Abstract
Comedy is a common genre but quite complex to analyze linguistically. It consists of enormous discourse considered humorous or amusing by causing laughter in any entertainment medium. Several studies have investigated the relationship between comedy and cooperative principles in the analysis of everyday interaction. However, little attention has been paid to the role of cooperative principles and presupposition as comic generators in areas such as mass or social media, particularly on YouTube. This study concentrates on the analysis of extracts from a Ghanaian comedy on YouTube, Nurse Awuni, which give rise to humor by identifying the violation of Grice`s (1975) cooperative principles and its maxims employed by the characters. It attempts to answer the following research questions. First, how often are Grice`s (1975) cooperative principles and its maxims employed, flouted or violated in the Nurse Awuni`s comedy? And What is the role of conversational implicature and presupposition as comic generators in the Nurse Awuni`s comedy? Quantitative analysis with a collection of empirical data has been followed to analyze the violation and keeping of the cooperative principles, maxims and presupposition, and conversational implicature of the Nurse Awuni`s comedy from a strictly linguistic and pragmatic perspective. From the results, it is evident that interlocutors sometimes deliberately flout the conversational maxims so as to create comedy in different conversational effects such as humor, sarcasm, irony, insults etc. Again, a comedian may constantly digress from the subject and content of conversation to make him, or her appear naive and create an awkward situation by saying something narrow-minded. Moreover, the research investigated presupposition as a crucial comedy generator. Finally, the results indicate that the use of conversational implicature and its maxims is much more abundant than the use of presupposition.
Highlights
This study concentrates on the analysis of extracts from a Ghanaian comedy on YouTube, Nurse Awuni, which give rise to humor by identifying the violation of Grices (1975) cooperative principles and its maxims employed by the characters
The results indicate that the use of conversational implicature and its maxims is much more abundant than the use of presupposition
1 Since the inception of the discipline of linguistics, linguists have provided a comprehensive theory of language as a medium of communication of thoughts, feelings, as well as comedy
Summary
1 Since the inception of the discipline of linguistics, linguists have provided a comprehensive theory of language as a medium of communication of thoughts, feelings, as well as comedy To this end, a number of theories have been written according to the linguists‟ foci and interests. A number of theories have been written according to the linguists‟ foci and interests Among this approach is pragmatics, which spotlights on conversational implicature, as a process in which the speaker induces and a listener deduces. It studies how words can be interpreted differently depending on the circumstances. Yule (1985) explains pragmatics as a branch of language that focuses on how participants interpret what
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