Analysis of Language Play Found in The TV Series 'Friends'.
ABSTRACT
Permainan bahasa merupakan hal yang umum dan menyenangkan yang dapat kita
jumpai dalam komunikasi sehari-hari, khususnya dalam komunikasi informal. Dalam
permainan bahasa, seseorang dapat menciptakan kata-kata baru melalui berbagai proses,
seperti penggabungan dua kata menjadi satu kata baru, penambahan akhiran, pemotongan
kata, bahkan penggabungan dua kata dalam bahasa yang berbeda pun mungkin dilakukan.
Efek yang ditimbulkan dari permainan bahasa sehari-hari pun bermacam-macam; salah
satunya adalah untuk menciptakan kelucuan sehingga membuat orang tertawa. Untuk
mendapatkan sebuah arti dan juga merasakan kelucuan dari permainan bahasa ini,
diperlukan konteks cerita dari permainan bahasa itu sendiri.
Friends adalah sebuah Serial TV yang dikategorikan ke dalam jenis komedi.
Salah satu unsur pembangun kelucuan dalam komedi tersebut adalah penggunaan
permainan bahasa seperti blending, clipping, mimes.
Permainan bahasa membuat orang lebih kreatif dalam berbahasa. Hal ini juga
membuktikan bahwa bahasa adalah suatu hal yang dinamis dan tidak kaku karena tidak
terikat pada suatu batasan atau aturan. Hal-hal tersebut dapat dilihat dalam skripsi ini
yang membahas aspek permainan bahasa dalam sebuah serial TV berjudul Friends.
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Universitas Kristen Maranatha
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ………………………………………………………………………………
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………………...
ii
ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………… ......………..
iii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
Background of the study………………………………………………...
Statement of the problem………………………………………………..
Purpose of the study…………………………………………………......
Methods of Research……………………………………………………
Organization of the Thesis……………….……………………………...
1
4
4
5
5
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK……………………….…..
6
CHAPTER III: ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE PLAY
FOUND IN THE TV SERIES FRIENDS…………………………...…
11
CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………….
32
BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………………
36
APPENDICES........................................................................................................................ 38
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Universitas Kristen Maranatha
APPENDICES
Linguistic
Linguistic
Approach
Process
1. Morphology
a. Blending
Language Play
Contextual
Meaning
-Ministainer
- A Christian
(Minister+Entertainer) leader who is also
an entertainer
-Blursula
- A state of
(Blurry+Ursula)
Ursula’s being
blur
-Channoey
- A blending of
(Chandler+Joey)
names Chandler
and Joey
-Spermtastic
- Fantastic sperm
(Sperm+Fantastic)
-Manny
- A male nanny
(Man+Nanny)
-Fricken
- Fried-chicken
(Fried+chicken)
b. Compounding
-“sous”stand
- Understand
(“sous”+stand)
c. Affixation
suffixes
d. Clipping
-Mississippi-ly
- Mississippi way
-Bingette
- Mrs. Bing
-Plicit
- Clearly and fully
(Explicit)
expressed
38
2. Semantics
a. Associations
-An Affair to
- An affair that
Remember
will always be
(A Walk to
remembered
Remember)
b. Mimes
-Sluts-R-Us
- Kid store with
(Toys-R-Us)
sluts employee
-Joey’s apple
-Adam’s apple of
(Adam’s apple)
Joey
-US Lost Office
-Post Office which
(US Post Office)
is famous for
losing things
-Officer handsome
-A handsome
and Officer pretty
officer and a
(Officer Hanson and
pretty officer
Officer Petty)
-Gary Poppins
-A male nanny
(Mary Poppins)
c. Allusion
-Sophie’s choice
(Sophie’s choice)
39
-Difficult choice
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
It is known that nowadays people are busy with their daily activities. For that
reason, they find many ways to refresh their mind. One of the popular ways is to
watch TV series or comedy films. One example of this is the TV series Friends.
Friends was made in 1994 and was created in 10 seasons. Friends is a situation
comedy about six best friends having their time together and their interactions with
other people that take place mostly in New York. Just like in real life, these best
friends share about love, sex and careers in life and they always support one another
whenever things get rough in their lives. It is about how friends become a family. The
story is quite simple, in which the setting of place is mostly in their apartment rooms
or in the coffee house, Central Perk.
Friends is undoubtedly a great success. Its success can also be seen from the
awards that the TV series has got from its debut season (1994-1995): Golden Globe
1
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
and another 55 wins & 145 nominations
including the categories of Outstanding Comedy, Best Television Series, and
Favourite Comedy Series. Based on an American survey, the show has become the
number-one comedy on television among adults aged 18-49 for five years in a row.
All the facts here show that
people love watching it and this is mainly because the show is a comedy which tells
about everyday life. The story can happen to anyone, moreover to the US people who
have similar lifestyles with the characters in Friends: living together with people
from different races in a flat, and struggling to survive in the real world and
supporting one another through the pressures of life. Besides, all the major and minor
characters have unique characteristics that make the audience interested in each of
them. They have their special characteristics so that the story is not boring. One of the
things that make their style of speech funny is the use of language play and that
explains why I choose the film to be the source of my analysis for my thesis, entitled
Language Play Found in the TV Series Friends.
By ‘language play’, I mean to analyze the new terms used by the main
characters. This includes words that are already used in daily conversations but here,
in Friends, more variations are added, for example the process of adding a suffix or
the use of mimes. There are also some newly invented terms that have never been
created before.
As it is mentioned before, the reason why I choose this topic is that, like many
people, I love the TV series Friends, and I am very interested in the language play
that Friends has created. The script writer’s creativity to play with the language, to
2
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
make the usual words and terms become more interesting, to make the audience laugh,
is one of the things that make me eager to analyze this TV series. I am curious
because the script writer’s ideas are brilliant, for they are always original, outstanding,
and the most important thing is, they can be well delivered to the audience. All these
qualities make me put high interest in Friends.
Language play is manipulation of language (Crystal, 1998: 1). Language play
is language used for fun and it usually arises rather spontaneously.
In order to
find out the meaning of language play, someone has to pay attention to the context of
communication; therefore, I use Pragmatics as the linguistic area which deals with
meaning, context, and communication (Schriffrin, 1994: 190). Using this approach, I
will analyze the intended speaker’s meaning of saying or using the new terms based
on the context of the situation that the characters are in.
I use Semantics as an approach in analyzing the data. Semantics is the study
of language meaning (Heasley, 1983: 1). To be more specific, the aspects of
Semantics I focus on are mimes and associations. Mimes are ‘…phonetic similitude,
usually rhymes, with the appeal of homophones’ (Nash, 1994:139). Associations are
‘a connection made in the mind between different things, ideas, etc’ (Longman
Dictionary: 1978: 54). Allusion is ‘a reference to a well-known or familiar person,
geographical place, event, literary work, author, work of art, or historical idea’
.
Another approach that I am going to use is Morphology. Morphology is the
study of word formation.
3
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The analysis of my data includes the morphological process of blending,
that is how to join two different words becoming one word that has one meaning
from both words; compounding, the joining of two roots; affixation, which includes
the adding of suffixes and clipping, a reduction of words into a shorter form (Yule,
1985:66).
I analyze the forms of the language play in Friends through morphological
processes and I analyze the meanings of the words using semantic processes. Through
these two processes, it is shown that the words which are just common words with
common meanings and common word formation processes will become uncommon
and funny after knowing how such words or terms are used in the context. That is
why this analysis cannot be separated from the pragmatic aspects.
Statement of the Problem
In the thesis I would like to discuss the following problems:
1. What are the words containing language play found in the TV series Friends?
2. What linguistic processes form the words?
3. What are the contextual meanings of the words?
4. How do the words create a funny atmosphere in the TV Series?
Purpose of the Study
In the thesis I would like to show:
1. The words containing language play found in the TV series Friends.
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Universitas Kristen Maranatha
2. The linguistic processes forming the words.
3. The contextual meanings of the words.
4. How the words create a funny atmosphere in the TV Series.
Methods of Research
In analyzing the data, I first watch several episodes of Friends TV series.
Then I collect the words containing language play as the data. After that, I select and
classify the data into several categories. Then I analyze them, focusing on the
pragmatic, semantic and morphological aspects.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter I is the Introduction. It consists
of the Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study,
Methods of Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter II is the Theoretical
Framework, which describes the theories used to discuss the language play found in
the TV Series Friends. Chapter III is the Discussion on the language play in the TV
Series Friends. Chapter IV is the Conclusion, which provides my personal comments
and opinions of my findings. At the end of the thesis, the Bibliography and the
Appendices are provided.
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CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
Friends is a successful comedy TV Series and people love it for it shows daily
situation. The setting, the characteristics of the characters, and the problems can
actually be real things surrounding us and it can happen to anybody. In other words,
Friends brings up reality. It shows comedy and also romantic things that is
understandable and simple to enjoy. Besides the things that have already been
mentioned, there is one definite factor that makes this TV Series get high rating,
namely it can really make people laugh and one of the important factors that build
this humor is its language.
The language used in Friends that makes the audience laugh may sometimes
contain language play and this language play is one of the factors that build the funny
atmosphere. It can build the funny atmosphere for the simple reason that it relates to
the context of the situation. In order to understand the funny things the language play
has created, it should be analyzed through three linguistic approaches; they are
Pragmatics, Morphology, and Semantics.
32
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
In the analysis of Language Play in the TV Series Friends, I use Pragmatics as
the big area since it is dealing with meaning, context, and communication and every
data is related to them. The data also contain the process of blending, compounding,
affixation, and clipping which are included in the morphological processes. Mimes,
associations, and allusion which are included in Semantics, are also used.
After analyzing the data I have gathered in Friends, I conclude that the mostly
used linguistic aspect is Morphology, specifically blending. Blending is the process
of making two words into one. Blending process is successful in making new words
that are funny and original. Friends can make this process look natural and the
outcome can be accepted as funny. Moreover, it is funny and special because the new
words that have one new meaning actually comes from two different words which
have different meanings from two different words like ministainer. It can also create
word that sounds like a person’s name which actually has funny meaning like
Blursula and a new job category like manny. Blending can make us aware that
actually the words that we are playing with are words that have already been familiar
to us. For example, we are very familiar with the word fried-chicken but we never
thought about how such a simple word is changed into the simpler version through
the blending process. The blending of the word fried-chicken into fricken is actually
sensible. It just feels weird and funny because it is uncommonly used.
I assume that the language play in Friends is created to build the funny thing
in the TV Series, moreover to make the TV Series more ‘alive’ and to make the
audience laugh even more instead of feeling bored watching the TV Series. Therefore,
I can say that language is flexible. It can be created all over again through many ways.
33
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What makes Friends so special is that the TV Series is successful in creating new
terms through language play. The words that have existed for so long are created into
new ones through many ways. This shows that language is dynamic. It is changing
and improving through time.
There is another purpose that the language play in Friends is created. The
language play in this TV Series is used to emphasize the characteristics of the
characters. For example the term Mississippi-ly that is said by Ross is used to
emphasize Ross’s characteristic that is s till childish. He used to be very spoiled by his
parents when he was a little boy because he was considered the cleverest among the
children and this time he counts in the Mississippi way instead of counting in the
ordinary way. Apparently, his ‘old day character’ is never gone. Another example is
when Joey shows his naïve characteristic in the example of Joey’s apple. Besides
building the funny atmosphere, the language play in Friends is also used to mock
(Gary Poppins), to seduce (Officer Handsome and Officer Petty), to show jealousy
(Sluts-R-Us, Manny), and to be sarcastic (An Affair to Remember, US Lost Office).
All are done in funny way.
The language play in Friends is created to add the funny atmosphere and it is
created in many ways. One of the ways is by showing contradiction, for example
through the characters. In the data I have gathered, the person who uses language play
the most is Ross. I think the script writer wants to show a contradictive character in
Ross. He is the most educated among all of his friends for he is a Ph D, a father of
two children who always fail in his three marriages; yet sometimes becomes so
jealous and childish in behavior. Another way to show the contradiction is through
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the language play. For example: ministainer, manny, pathet, An Affair to Remember,
Sluts-R-us and Gary Poppins. However, according to my analysis in Chapter III,
apparently all of the characters have used at least one language play in the TV Series.
Therefore, it shows how important the role of language play is in the TV Series and
since it is a comedy, the purpose is of course to build the funny atmosphere.
The use of language play in Friends is somehow to make people aware of the
fact that they can be creative with the language. This analysis somehow makes me
realize that words do not have certain rules and boundaries. We are free to play with
language. We can also combine two or more languages into one word. The example
is the word ‘sous-stand’, which Phoebe says. It may not be in any dictionaries, but if
we know the meaning of the two words, we can easily understand it.
The language play in Friends is created basically just for fun and among the
things that have been mentioned the most important thing in this analysis is the
context. The comedy situation will not be well created without the context and all of
the data will not be considered funny.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
References:
Allusion. 2. August. 2006.
.
Appendix B: Glossary. 16 June 2006.
“Friends” (1994) [TV-Series 1994-2004]. IMDb. 18 November 2005
.
Crane, L. Ben. An Introduction to Linguistics. Canada: Little, Brown and Company,
Ltd.
Crystal, David. Language Play. London: The Penguin Group, 1992.
Friends (TV Series). Filmaffinity. 7 March 2006
.
Hurford, James R., and Brendan Heasley. Semantics: A Coursebook. Cambridge:
Univ Press, 1983.
Lessons In Sweet Words: LANGUAGE PLAY IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
CLASSROOM. Darlene Witte-Townsend and Alice Whiting. 20 March 2006
.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Longman Group UK Limited, 1987.
Morphology. Encarta. 23 March 2006
.
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Universitas Kristen Maranatha
Nash, Walter. The Language of Humour. New York: Longman Group, Inc, 1994.
Nodeworks Encyclopedia. Wikipedia. 13 March 2006
.
Pragmatics. 29. May. 2006. Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. 13 March 2006.
.
Richards, Jack D and Richard Schmidt. Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics. Edinburgh: Pearson Education ltd, 2002.
Schriffrin, Deborah. Approaches to Discourse. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994.
Semantics. 31. May. 2006. Wikipedia. 13 March 2006.
.
Shaw, Harry. Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company,
1972.
The Free Dictionary by Farlex. 2003. Houghton Mifflin Company. 10 March 2006.
.
What is Affixation?. Vers. 5.0. 18. September. 1998. SIL International. 2 June 2006.
.
What is Suffixation?. Vers. 5.0. 5. January. 2004. SIL International. 13 March 2006.
.
Yule, George. The Study of Language. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press:
1985.
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Primary Source:
Bright, Kevin. S, Martha Kauffman, and David Crane. Friends. DVD. New York:
Warner Bross, 1994.
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Permainan bahasa merupakan hal yang umum dan menyenangkan yang dapat kita
jumpai dalam komunikasi sehari-hari, khususnya dalam komunikasi informal. Dalam
permainan bahasa, seseorang dapat menciptakan kata-kata baru melalui berbagai proses,
seperti penggabungan dua kata menjadi satu kata baru, penambahan akhiran, pemotongan
kata, bahkan penggabungan dua kata dalam bahasa yang berbeda pun mungkin dilakukan.
Efek yang ditimbulkan dari permainan bahasa sehari-hari pun bermacam-macam; salah
satunya adalah untuk menciptakan kelucuan sehingga membuat orang tertawa. Untuk
mendapatkan sebuah arti dan juga merasakan kelucuan dari permainan bahasa ini,
diperlukan konteks cerita dari permainan bahasa itu sendiri.
Friends adalah sebuah Serial TV yang dikategorikan ke dalam jenis komedi.
Salah satu unsur pembangun kelucuan dalam komedi tersebut adalah penggunaan
permainan bahasa seperti blending, clipping, mimes.
Permainan bahasa membuat orang lebih kreatif dalam berbahasa. Hal ini juga
membuktikan bahwa bahasa adalah suatu hal yang dinamis dan tidak kaku karena tidak
terikat pada suatu batasan atau aturan. Hal-hal tersebut dapat dilihat dalam skripsi ini
yang membahas aspek permainan bahasa dalam sebuah serial TV berjudul Friends.
iii
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ………………………………………………………………………………
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………………...
ii
ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………… ......………..
iii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
Background of the study………………………………………………...
Statement of the problem………………………………………………..
Purpose of the study…………………………………………………......
Methods of Research……………………………………………………
Organization of the Thesis……………….……………………………...
1
4
4
5
5
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK……………………….…..
6
CHAPTER III: ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE PLAY
FOUND IN THE TV SERIES FRIENDS…………………………...…
11
CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………….
32
BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………………
36
APPENDICES........................................................................................................................ 38
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APPENDICES
Linguistic
Linguistic
Approach
Process
1. Morphology
a. Blending
Language Play
Contextual
Meaning
-Ministainer
- A Christian
(Minister+Entertainer) leader who is also
an entertainer
-Blursula
- A state of
(Blurry+Ursula)
Ursula’s being
blur
-Channoey
- A blending of
(Chandler+Joey)
names Chandler
and Joey
-Spermtastic
- Fantastic sperm
(Sperm+Fantastic)
-Manny
- A male nanny
(Man+Nanny)
-Fricken
- Fried-chicken
(Fried+chicken)
b. Compounding
-“sous”stand
- Understand
(“sous”+stand)
c. Affixation
suffixes
d. Clipping
-Mississippi-ly
- Mississippi way
-Bingette
- Mrs. Bing
-Plicit
- Clearly and fully
(Explicit)
expressed
38
2. Semantics
a. Associations
-An Affair to
- An affair that
Remember
will always be
(A Walk to
remembered
Remember)
b. Mimes
-Sluts-R-Us
- Kid store with
(Toys-R-Us)
sluts employee
-Joey’s apple
-Adam’s apple of
(Adam’s apple)
Joey
-US Lost Office
-Post Office which
(US Post Office)
is famous for
losing things
-Officer handsome
-A handsome
and Officer pretty
officer and a
(Officer Hanson and
pretty officer
Officer Petty)
-Gary Poppins
-A male nanny
(Mary Poppins)
c. Allusion
-Sophie’s choice
(Sophie’s choice)
39
-Difficult choice
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
It is known that nowadays people are busy with their daily activities. For that
reason, they find many ways to refresh their mind. One of the popular ways is to
watch TV series or comedy films. One example of this is the TV series Friends.
Friends was made in 1994 and was created in 10 seasons. Friends is a situation
comedy about six best friends having their time together and their interactions with
other people that take place mostly in New York. Just like in real life, these best
friends share about love, sex and careers in life and they always support one another
whenever things get rough in their lives. It is about how friends become a family. The
story is quite simple, in which the setting of place is mostly in their apartment rooms
or in the coffee house, Central Perk.
Friends is undoubtedly a great success. Its success can also be seen from the
awards that the TV series has got from its debut season (1994-1995): Golden Globe
1
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
and another 55 wins & 145 nominations
including the categories of Outstanding Comedy, Best Television Series, and
Favourite Comedy Series. Based on an American survey, the show has become the
number-one comedy on television among adults aged 18-49 for five years in a row.
All the facts here show that
people love watching it and this is mainly because the show is a comedy which tells
about everyday life. The story can happen to anyone, moreover to the US people who
have similar lifestyles with the characters in Friends: living together with people
from different races in a flat, and struggling to survive in the real world and
supporting one another through the pressures of life. Besides, all the major and minor
characters have unique characteristics that make the audience interested in each of
them. They have their special characteristics so that the story is not boring. One of the
things that make their style of speech funny is the use of language play and that
explains why I choose the film to be the source of my analysis for my thesis, entitled
Language Play Found in the TV Series Friends.
By ‘language play’, I mean to analyze the new terms used by the main
characters. This includes words that are already used in daily conversations but here,
in Friends, more variations are added, for example the process of adding a suffix or
the use of mimes. There are also some newly invented terms that have never been
created before.
As it is mentioned before, the reason why I choose this topic is that, like many
people, I love the TV series Friends, and I am very interested in the language play
that Friends has created. The script writer’s creativity to play with the language, to
2
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
make the usual words and terms become more interesting, to make the audience laugh,
is one of the things that make me eager to analyze this TV series. I am curious
because the script writer’s ideas are brilliant, for they are always original, outstanding,
and the most important thing is, they can be well delivered to the audience. All these
qualities make me put high interest in Friends.
Language play is manipulation of language (Crystal, 1998: 1). Language play
is language used for fun and it usually arises rather spontaneously.
In order to
find out the meaning of language play, someone has to pay attention to the context of
communication; therefore, I use Pragmatics as the linguistic area which deals with
meaning, context, and communication (Schriffrin, 1994: 190). Using this approach, I
will analyze the intended speaker’s meaning of saying or using the new terms based
on the context of the situation that the characters are in.
I use Semantics as an approach in analyzing the data. Semantics is the study
of language meaning (Heasley, 1983: 1). To be more specific, the aspects of
Semantics I focus on are mimes and associations. Mimes are ‘…phonetic similitude,
usually rhymes, with the appeal of homophones’ (Nash, 1994:139). Associations are
‘a connection made in the mind between different things, ideas, etc’ (Longman
Dictionary: 1978: 54). Allusion is ‘a reference to a well-known or familiar person,
geographical place, event, literary work, author, work of art, or historical idea’
.
Another approach that I am going to use is Morphology. Morphology is the
study of word formation.
3
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The analysis of my data includes the morphological process of blending,
that is how to join two different words becoming one word that has one meaning
from both words; compounding, the joining of two roots; affixation, which includes
the adding of suffixes and clipping, a reduction of words into a shorter form (Yule,
1985:66).
I analyze the forms of the language play in Friends through morphological
processes and I analyze the meanings of the words using semantic processes. Through
these two processes, it is shown that the words which are just common words with
common meanings and common word formation processes will become uncommon
and funny after knowing how such words or terms are used in the context. That is
why this analysis cannot be separated from the pragmatic aspects.
Statement of the Problem
In the thesis I would like to discuss the following problems:
1. What are the words containing language play found in the TV series Friends?
2. What linguistic processes form the words?
3. What are the contextual meanings of the words?
4. How do the words create a funny atmosphere in the TV Series?
Purpose of the Study
In the thesis I would like to show:
1. The words containing language play found in the TV series Friends.
4
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2. The linguistic processes forming the words.
3. The contextual meanings of the words.
4. How the words create a funny atmosphere in the TV Series.
Methods of Research
In analyzing the data, I first watch several episodes of Friends TV series.
Then I collect the words containing language play as the data. After that, I select and
classify the data into several categories. Then I analyze them, focusing on the
pragmatic, semantic and morphological aspects.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter I is the Introduction. It consists
of the Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study,
Methods of Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter II is the Theoretical
Framework, which describes the theories used to discuss the language play found in
the TV Series Friends. Chapter III is the Discussion on the language play in the TV
Series Friends. Chapter IV is the Conclusion, which provides my personal comments
and opinions of my findings. At the end of the thesis, the Bibliography and the
Appendices are provided.
5
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CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION
Friends is a successful comedy TV Series and people love it for it shows daily
situation. The setting, the characteristics of the characters, and the problems can
actually be real things surrounding us and it can happen to anybody. In other words,
Friends brings up reality. It shows comedy and also romantic things that is
understandable and simple to enjoy. Besides the things that have already been
mentioned, there is one definite factor that makes this TV Series get high rating,
namely it can really make people laugh and one of the important factors that build
this humor is its language.
The language used in Friends that makes the audience laugh may sometimes
contain language play and this language play is one of the factors that build the funny
atmosphere. It can build the funny atmosphere for the simple reason that it relates to
the context of the situation. In order to understand the funny things the language play
has created, it should be analyzed through three linguistic approaches; they are
Pragmatics, Morphology, and Semantics.
32
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
In the analysis of Language Play in the TV Series Friends, I use Pragmatics as
the big area since it is dealing with meaning, context, and communication and every
data is related to them. The data also contain the process of blending, compounding,
affixation, and clipping which are included in the morphological processes. Mimes,
associations, and allusion which are included in Semantics, are also used.
After analyzing the data I have gathered in Friends, I conclude that the mostly
used linguistic aspect is Morphology, specifically blending. Blending is the process
of making two words into one. Blending process is successful in making new words
that are funny and original. Friends can make this process look natural and the
outcome can be accepted as funny. Moreover, it is funny and special because the new
words that have one new meaning actually comes from two different words which
have different meanings from two different words like ministainer. It can also create
word that sounds like a person’s name which actually has funny meaning like
Blursula and a new job category like manny. Blending can make us aware that
actually the words that we are playing with are words that have already been familiar
to us. For example, we are very familiar with the word fried-chicken but we never
thought about how such a simple word is changed into the simpler version through
the blending process. The blending of the word fried-chicken into fricken is actually
sensible. It just feels weird and funny because it is uncommonly used.
I assume that the language play in Friends is created to build the funny thing
in the TV Series, moreover to make the TV Series more ‘alive’ and to make the
audience laugh even more instead of feeling bored watching the TV Series. Therefore,
I can say that language is flexible. It can be created all over again through many ways.
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What makes Friends so special is that the TV Series is successful in creating new
terms through language play. The words that have existed for so long are created into
new ones through many ways. This shows that language is dynamic. It is changing
and improving through time.
There is another purpose that the language play in Friends is created. The
language play in this TV Series is used to emphasize the characteristics of the
characters. For example the term Mississippi-ly that is said by Ross is used to
emphasize Ross’s characteristic that is s till childish. He used to be very spoiled by his
parents when he was a little boy because he was considered the cleverest among the
children and this time he counts in the Mississippi way instead of counting in the
ordinary way. Apparently, his ‘old day character’ is never gone. Another example is
when Joey shows his naïve characteristic in the example of Joey’s apple. Besides
building the funny atmosphere, the language play in Friends is also used to mock
(Gary Poppins), to seduce (Officer Handsome and Officer Petty), to show jealousy
(Sluts-R-Us, Manny), and to be sarcastic (An Affair to Remember, US Lost Office).
All are done in funny way.
The language play in Friends is created to add the funny atmosphere and it is
created in many ways. One of the ways is by showing contradiction, for example
through the characters. In the data I have gathered, the person who uses language play
the most is Ross. I think the script writer wants to show a contradictive character in
Ross. He is the most educated among all of his friends for he is a Ph D, a father of
two children who always fail in his three marriages; yet sometimes becomes so
jealous and childish in behavior. Another way to show the contradiction is through
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the language play. For example: ministainer, manny, pathet, An Affair to Remember,
Sluts-R-us and Gary Poppins. However, according to my analysis in Chapter III,
apparently all of the characters have used at least one language play in the TV Series.
Therefore, it shows how important the role of language play is in the TV Series and
since it is a comedy, the purpose is of course to build the funny atmosphere.
The use of language play in Friends is somehow to make people aware of the
fact that they can be creative with the language. This analysis somehow makes me
realize that words do not have certain rules and boundaries. We are free to play with
language. We can also combine two or more languages into one word. The example
is the word ‘sous-stand’, which Phoebe says. It may not be in any dictionaries, but if
we know the meaning of the two words, we can easily understand it.
The language play in Friends is created basically just for fun and among the
things that have been mentioned the most important thing in this analysis is the
context. The comedy situation will not be well created without the context and all of
the data will not be considered funny.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
References:
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Crystal, David. Language Play. London: The Penguin Group, 1992.
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Hurford, James R., and Brendan Heasley. Semantics: A Coursebook. Cambridge:
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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Longman Group UK Limited, 1987.
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Nash, Walter. The Language of Humour. New York: Longman Group, Inc, 1994.
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Primary Source:
Bright, Kevin. S, Martha Kauffman, and David Crane. Friends. DVD. New York:
Warner Bross, 1994.
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