Verbal humor in selected Indonesian stand up comedian’s discourse: Semantic analysis using GVTH

Abstract

Humor is inevitable and can be found in many aspects of human life. In Indonesia, stand-up comedy (SUC) becomes a trend proven by the existence of some talent competitions in this area. This study attempts to investigate verbal humor in SUC discourse by implementing general verbal theory of humor (GVTH). This study employed content analysis as the research design. The data were obtained from five selected audio-video recording of SUC of Dodit Mulyanto (DM) in SUCI4 program broadcasted by Metro TV. The data were in the form of utterances and transcription was processed and downloaded from Sonix.ai totaling to 29 data. The data were analyzed through some parameters namely script opposition (SO), logical mechanism (LM), situation (Si), target (Tar), narrative strategy (NS), and language (L). The findings reveal that logical mechanisms used in the data are various such as false analogy, fallacious reasoning, absurd neologism/interpretation, and word repetition. During his performance, simple narrative strategy is also used predominantly combined with dialogue style. As the target of the comedy, DM dominantly targeted himself/his life as the material delivered to the audience. This style is interpreted as a strategy to avoid insulting others and breaking someone’s face.