Analysis of Context of Utterances in Some Humorous Scenes in 'The Simpsons'.

(1)

ABSTRACT

Penulisan Tugas Akhir ini dimaksudkan untuk memenuhi syarat lulus dan untuk memperoleh gelar Sarjana dari Jurusan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Kristen Maranatha. Penulis memilih film The Simpsons yang oleh banyak kritikus dinyatakan sebagai salah satu acara televisi terbaik dan dalam majalah TIME tahun 1998 dinyatakan sebagai serial komedi situasi televisi terbaik (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons, 2006: 1).

Film The Simpsons menceritakan kehidupan yang dialami masing-masing pribadi dalam keluarga Simpson. Banyak hal lucu yang mereka alami dalam kehidupan mereka. Hal-hal yang lucu tersebut baru dapat dipahami apabila ujaran-ujaran yang disajikan dihubungkan dengan konteks tertentu.

Penulis ingin menemukan konteks apa yang menyebabkan ungkapan-ungkapan dalam adegan-adegan film tersebut dianggap lucu. Untuk tujuan tersebut penulis memilih sejumlah adegan yang jelas lucu dalam episode Homer Barbershop Quartet. Setelah penulis mendata ungkapan-ungkapan dalam adegan-adegan tersebut, penulis menganalisis konteks yang menyertai ungkapan-ungkapan tersebut dengan menggunakan teori discourse analysis. Teori ini menyatakan bahwa bahasa dalam komunikasi tidak dapat dipisahkan dari konteksnya (Nunan, 1993: 6, 7, 20). Berdasarkan teori ini, ungkapan-ungkapan

UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN MARANATHA

(2)

(3)

APPENDICES

The appendices in this thesis consists of information about The Simpsons, including the descriptions of the characters, script of Homer’s Barbershop Quartet, a synopsis of Homer’s Barbershop Quartet, which is used as the source of data, and a table of analysis.

The Simpsons

The Simpsons is an animated sitcom which first appeared on American television on December 17, 1989. It is created by Matt Groening (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons, 2006:1). The names of the characters in the Simpsons are named after Groening’s sisters, mother, and father. Bart represents Groening’s name. The Simpsons tells about the daily life of each member of the family.

The Descriptions of Characters

(5)

Homer is a devoted husband who loves his family but he is thoughtless, irresponsible, and greedy. He works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

Abe, Homer’s father, is about seventy years old. He wears his false teeth and he cannot shut up his mouth. He is always talking, which makes people angry. Marge is Homer’s wife. She is intelligent and sympathetic and she is also a good housewife. Her daughter, Lisa is eight years old, but she is brilliant and sympathetic. She has such good manners, perceptions, and eloquence as of grown- up. Bart, the eldest child, is a ten-year-old boy, who is naughty and a notorious troublemaker. Maggie, the youngest daughter in the Simpsons, is smart and self-reliant.

There are other characters involved in the episode of Homer’s Barbershop Quartet, such as Moe, the owner of Moe’s bar; Milhouse and Nelson, Bart’s friends; Apu, a Hindu who works at Kwik-E-Mart; Seymour Skinner, the principal of Springfield Elementary School; Chief Wiggum, a Springfield police officer; Quimby, the mayor of Springfield; Timothy Lovejoy, the pastor of the local church; and Barney, a drunkard.

Synopsis of Homer’s Barbershop Quartet

Homer’s Barbershop Quartet tells about Homer’s past as a member of a singing group called the Be Sharps. One day in Springfield swap meet, everybody goes to the booths that offer second-hand goods. Bart and Lisa find an album of the Be Sharps. They find Homer’s photo on the front cover of the album and ask Homer about it. Homer tells them the story of his singing career eight years ago.

(6)

At first, Homer’s singing group consists of Apu, Chief Wiggum, and Principal Skinner. One day, a theatrical agent, Nigel comes to Homer and offers to represent his singing group. It is a great opportunity for them to be successful and it is also the time when Chief Wiggum must stop his singing career since the theatrical agent does not like him. Homer, Apu, and Principal Skinner try to find a new member to replace Chief Wiggum. They hear Barney singing in toilet and his voice is beautiful. Then a new group is formed, consisting of Homer, Apu, Barney, and Principal Skinner. They name their group the Be Sharps.

Many people like the Be Sharps’ songs and the group is successful until they have no more idea of how to write good songs. Now the Be Sharps disbands. Each member of the Be Sharps goes back to their former jobs.

(7)

Table of Analysis

Data Utterances Context

1 Bart: Religion?

Milhouse: learning?

Nelson: Let’s get out of here!

BKA

2 Lisa: Wow, an original Malibu Stacey from 1958! Oh…

Man: Yeah, they took her off the market after some kid put both his eyes out.

BKA

3 Marge: Your teenage son or daughter will think that this wishbone necklace is really cool!

Man: I doubt my son or daughter is that stupid?

PAR

4 Bart: Dad when did you record an album? Homer: I’m surprised you don’t remember son. It was only eight years ago.

BKA

5 Abe: That’s my son up there! Man: What the balding fat-ass? Abe: Uh, no, the…Hindu guy.

BKA

6 Apu: Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.

Nigel: Hmm. Never fit on a marquee, luv. From now on, your name is Apu de Beaumarchais.

Apu: That is a great dishonor to my ancestor and my god…but okay!

BKA

7 Moe: Those girls you paid to scream are doing a great job.

Nigel: I didn’t pay any girls to scream. Moe: Huh?!

BKA

8 Homer: What’d you kids get?

Bart: I bought this cool pencil holder.

Homer: Heh heh, far out man. I haven’t seen a bong in years. change our lives. I’ll be the same loving father as I’ve alw ays been.

Marge: Hmm, have you seen Bart? Homer: Ehh, I stuck him somewhere.

BKA

11 Homer: Look, what I get to you dad. Abe:Ohh, gimme the key.

BKA

(8)

12 Reporter: I have a question for Apu de Beaumarchais. Isn’t it true that you’re really an Indian?

Apu: By the many arms of Vishnu, I swear it is a lie.

BKA

13 Reporter: Barney! How did you join the group?

Barney: They found me on the men’s room floor.

BKA

14 Homer: We would like to dedicate this next number to a very special woman. She is a hundred years old and she weighs over two hundred …tons.

Man: This enormous woman will devour us all! Aah!

TS

15 Barney: David Crosby? You’re my hero! David: Oh, you like my music?

Barney: You’re a musician?

BKA

16 Homer: They took it off the market because they find out it was poisonous but if you’re dumb enough to eat it, you deserve to die. Bart!

Bart: What?

BKA

17 Apu: It may not be glamorous, but it’s good, honest work.

Woman: How much is this quart of milk? Apu: Twelve dollars.

BKA

18 Homer: Hey, fellows, I’m back…

Carl: Oh, that’s great. Your replacement was getting tired. Hey Queenie, you can go! Homer: I’ll give her a good home.

BKA

19 Homer: I’d like to thank you on behalf of the group, and I hope we passed the audition.

BKA

(9)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The Simpsons is an animated sitcom which began its debut on television on December 17, 1989. It consists of 17 seasons and 368 episodes. It was claimed by TIME magazine in 1998 that The Simpsons was the best television series of the 20th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons, 2006: 1).

The humorous scenes in The Simpsons are generally supported by the contexts because the language used in the scenes does not always contain humorous expressions. This is evident when we only read the script and do not watch the movie. To understand the humorous scenes, we have to learn about the participants (characters), the setting, the whole story, and the background of the Simpsons.

The characters that we need to know is, for example, Flanders, who is a fretful and annoying person. He always comments on the Bible and its rule. The setting of place in The Simpsons is usually at home, workplace, and school.

The background of the Simpsons consists of the family and their education. The members of the Simpsons are Abe, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The Simpsons belong to a middle class family. We can see it from their house,

(10)

which is quite big; it consists of four relatively large bedrooms. They have two cars; one is a station wagon and the other one is a sedan.

Homer is a high school graduate while Marge, Homer’s wife, is not clear whether she is a high school graduate or a college graduate, but she is known as an intelligent housewife. Bart is a fourth grader and Lisa is assumed to be a third grader.

With such background, I decide to choose the contexts of utterances in some humorous scenes in The Simpsons as the topic of my thesis. Generally, we know context as a situation when one utterance is said. In my analysis, I want to show that non-linguistic context is important in order to make one utterance humorous and without it, the utterance might not be humorous. I analyze my data, which are in the forms of utterances and their contexts, by using theories of discourse analysis and context based approach.

Statement of the Problem

In this thesis, I would like to discuss the following problems:

1. What utterances can be found in some humorous scenes in The Simpsons? 2. What types of context support the utterances in creating the humorous scenes

in The Simpsons? Purpose of the Study

In this thesis, I want to present:

1. the utterances found in some humorous scenes in The Simpsons.

(11)

Method of Research

To conduct this study, I have followed some steps. Since The Simpsons consists of a number of episodes, I chose the Homer’s Barbershop Quartet episode. I watched it several times in order to understand the story and the humorous scenes. After watching it several times, I looked for the script, which was available on the Internet. I did not write the script manually from the scenes because the utterances, which were in the forms of subtitles, were not always accurate. Some words may be missing, and some scenes were presented so fast that I did not have enough time to write it down. I used the script from the Internet in order to get more accurate data. After getting the script, I matched the scene in the film with the written utterance (script). Then, I selected the scenes which were humorous as well as the written utterances. In analyzing the contexts of the utterances in some humorous scenes, I collected the data and put them in sequence to make the analysis of the contexts easier to manage. The focus of my analysis is the utterances and their contexts in some humorous scenes. The result of the analysis is presented at the end of this thesis in the form of table.

Organization of the Thesis

This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One; which is preceded by the Preface, the Table of Contents and the Abstract, contains the Background of the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research, and the Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two presents the theories which are used to analyze the data of this study. Following is Chapter Three, the Analysis of the Contexts of Utterances in Some Humorous Scenes in The Simpsons. The Conclusion of the analysis is put in Chapter Four. This thesis ends

(12)

with the Bibliography, which contains the list of the sources of the theories used in this thesis. The Appendices in this thesis consist of a synopsis of The Simpsons, the script, and a table containing the result of the analysis.

(13)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

REFERENCES

Holy Bible NIV. Michigan: Zondervan,1989.

Humor. Wikipedia, A Free Encyclopedia. 6 March 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humor>

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition. Massachusetts: Springfield, 2002.

Nunan, David. Introducing Discourse Analysis. England: penguin Group, 1993. Schiffrin, Deborah. Approaches to Discourse. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994. Situation comedy. Wikipedia, A Free Encyclopedia. 17 March 2006

<http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitcoms>.

The Simpsons. Wikipedia, A Free Encyclopedia. 6 March 2006 <http://en. Wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons>.

Walton, Rick . What is Humor ?. 28 Sept 2003<http:// www.rickwalton.com/lang/whathumo.htm>.

(14)