ANALYSIS OF WORDPLAY IN JERRY SEINFELD’S “I'm Telling You For The Last Time” Stand-Up Show
THESIS
By;
AMRY BELADIN GUSWAKHIDA (09360233)
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
i This thesis written by Amry Beladin Guswakhida was approved on March
27th, 2014.
ii This thesis was defended in front of the examiners of the Faculty of Teacher
Training and Education of University of Muhammadiyah Malang
and accepted as one of the requirements to achieve
Sarjana Degree in English Education
March 27th, 2014
Approved by:
Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
iii Motto and Dedication
Motto
A Sword that can cut anything is not a sword.
A Sword that can cut nothing can cut anything.
Dedication
I dedicated this thesis to:
My beloved parents (Akhiyadi & Mariyah)
My brother and sister
(Fridho Tatar Junior & Shalasanty Asprila Maharani)
The special one (Novita Ayu Safitri)
And for all Classmate also all of my friends
iv ABSTRACT
ANALYSIS OF WORDPLAY IN JERRY SEINFELD’S “I'm Telling You for The Last Time”Stand-Up Show
Language takes the important parts in human life. To begin communication people use the language as a best way to communicate each other, especially to share the information, knowledge, experience and culture. One of the language that promises to connect the people around the world is English, since it established to be an international language. Moreover the interaction in social communication frequently bought vary topics, and sometimes the uses of joke cannot be avoided even in serious communication it can be used. A jokes in Stand-up comedy just similar to the jokes in social life, the differences located on the condition of the joke that may apply, in stand-up comedy jokes that delivers by the comedian seems like a story telling. The stand-up comedians use figurative language as a basic tactics and weapon for their joking material. The uses of figurative language help the joke tellers to express their real intention without using direct and offensive language. Wordplay, ambiguous terms, and implication are only some of the techniques which expresses the joke tellers' aggressiveness and to presenting their joke material. Furthermore, figurative language also have the contribution to shared knowledge.
This study focuses on wordplays that apply in Jerry Seinfeld's “I'm Telling You for The Last Time” Stand-Up Show. There are three statement of problems in this study. Those are: (1) What are the wordplays in Jerry Seinfeld's “I'm Telling You for the Last Time” stand-up show?, (2) How does Seinfeld deliver wordplays in “I'm Telling You for the Last Time” stand-up show?, (3) Why does Seinfeld use the wordplays as a part of his joke in “I'm Telling You for the Last Time” stand-up show?
This study used descriptive qualitative research design. The object of this study was in Jerry Seinfeld's “I'm Telling You for The Last Time” Stand-Up Show.After analyzing all objects of the study, the writer found out that the use of wordplay such have an effort to make the words more interesting, by using the certain word and compare with the similar word, the result is misinterpreting or miscomprehension from audience and they appreciate with the laughter. With this the writer gain a new perspective from a stand-up comedy.
v ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alaamin,The writer thanks and grateful to Allah SWT the
almighty who blesses him by His mercy and loves so that he is able to finish this
thesis. He also wants to convey sholawat and greeting to his greatest prophet
Muhammad SAW who has changed the cultures and customs of the human and
guided the mankind into the right path of Islam.
This research will not be finished without help and guidance from the other people
around the writer. The writer would like to thank to his parents; Akhiyadi and
Mariyah who always give supports in conducting this research. The greatest grateful
is always bestowed from the writer to his advisor Mr. Dian Arsitades, M.Pd and Mr.
Drs. Mas'udi, M.Ed who have patiently guided him in finishing this.
The last gratitude is bestowed to all friends who accompany by their appearance in
supporting the writer to finish this research.
This thesis is submitted to fulfill the requirement to achieve Bachelor Degree of
English Department. The writer hopes this thesis could be beneficial for educational
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
LEGALIZATION ... i
APPROVAL ...ii
MOTTO AND DEDICATION ... iii
ABSTRACT ... iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENT ... v
TABLE OF CONTENT ... vi
CHAPTER I 1.1Background of Study ... 1
1.2Statement of Problem ... 4
1.3Research Objective ... 4
1.4Scope and Limitation ... 5
1.5Key terms ... 5
CHAPTER II 2.1Language ... 7
2.2Linguistic ... 10
2.3Stand-up Comedy ... 11
2.4Figurative Language ... 14
CHAPTER III 3.1Research Design ... 18
3.2Object of Study ... 19
3.3Data Collection ... 20
3.4Data Analysis ... 20
CHAPTER IV 4.1Findings ... 21
4.2Discussion ... 25
CHAPTER V 5.1Conclusion ... 27
5.2Suggestions ... 28
REFFERENCE ... vii
vii
REFERENCES
Allen, Steve. 1998. How to be funny. Discovering the comic in you. Prometheus Books.
Ary, Donald. 2006. Introduction to Research in Education, 8th Edition. Wadsworth. USA
Attardo, Salvatore. 1993. Violation of conversational maxims and cooperation: The case of jokes. New York
Bogdan, Robert C. and Sari Knopp Biklen. 2003. Qualitative Research in Education:
an Introduction tTheory and Methods, Fourth Edition. Pearson Education
Group. Boston
Claridge, Claudia. 2011. Hyperbole in English A Corpus-based Study of
Exaggeration.Cambridge University Press. UK
Double, Oliver. 2005. Getting the joke. The inner workings of stand-up comedy. London
Hybels. 2004. Communicating Effectively 9th Edition. McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences, Languages,Health & Human Performance.
Katz, Albert, Christina Cacciari, Raymond Gibbs and Mark Turner. 1998. Figurative
Language and figurative thought. Oxford University Press. New York
Limon, John. 2000. Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America. Duke University Press. Durham and London
Radford, Andrew, Martin Atkinson, David Britain, Harald Clahsen, And Andrew Spencer. 2009. Linguistics An Introduction Second Edition. Cambridge University Press. USA
Ross, Alison. 1998. The language of humour. London: Routledge.
1 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter contains: background of study, statement of problem, purpose of
study, significance of study, scope and limitation, definition of key term, and
previous study. Each of them will be as follow.
1.1 Background
Language takes the important parts in human life. To begin communication
people uses the language as a best way to connect each other, especially to share the
information, knowledge, experience and culture. One of the language that promises to
connect the people around the world is English, since it established to be an
international language.
Wardhaugh (2005:1) argues that any discussion of the relationship between
language and society, or of the various functions of language in society, should begin
with some attempts to define each of these terms. Society is any groups of people
who are drawn together for a certain purpose or purposes. By such a definition
‘society’ becomes a very comprehensive concept, it revealed how useful such a
comprehensive view is because of the very different kinds of societies this course of
various discussion are considerable. Comprehensive definition of language is
attempted equally: a language is what the members of a particular society speak.
However, speech in almost any society can take many very different forms, and just
2 language of a society may prove to be a contentious matter. Sometimes society may
use plurilingual; that is, many speakers may use more than one language, to define
language. Moreover the definitions of language and society are not independent: the
definition of language includes in it a reference to society.
The people interaction in social communication frequently bought vary topics,
and sometime the uses of joke can’t be avoided even in serious communication. A
joke in Stand-up comedy just similar with the jokes in social life, the difference is
located on the condition of the joke that apply, in stand-up comedy joke deliver in a
show and the comedian deliver joke by their self just like story telling.
According to Double (2005:20), the history of stand-up comedy originated
from the work of jesters, commedia dell' arte, Shakespearean clowns, British music
hall comedians, and American vaudeville entertainers. Double also mentions late 19th
- century lecturers such as Mark Twain, who started to entertain their audiences
successfully by telling humorous stories and jokes and by creating uneducated
characters who spoke in strong dialect.
Attardo (2001:62) calls stand-up comedy "a highly artificial, scripted genre." It
represents a genre in which a single comedian comes on stage with a microphone and
starts a performance in front of an audience. The comedian's performance principally
consists of a succession of short joking stories and one-liners that are usually
3 Stand-up comedians use figurative language as a basic strategy and weapon for
their joking material. The uses of figurative language help the joke tellers to express
their real intention without using direct and offensive language. Wordplay,
ambiguous terms, and implication are only some of the techniques which can be used
to express the joke tellers' aggressiveness and to accomplish presenting their joke
material. Furthermore, figurative language also have contribution to shared
knowledge.
Stand-up comedy deliver the differences in the term of using the words in their
speech, the comedian use the wordplay to entertain the audience by using the double
meaning in their jokes. Ross (1998:7) emphasizes the importance of the double
meaning of a word when he states that "an ambiguity, or double meaning, which
deliberately misleads the audience" can be considered "the most obvious feature of
much humor." Wordplay can be performed in various forms, including punning,
sarcasm, mocking, or banter. In his stand-up show Seinfeld engage the audience by
using the wordplay technique and playing the meaning of the certain words.
“Linguistic Aspects of Verbal Humor in Stand-up Comedy” by Jeannine
Schwarz (2010). Schwarz analyzed the Steven Wright performance, and characterize
the Wright personalities, humor technique, examining the style, and the joke strategy.
She found out humor theory and joke strategy in Steven Wright performance such as;
ridicule, hyperbole, self-depreciation, repetition, wordplay, and etc. Schwarz do her
4 The Schwarz research has been inspired the writer to do the research about the
wordplay in Jerry Seinfeld’s “I’m Telling You for the Last Time” stand-up show,
although the writer just focused on the wordplays. Moreover the wordplay being the
interest of the writer because, the writer though it such genius technique to pull the
laughter by use this technique.
1.2. Statement of Problem
Based on the background of study the problem of the research are:
1.2.1. What are the wordplays in Jerry Seinfeld’s “I’m Telling
You for the Last Time” stand-up show?
1.2.2. How does Seinfeld deliver wordplays in “I’m Telling You
for the Last Time” stand-up show?
1.2.3. Why does Seinfeld use the wordplays as a part of his joke in
“I’m Telling You for the Last Time” stand-up show?
1.3. Research Objective
The objectives of this research are based on the problem stated, they are:
1.3.1 To find out the term of wordplays used in Jerry Seinfeld’s
5 1.3.2 To study how the terms of wordplays applied for the
certain words in Jerry Seinfeld’s “I’m Telling You for the Last
Time” stand-up show.
1.3.3 To find out the cause of wordplays used as a joke technique
by Seinfeld in “I’m Telling You for the Last Time” stand-up
show.
1.4 Scope and Limitation
In this study, the writer focuses the study on wordplay as the humor
terms in Jerry Seinfeld’s – I’m Telling You for the Last Time stand-up
show.
The limitation of this study is on the words that Seinfeld uses as
wordplay in “I’m Telling You for the Last Time stand-up show”.
1.5 Significance of the Research
This research is expected to be useful to gain the new point of view in
sociolinguistic especially the wordplay as humor term which is applied in
the Seinfeld “I’m Telling you for the Last Time” stand-up show. Moreover
this research is expected to inform the readers if there is a relation between
6 Also, this research is considerable to be references to the following
analyses especially for students of English Department.
1.6. Key Terms
1. Wordplay: The ambiguity or double meaning to make certain word
to be funny (Ross 1998:7), by comparing the word with the similar
word and use it as a joke material.
2. Comic: The person who perform stand-up as a single comedian
comes on stage with a microphone and starts a performance in front of
an audience (Attardo 2001:62). The comedian that do the joke and
deliver by their own character
3. Stand-up: The comedian's performance principally consists of a
succession of short joking stories and one-liners that are usually
presented in a monologue without interruptions by the audience
(Attardo 2001:62). Comedian that tell story or do the jokes.
4. Stand-up show: The show that presents the comedian to do such
individual jokes and telling story or make fun of it on a stage. The
show can be held as a parade or single show.
5. Jerry Seinfeld: American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and
