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Library's collection Library's IT development CancelHumour and jokes can be found everyday, everywhere, in magazines,
newspapers and in human beings' daily lives across cultures. Their many
functions in the society have already been realised, as they are used openly and
frequently in a vast range of relationships. Therefore, the abilities to understand
jokes eloquently are very much needed. It is too bad that it is easier said than
done.
Evidences have shown that it is very difficult to do so competently, moreover if
we have to do it in a complete different world and culture from ours. This
particular language function assumed to be very easy to do, all of a sudden turn
into a major obstacle in life. Therefore, the writer was interested in analysing this
topic, humour and jokes, especially American two-liner jokes from the linguistic
point of view. Not only she did it because there were still a few studies about this
topic, but also because she wanted to try to help foreign language learners to be
able to perform this language function of understanding humour better. It would
be even wonderful if they can master this particular language function.
The writer was curious, first of all, to find out what actually makes the American
two-liner jokes understandable or even funny. Secondly, she wanted to know
which of the three manipulations that create the funniness in those two-liner jokes
that occurred most. The purpose of doing this study were not only to satisfy her
own curiosity, but she also wanted to find solutions for non-native speakers of
English to overcome the many difficulties they face in understanding similar
jokes. The data are gathered from the Internet and finally selected and narrowed
down into thirty-five jokes randomly. These jokes were analysed using the
theories of semantics, which consisted of the theory of lexical and phonetic
ambiguity and also, discourse analysis's theory of background knowledge. This
study was a qualitative study. The writer gathered, selected and analysed the data
to answer her curiositiy above. In achieving her purpose, the writer divided the
study into three-step analyses. The first discussed the analyses of all the data to
find out what manipulation or manipulations were used to create the funniness of
the joke. The second step showed how the results of the first analyses were put
into table. From the first and second analysis, the writer discovered that the
manipulation of background knowledge was the most frequently used and most
importantly mechanisms in creating the funniness in the jokes It can be inferred
that background knowledge is indeed very important in understanding two-liner
jokes. Without sufficient backround knowledge, readers, in this case, the non-native
speakers of English will never be able to understand, moreover to think of
this type of joke funny.