‘movement’ of the story. In other words, the main
key to incongruous effect is the fact that there is an unexpected truth; what we read is
not as what we think to be.
Still, I find here that the intensity of how ‘ticklish’ the change of the scripts is,
is different one another. The difference itself is influenced by the background
44
Maranatha Christian University
knowledge of a person. Person A, who rarely reads jokes will have greater chance to
acquire the ‘ticklish’ effect than person B who has already read many jokes before.
Let’s say that person B reads many jokes which are based on the change of the
scripts, a certain mindset is unconsciously created in person B’s mind. The mind of
the person somehow would learn the pattern of the jokes and in the end, it will
decrease the effect of incongruity and furthermore, the ‘ticklish’ effect, since the
unexpected truth has now become expected regardless of the person’s will. It is like
entering a haunted house in a playground. The more often we enter the house, the less
scared we would be for we already know what we will see.
Not only background knowledge of a person, sense of humor is something
that is also important to be the indicator of how ‘ticklish’ a change of scripts would
be. Personally, I think that everybody has different sense of humour. What is funny
for one may be different to what is funny for the other one. One laughs at slapstick
comedy while one may find it boring and choose dark comedy instead. Even without
reading many jokes before, a person could see a joke merely just as a usual story.
Thus, another thing that can be concluded here is that to decide whether a joke is a
joke or not is subjective matter.
Regardless of my findings here, I hope that there will be other research on the
jokes of Getfrank website which may be based on other humour theories. I do also
hope that there will be further research about opting out a maxim and suspending a
45
Maranatha Christian University
maxim – to see if there is really a possibility for these two types of non-observance to
be used as jokes base.
(1390 words )
46
Maranatha Christian University
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Texts
Getfrank: Laughs. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 March 2014.
References
Attardo, Salvatore. Linguistic Theory of Humor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1962.
Print.
“Conversation.” Def. 2a. Webster’s New Explorer Encyclopedic Dictionary. 2006.
Print.
Cook, Guy. Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford: OVP, 2000. Print.
Krikmann, Arvo. Contemporary Linguistic Theories of Humour. Web. 1 March.
2014.
Moeschler, Jacques. Conversational and Conventional Implicatures. University of
Geneva. Web. 1 April. 2014
47
Maranatha Christian University
“Nymphomaniac” Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 2006. Print.
Veale, Tony. Incongruity in Humour: Root Cause or Epiphenomenon. University
College Dublin. Web. 15 May 2014.
Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London
and New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1995. Print.
Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford: OVP, 1996. Print.
48
Maranatha Christian University
Skripsi ini membahas pelanggaran bidal yang ditemukan di dalam situs
Getfrank, yang merupakan situs majalah pria.
Pelanggaran – pelanggaran bidal tersebut akan dikaji menggunakan teori
pelanggaran bidal yang dicetuskan oleh H.P. Grice. Teori pelanggaran bidal
terdiri dari beberapa jenis, di antaranya, flouting the maxim, yang lebih jauh lagi
dibagi menjadi: flouts maxim of quality, flouts maxim of quantity, flouts maxim of
relation, dan flouts maxim of manner dan, diikuti violating a maxim, infringing a
maxim, opting out a maxim, dan suspending a maxim.
Untuk mempertegas analisis humor ini, saya menggunakan juga theory of
incongruity dari Victor Raskin. Teori Raskin sendiri umumnya berbicara
mengenai bagaimana perpindahan konteks cerita, atau dalam hal ini disebut script,
dapat menyebabkan efek humor yang memicu tawa.
Salah satu temuan dari analisis saya adalah bahwa dari sejumlah data yang
ditemukan, flouting maxim of quantity merupakan pemicu efek humor yang paling
sering muncul, diikuti dengan flouting maxim of relation pemicu nomor dua.
ii
Maranatha Christian University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENT .......................................................................................... i
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................ ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study .......................................................................
Statement of the Problem ......................................................................
Purpose of the Study ..............................................................................
Method of Research ...............................................................................
Organization of the Thesis.....................................................................
1
4
4
5
5
CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK..................................... 6
CHAPTER THREE: THE EMERGENCE OF HUMOUR DUE TO
THE NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE GRICEAN MAXIMS
IN WWW.GETFRANK.COM ......................................................................... 12
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION .................................................................... 41
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 47
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................ 49
i
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
As human beings, it is undeniable that we need to communicate with each
other. Aristotle says that man is by nature a social animal. Humans always need to
talk to other human beings, like friends or parents, or sometimes we even talk to
themselves. When we talk to other people, we are involved in a conversation
process. Conversation is an ‘oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinion,
or ideas’ (“Conversation,” def. 2). In this process, we say things: it could be news
about our cousin’s wedding, our new shoes, our problem and its solution, or
maybe we just want to say ‘Hi’.
One more thing that we cannot exclude when we have a conversation is joke.
According to Dictionary.com, a joke is something spoken, written, or done
1
Maranatha Christian University
with a humorous intention. The key word here is humorous. Furthermore,
humorous means ‘causing laughter and amusement’ (“Humorous,” def. 1). Thus, a
joke is something which makes us laugh or causes amusement.
This is an example of the joke taken from Richardwiseman.com which is
said to be the joke which received the highest rating than other jokes:
“Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't
seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his
phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead!
What can I do?". The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's
make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the
phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"
Most of us may always deal with this kind of story, which is usually used
to ‘refresh’ a conversation. Some people may use this to give color to a
conversation so it would not be too assertive, for example, as an opening to a
speech.
Some of us may now wonder what the measurement of a joke is.
Therefore, we may ask, when can a joke be funny while others could be very wry?
What makes laughter? What makes a joke a joke? Semantic-Script Theory of
Victor Raskin is one humor theory that attempts to answer these questions aside
from the other two theories of superiority which ‘accentuate the (negative)
attitude of the producer and/or user of humor towards its target’ and theories of
release or relief which focus on ‘the recipient of the humor or more specifically,
on the psychological effects humor allegedly brings about the recipient’
(Krikmann 1, 2).
2
Maranatha Christian University
In the Semantic-Script Theory of Humor, or, as it is sometimes called,
theory of incongruity, it is assumed that a joke contains two different scripts and it
becomes funny when there is a change between these two scripts. One of the ways
these scripts can change is when someone does not observe the set of rules of
conversation, which we know as the Gricean maxims.
The non-observance of the principles includes adding more or less
information when speaking, saying something that is believed to be false or untrue,
saying something that is unrelated to what is required, and also saying something
in an obscure way or not in a brief way, etcetera.
When we talk with other people, we sometimes do not say what we intend
directly because we want to be polite or to reduce harshness. Some people violate
the principles also to mislead another person or to hide what they really want to
say. These forms of non-observance is said to trigger the scripts to change from
one script to a different script.
I will use Raskin’s theory as the foundation of my thesis. The topic of my
thesis is The Analysis of Couple Jokes Using the Non-Observance of the Gricean
Maxims in Getfrank website. This topic is chosen to help people who study jokes,
especially myself, to deeper understanding of Raskin’s theory of incongruity and
also to help sharpen the sensitivity of linguistic phenomenon that happens around
us. Furthermore, since this topic deals with the Gricean maxims, people are
expected to comprehend more about what is meant behind an utterance. The
Getfrank Website itself is chosen as the data source because this website provides
3
Maranatha Christian University
a great number of data I need and all of them are compatible with what I want to
discuss.
(702 words)
Statement of the Problem
I will discuss some problems in this thesis:
1. What type of non-observance of Gricean maxims is found in the joke?
2. How does the non-observance of the Gricean maxims lead to the
incongruity process and create the humorous effect?
Purpose of the Study
1. To find out what non-observance of Gricean maxims is found in the text.
2. To explain how the non-observances create incongruity and how they
create a humorous effect.
Method of Research
To complete this thesis, I take the data from Getfrank Website by
finding some jokes related to the topic and make sure that those jokes fit to
my purpose – one joke should contain at least one violation of Grice’s
cooperative principle and it also has to be incongruous. After that, I will try
to find the violation of Grice’s cooperative principles and the implicatures.
The last step is that I analyze the scripts that are in the text, find the words
4
Maranatha Christian University
that are related to the scripts and explain how they shift and create the
incongruity.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is about
Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study,
Method of Research and the last is Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two
is about the basic theory that I will use to analyze all my data which includes
Raskin’s Theory of Semantic-Script Theory of Humor and also Grice’s
cooperative principle. Chapter Three contains my data and my analysis of
those data. The last chapter is the conclusion of the analysis I conduct. This
thesis also contains Table of Contents and Abstract before the first chapter,
and also Bibliography and Appendix after the chapters.
5
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
There are fifteen data I have gathered and analyzed in the Chapter Three.
From those data, it is found that there is one datum which flouts maxim of quality:
Data 1; there are five data which flouts maxim of quantity : Data 2, Data 3, Data
5, Data 7, Data 9; there are three data which flouts maxim of relation : Data 4,
Data 12, Data 13; there are six data which flouts maxim of manner : Data 8, Data
10, Data 11, Data 12, Data 14, and Data 15; there is one data with infringed
maxim: Data 6.
The number of data which flouts maxim of manner is the biggest than the
other data. From the number of the data itself, it can be concluded that the flouting
maxim of manner is the most prominent trigger of the shift of the couple jokes'
script in Getfrank website. This shows that give a long-winded or to provide
information in not brief way is potential to cause laughter. Most of the speakers
who flout this type of maxim are women, like in Data 7, Data 9, Data 11, Data 12,
and Data 16.
41
Maranatha Christian University
In my opinion, this may be related to the ‘fact’ that women are hard to be
understood. Probably, one of the reasons of why they are considered to be hard to
understand is because they mostly talk in a not-brief way. Or, women flouts maxim of
manner the most probably to soften what they are about to say, for example, like in
Data 11, the woman can be said to soften her expression of hatred to her mother inlaw.
The second most prominent non-observance found in the data is the flouting
the maxim of quantity. This shows that adding information is apparently also
potential to create humorous effect.
The third most prominent trigger of the scripts shifts is flouting maxim of
relation. The flouting maxim of relation is just another effective way to make a joke a
joke. This type of non-observance creates such humorous effect from its ‘weirdness’.
The ‘weirdness’ itself refers to disconnection-like connection. If we look at some
jokes which depend on flouting maxim of relation to be the trigger of incongruity, we
will see a disconnection between the speakers in the story. Still, at the same time we
know that, a connection does exist and the speaker is not impaired. This connection
matter is proven to be another way to create humorous effect.
The types of non-observance which exist rarely from the collection are
flouting maxim of quality and infringing the maxim. Compared to the flouting maxim
of manner, quantity and relation, these two types have lower prominence. This might
show that in Getfrank website, funny jokes are mostly those which based on talking
42
Maranatha Christian University
in a long-winded or not brief or ambiguous in responding to someone’s utterance,
adding information or giving unrelated response to what someone is required instead
of lying, in form of sarcasm, or be ambiguous when responding to someone.
Infringing the maxim itself is also the least prominent in this website. It is simply
because there are only a few data which involve drunkenness of someone, children
who still have imperfect linguistics performance, or misunderstanding between a
native speaker of a place and a foreigner. There are only a few jokes which are based
on those things; it may be because those jokes could not always be understood by all
joke readers. Some jokes based on infringing a maxim might also need certain
knowledge. In Data 6, however, infringing a maxim happens because of drunkenness.
Violating a maxim, opting out a maxim and suspending a maxim are the types
which do not exist at all in all data I found. Opting out a maxim and suspending a
maxim are two types of non-observance which I think to be difficult to use as base of
jokes. Opting out a maxim involves code using, which I do not find in the website.
Code using itself, is usually found when people are talking using certain terms to
refer to something to someone so that other people would not know about it. If I can
relate this to Raskin’s theory of scripts, code using simply does not change script. For
example, two people are talking to each other about a friend they hate. When they use
X to address the friend they hate, there will be no change with the scripts in the story.
The story just goes straight, without any surprise like what we find in other data. This
is the same as suspending a maxim. Suspending a maxim could be said not to trigger
scripts change.
43
Maranatha Christian University
Refusal to cooperate with the speaker here is proven to be another ‘No’ for
making a joke.
Another thing I find from the analysis is about the scripts. The scripts’ change
in a joke is said to be the trigger of laughter, and it does. I’d like to say that script
change is like a speed hump which is built to limit the speed of any kind of
transportation which passes through it. Let us imagine ourselves driving a car. We
follow the road smoothly and unconsciously fast. However, as we drive the car faster
and faster, and become less aware, we pass the speed hump and we are surprised
because of it. We finally go back to our awareness and probably say, “I didn’t see it
coming!”
Reading jokes is the same thing. Script change can be also referred to be a
limit. It is a limit for our expectation, or, for our imagination. A story has this
component, which I would address as ‘fence’. When we follow a story, we are
actually made to, as I mention before, drive our car in a road with fence on its left and
right side. When we read a joke, we follow the story, until we reach one point when
every of our expectation of the story fails. This is the sense of incongruity that is
somehow ‘ticklish’ and makes you us want to laugh. The ‘ticklish’ sense here can be
said to be the result of unexpected ‘movement’ of the story. In other words, the main
key to incongruous effect is the fact that there is an unexpected truth; what we read is
not as what we think to be.
Still, I find here that the intensity of how ‘ticklish’ the change of the scripts is,
is different one another. The difference itself is influenced by the background
44
Maranatha Christian University
knowledge of a person. Person A, who rarely reads jokes will have greater chance to
acquire the ‘ticklish’ effect than person B who has already read many jokes before.
Let’s say that person B reads many jokes which are based on the change of the
scripts, a certain mindset is unconsciously created in person B’s mind. The mind of
the person somehow would learn the pattern of the jokes and in the end, it will
decrease the effect of incongruity and furthermore, the ‘ticklish’ effect, since the
unexpected truth has now become expected regardless of the person’s will. It is like
entering a haunted house in a playground. The more often we enter the house, the less
scared we would be for we already know what we will see.
Not only background knowledge of a person, sense of humor is something
that is also important to be the indicator of how ‘ticklish’ a change of scripts would
be. Personally, I think that everybody has different sense of humour. What is funny
for one may be different to what is funny for the other one. One laughs at slapstick
comedy while one may find it boring and choose dark comedy instead. Even without
reading many jokes before, a person could see a joke merely just as a usual story.
Thus, another thing that can be concluded here is that to decide whether a joke is a
joke or not is subjective matter.
Regardless of my findings here, I hope that there will be other research on the
jokes of Getfrank website which may be based on other humour theories. I do also
hope that there will be further research about opting out a maxim and suspending a
45
Maranatha Christian University
maxim – to see if there is really a possibility for these two types of non-observance to
be used as jokes base.
(1390 words )
46
Maranatha Christian University
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Texts
Getfrank: Laughs. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 March 2014.
References
Attardo, Salvatore. Linguistic Theory of Humor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1962.
Print.
“Conversation.” Def. 2a. Webster’s New Explorer Encyclopedic Dictionary. 2006.
Print.
Cook, Guy. Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford: OVP, 2000. Print.
Krikmann, Arvo. Contemporary Linguistic Theories of Humour. Web. 1 March.
2014.
Moeschler, Jacques. Conversational and Conventional Implicatures. University of
Geneva. Web. 1 April. 2014
47
Maranatha Christian University
“Nymphomaniac” Def 1. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 2006. Print.
Veale, Tony. Incongruity in Humour: Root Cause or Epiphenomenon. University
College Dublin. Web. 15 May 2014.
Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London
and New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1995. Print.
Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford: OVP, 1996. Print.
48
Maranatha Christian University