UNCOVERING THE HUMOROUS ASPECT OF THE HUMOR IN "LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE" IN READER'S DIGEST MAGAZINE WITH THE SPEECH ACT THEORY AND THE HUMOR THEORIES

Abstract

This research was a descriptive qualitative study, attempting to uncover the humorous aspect of the humor in "Laughter, the Best Medicine" in Reader's Digest magazine with the Speech Act theory and the Humor theories. Thus, the problem of this research was "How do the Speech Act theory and the Humor theories uncover the humorous aspect of the humor in "Laughter, the Best Medicine" in Reader's Digest magazine?" The data were taken from the humor in "Laughter the Best Medicine" in Reader's Digest magazine from May 2002 to April 2003. The data were in the form of printed spoken discourse and were collected by employing proportional random sampling by lottery. Then, the data were analyzed with the Speech Act theory proposed by Austin (1962) and the Humor theories which consisted of the Superiority, theory, the Incongruity theory and the Relief theory. The research result showed that uncovering of the humorous aspect of the humor in "Laughter, the Best Medicine" in Reader's Digest magazine with the Speech Act theory could be done through the following steps: first, finding the locutionary act of the utterance; second, finding the illocutionary act of the utterance; third, finding the perlocutionary act or the effect on the hearer. The disclosure was also done using the Humor theories to know how the laughter was created. Thus, the disclosure was done by employing the three classes of the Humor theories whether the humor was in line with the Superiority theory, the Incongruity theory or the Relief theory. The result of the analysis showed that all the data could be uncovered with the Speech Act theory and the Humor theories. Based upon the findings, the Speech Act theory and the Humor theories were important because they could be used to uncover the humorous aspect of the humor in "Laughter, the Best Medicine" in Reader's Digest magazine.