Cultural Discourse in Indonesian Humor: A Case Study of Some Short Dialogues

Abstract

This study aims to describe cultural discourse in Indonesian humor. Cultural discourse is the relationship between the meaning of a dialogue context and the cultural context of the listener or recipient of humor. Indonesia is a nation that has a distinctive humor and rhetorical style. Rhetoric style like this is one type of stylistic aspect in communication. The purpose of this research is formulated to 1) to show cultural discourse of humor in dialogues and it category, and 2) to describe the respondent's perception of humor in dialogue as a means of entertainment. The data of this research are humorous discourses in the form of dialogues which are very often found in social interactions and social media. Data analysis was carried out by using Berger's theory of humor. This theory divides humor into categories based on the dialogues in humor. The results showed that the humor category was divided into language category 14 (56%) following logic category 8 (32%), and identity category 3 (12%). Of respondents' perceptions, very funny was at 55.6%, followed by funny 33.3%, and quite funny only reached 11.1%. This perception is closely related to the respondent's cultural conception. The implication of this research shows that humorous discourse has a rhetorical structure and pattern of expression so as to create a sense of humor that is entertaining for readers and listeners.