THE STUDY OF IMPLICATURE IN COLLECTION OF JOKES BY ALOK KUMAR

A THESIS
Presented In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for Completing Undergraduate
Degree in Department of English Language

Written By:
Ellia Semuel da Costa
611002755

Faculty of Letters
University of 17 Agustus 1945 Surabaya
2015
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

Human is basically a socializing creature. In this life, human can’t stand by

themselves or else they will perish. Therefore, they communicate to each other in their social

area and build relationships to each other. They communicate in many different ways in a

way how their social area goes as long as it benefits them in building relationship with others.

One of a way to communicate is through jokes. Gag, prank, quip, jape, jest, can also being

said as a joke. A Joke can be in written form or orally spoken in order to entertain other

people and entertaining people is a good method in building a relationship. A joke can be

very entertaining if the listener understand the meaning of the jokes given by the speaker and

this can happen when the listener is accustomed with social are of the speaker or come from

same social area of the speaker. That is why Indonesian will have difficulties in interpreting

western jokes. This is caused by cultural differences.

Implicature have been one topic of research interests in the pragmatic studies. The notion

of implicature is explained in relation to more “direct’ expression of intention of the speaker.

Implicature exist in every aspect and language, which serves as language device, which is one

of their functions. In communicating to each other, people are able to express their feeling or

impression, to build relationship, to maintain relationship, and to understand many other

things. Sometimes the impression or expression of the speaker is unable to be understood by

the listener. One of the reasons why the listener is unable to understand what the speaker says

is because the speaker uses utterances that are intended to contrast with the term like logical

implication. Those utterances are called Implicature. Implicature is the term that refers to
what a speaker can imply, suggest, or mean as distinct from what she or he literally says

(Grice;1975).

Implicature tends to be used in light conversation such as humor which is one of the

ways to communicate, to build and maintain relationship, and to express feeling or

impression. Humor is different in each language and it can also written or spoken. It depends

on the person that tells it, but the point is how that joke can entertain the people. It is also

hard for those who are not familiar to “English Jokes” to understand the jokes itself because

of different culture. There are jokes that use polite word without any insult in those jokes, but

there are jokes that use harsh words that meant to insult people or so we called. However, in

special cases, people will still think those “insult” as normal jokes. Therefore, people must

understand those jokes and one of the ways to understand them is to understand of what that

jokes implicates.

In this thesis, the writer chooses the topic because the writer is interested in analyzing

the mechanism of implicature in effecting “English Jokes” especially in written form to

create the humorous effect and how to identify the implication of the humour. For the

purpose of the study, the data are collected from the thesis writer and written texts available

in some websites, such as www.cyber-tango.com and www.sms2friends.com/funny-jokes.

This study of “English Jokes” is expected to benefit readers in that they will be able

to know how to interpret “English Jokes” easily and correctly by analyzing its implicature.

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1.2 Statements of the Problem

The questions to be answered in this study in relation to analysis of implicature in

“English Jokes are:

1. What is the implicature of each English Jokes in Collection of Jokes by Alok Kumar?

2. How can implicature makes “English Jokes” to be funny??

1.3 Objective of Study

Based on the statement of the problem dealing with the Implicature in “English

Jokes”, the objective of the study are aimed to analyze the implicature of each jokes and the

factors of Implicature in “English Jokes” in creating funny-effect.

1.4 Significance of Study

By doing the research about the Implicature in “English Jokes”, the writer expects to

extend and give the readers a deep comprehension to understand “English Jokes” in written

form through Implicature. Then, the writer hopes that this thesis will be useful for students

who take linguistics as their major subject in thesis as an additional input to make further

studies on “English Jokes”.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

In this chapter, the writer will discuss the review of related literature by presenting

some theories on pragmatics and implicature.

2.1 Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of meaning and its relation with speech situations (Geoffrey

Leech; 1993) which means that in Pragmatics, the meaning of a word is related to the

speakers or things that has the relation with the word itself (Geoffrey Leech, 1993:8). In

pragmatic, the meaning in a sentence can be denotative which the meaning refers to

dictionary meaning (literal meaning) and context-related where the meaning is related to the

conversation itself. If the speaker, in a conversation, speaks in context-related meaning but

the listener interprets it in denotative meaning, there will be misinterpretation.

Pragmatic learns the relations between linguistic forms and the user of those forms. It

talks about intended meaning, their assumptions, purposes or goals, and the kind of action.

Aspects which included in pragmatics are deixes (contextual meaning of pronoun),

presupposition (logical meaning), performative (the utterance which has imply that by each

utterance a speaker not only says something but also does certain things, and finally is

implicature.

2.2 Implicature

The term ‘implicature’ is used by Grice (Grice: 1975) to account for what a speaker

can imply, or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literally says. Because that Implicature

is the term for what speaker imply, or mean, as distinct from what speaker literally says, it

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used in many aspects and one of them is humor. In English Jokes, the words that used are

commonly imply things that have relation to the words themselves but the result reaction or

expectation is different from what the speaker wants.

2.2.1 Conventional Implicature

Conventional implicature is, according to Grice, determined by ‘the

conventional meaning of the words used (1975:44). Conventional implicature is not

based on the cooperative principle or the maxims. They don’t have to occur in

conversation, and they don’t depend on special contexts for their interpretation. It is

associated with specific words and result in additional conveyed meanings when those

words are used. The words such as ‘but’, ‘even’, and ‘yet’ are words that have

conventional meaning.

2.1.2 Conversational Implicature

Conversational Implicature is a pragmatic inference which is not tied to

particular words and phrases in an utterance but arise instead from contextual factors

and the understanding that conversations are observed in conversation. The basic

assumption in conversation is that, unless otherwise indicated, the participants are

adhering to the cooperative principle and the maxims.

2.3 Joke

Joke is what makes us laugh. Joke appears in different means such as video, music,

stand-up comedy show, and book. There are many theories which attempt to explain about

joke, the condition of the humor and what makes the joke itself to be funny. Therefore the
thesis writer will only show some of the theories that related to English Jokes. Some of the

theories can be seen below:

2.3.1 Superiority Theory

The main idea of this theory is that the laughs that we have are caused by the

misfortune of others because we are better than them or more fortune than them (Monro,

D.H.;1988). According to Thomas Hobbes, laughter is a kind of sudden glory (1588-1879).

The word ‘glory’ here describes the sense of vainglory or in other word, self-esteem.

2.3.2 Incongruity Theory

The general idea of this theory is that humor is perceived at the moment of

realization of incongruity between an expected concept and realization so that we laugh at

things that surprise us because they seem out of place. It’s funny when clowns wear

outrageously large shoes, people have especially big noses or politicians tell the truth. It

means that jokes are funny because it is turns out beyond our expectation.

Take the following humor. The incongruity caused by the punch line, and the accompanying

feeling of sudden surprise makes us laugh.

Incongruity is sometime identified as “frustrated expectation.” Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

says “humor rises from sudden transformation of strained expectation into nothing.” More is

implied here than merely surprise.

2.3.3 Relief Theory

In relief theory, humor comes from the relief of fears that comes from tension

and the result is the laughter that comes from this release of nervous energy. This makes

people that have been undergoing a strain will sometime burst into laughter if the strain is

suddenly removed.

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 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Design

In a scientific inquiry procedure, a research design is necessary in describing the

procedure of analysis. In this study, the writer uses qualitative method in both data collection

and data analysis in order to help the writer in developing this thesis. Kirk and Miller

(Moleong, 2010:4) said that qualitative method is a specific tradition of knowledge that

fundamentally depends on observation, human, territory and connection with others both in

language and expression. The observation of human, territory and the connection with others

with others in language and expression is important in order to collect the data and to

interpret the meaning. In English Jokes, it is very important for us to pay attention to where

that jokes takes place, territory, and the human that make that jokes and those as audience. A

good joke can only be created if these fundamental aspects are understood well. Without

these fundamental, the joke itself may gain no desired effect.

3.2 Data Source

Jokes in this thesis are collected from www.cybertango.com.

3.3 Procedure of Data Collection

In this thesis, the writer collects his data from internet. As for the jokes which are

collected from internet, the thesis writer randomly selected the jokes from those websites

used as data source for this thesis. The instruments that are used are internet and the thesis

writer himself as participant observer.

In this thesis, the writer is using reduction method that he quoted from Miles and

Huberman. According to Miles and Huberman, data collection is defined as a process of

selection, centralization, simplification, and transformation of raw data. By using this

statement as base, the writer will focus on implicature and analyze it by simplifying it into

few possible meaning and transform it into real meaning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grice, H.P. 1975. Logic and Conversation. Unpublished MS. of the William James Lectures,

Harvard University.

http://www.cyber-tango.com/jokes/jokeseu.html.3 december 2013

http://www.sms2friends.com/funny-jokes/1 january 2014.

https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/monro.html.5 december 2013

Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Prinsip-prinsip Pragmatic. Universitas Indonesia.

Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.