Analysis of Language Play Found in The TV Series 'Friends'.

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ABSTRACT

Permainan bahasa merupakan hal yang umum dan menyenangkan yang dapat kita jumpai dalam komunikasi sehari-hari, khususnya dalam komunikasi informal. Dalam permainan bahasa, seseorang dapat menciptakan kata-kata baru melalui berbagai proses, seperti penggabungan dua kata menjadi satu kata baru, penambahan akhiran, pemotongan kata, bahkan penggabungan dua kata dalam bahasa yang berbeda pun mungkin dilakukan. Efek yang ditimbulkan dari permainan bahasa sehari-hari pun bermacam-macam; salah satunya adalah untuk menciptakan kelucuan sehingga membuat orang tertawa. Untuk mendapatkan sebuah arti dan juga merasakan kelucuan dari permainan bahasa ini, diperlukan konteks cerita dari permainan bahasa itu sendiri.

Friends adalah sebuah Serial TV yang dikategorikan ke dalam jenis komedi. Salah satu unsur pembangun kelucuan dalam komedi tersebut adalah penggunaan permainan bahasa seperti blending, clipping, mimes.

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Universitas Kristen Maranatha

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK_{……….…..}

CHAPTER III_:ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE PLAY

FOUND IN THE TV SERIES FRIENDS_{………...…}

CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION_……….

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APPENDICES

leader who is also an entertainer

b. Compounding -“sous”stand (“sous”+stand) d. Clipping -Plicit

(Explicit)

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39

2. Semantics a. Associations -An Affair to Remember

c. Allusion -Sophie’s choice (Sophie’s choice)

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

It is known that nowadays people are busy with their daily activities. For that reason, they find many ways to refresh their mind. One of the popular ways is to watch TV series or comedy films. One example of this is the TV series Friends. Friends was made in 1994 and was created in 10 seasons. Friends is a situation

comedy about six best friends having their time together and their interactions with other people that take place mostly in New York. Just like in real life, these best friends share about love, sex and careers in life and they always support one another whenever things get rough in their lives. It is about how friends become a family. The story is quite simple, in which the setting of place is mostly in their apartment rooms or in the coffee house, Central Perk.

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Universitas Kristen Maranatha 2

and another 55 wins & 145 nominations <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108778> including the categories of Outstanding Comedy, Best Television Series, and Favourite Comedy Series. Based on an American survey, the show has become the number-one comedy on television among adults aged 18-49 for five years in a row. <http://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film745443.html> All the facts here show that people love watching it and this is mainly because the show is a comedy which tells about everyday life. The story can happen to anyone, moreover to the US people who have similar lifestyles with the characters in Friends: living together with people from different races in a flat, and struggling to survive in the real world and supporting one another through the pressures of life. Besides, all the major and minor characters have unique characteristics that make the audience interested in each of them. They have their special characteristics so that the story is not boring. One of the things that make their style of speech funny is the use of language play and that explains why I choose the film to be the source of my analysis for my thesis, entitled Language Play Found in the TV Series Friends.

By ‘language play’, I mean to analyze the new terms used by the main characters. This includes words that are already used in daily conversations but here, in Friends, more variations are added, for example the process of adding a suffix or the use of mimes. There are also some newly invented terms that have never been created before.

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make the usual words and terms become more interesting, to make the audience laugh, is one of the things that make me eager to analyze this TV series. I am curious because the script writer’s ideas are brilliant, for they are always original, outstanding, and the most important thing is, they can be well delivered to the audience. All these qualities make me put high interest in Friends.

Language play is manipulation of language (Crystal, 1998: 1). Language play is language used for fun and it usually arises rather spontaneously.

<http://www.enc.edu/org/teacher-ed/literacy/languageplayactivities.htm> In order to find out the meaning of language play, someone has to pay attention to the context of communication; therefore, I use Pragmatics as the linguistic area which deals with meaning, context, and communication (Schriffrin, 1994: 190). Using this approach, I will analyze the intended speaker’s meaning of saying or using the new terms based on the context of the situation that the characters are in.

I use Semantics as an approach in analyzing the data. Semantics is the study of language meaning (Heasley, 1983: 1). To be more specific, the aspects of Semantics I focus on are mimes and associations. Mimes are ‘…phonetic similitude, usually rhymes, with the appeal of homophones’ (Nash, 1994:139). Associations are ‘a connection made in the mind between different things, ideas, etc’ (Longman Dictionary: 1978: 54). Allusion is ‘a reference to a well-known or familiar person, geographical place, event, literary work, author, work of art, or historical idea’ <http://www.lovetolearnplace.com/Curriculum/Literary/Allusion.html>.

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<http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=186 1631275> The analysis of my data includes the morphological process of blending, that is how to join two different words becoming one word that has one meaning from both words; compounding, the joining of two roots; affixation, which includes the adding of suffixes and clipping, a reduction of words into a shorter form (Yule, 1985:66).

I analyze the forms of the language play in Friends through morphological processes and I analyze the meanings of the words using semantic processes. Through these two processes, it is shown that the words which are just common words with common meanings and common word formation processes will become uncommon and funny after knowing how such words or terms are used in the context. That is why this analysis cannot be separated from the pragmatic aspects.

Statement of the Problem

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

1. _{What are the words containing language play found in the TV series Friends?} 2. _{What linguistic processes form the words?}

3. _{What are the contextual meanings of the words?}

4. _{How do the words create a funny atmosphere in the TV Series?}

Purpose of the Study

In the thesis I would like to show:

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2. The linguistic processes forming the words. 3. The contextual meanings of the words.

4. How the words create a funny atmosphere in the TV Series. Methods of Research

In analyzing the data, I first watch several episodes of Friends TV series. Then I collect the words containing language play as the data. After that, I select and classify the data into several categories. Then I analyze them, focusing on the pragmatic, semantic and morphological aspects.

Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

Friends is a successful comedy TV Series and people love it for it shows daily

situation. The setting, the characteristics of the characters, and the problems can actually be real things surrounding us and it can happen to anybody. In other words, Friends brings up reality. It shows comedy and also romantic things that is

understandable and simple to enjoy. Besides the things that have already been mentioned, there is one definite factor that makes this TV Series get high rating, namely it can really make people laugh and one of the important factors that build this humor is its language.

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In the analysis of Language Play in the TV Series Friends, I use Pragmatics as the big area since it is dealing with meaning, context, and communication and every data is related to them. The data also contain the process of blending, compounding, affixation, and clipping which are included in the morphological processes. Mimes, associations, and allusion which are included in Semantics, are also used.

After analyzing the data I have gathered in Friends, I conclude that the mostly used linguistic aspect is Morphology, specifically blending. Blending is the process of making two words into one. Blending process is successful in making new words that are funny and original. Friends can make this process look natural and the outcome can be accepted as funny. Moreover, it is funny and special because the new words that have one new meaning actually comes from two different words which have different meanings from two different words like ministainer. It can also create word that sounds like a person’s name which actually has funny meaning like Blursula and a new job category like manny. Blending can make us aware that

actually the words that we are playing with are words that have already been familiar to us. For example, we are very familiar with the word fried-chicken but we never thought about how such a simple word is changed into the simpler version through the blending process. The blending of the word fried-chicken into fricken is actually sensible. It just feels weird and funny because it is uncommonly used.

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What makes Friends so special is that the TV Series is successful in creating new terms through language play. The words that have existed for so long are created into new ones through many ways. This shows that language is dynamic. It is changing and improving through time.

There is another purpose that the language play in Friends is created. The language play in this TV Series is used to emphasize the characteristics of the characters. For example the term Mississippi-ly that is said by Ross is used to emphasize Ross’s characteristic that is s till childish. He used to be very spoiled by his parents when he was a little boy because he was considered the cleverest among the children and this time he counts in the Mississippi way instead of counting in the ordinary way. Apparently, his ‘old day character’ is never gone. Another example is when Joey shows his naïve characteristic in the example of Joey’s apple. Besides building the funny atmosphere, the language play in Friends is also used to mock (Gary Poppins), to seduce (Officer Handsome and Officer Petty), to show jealousy (Sluts-R-Us, Manny), and to be sarcastic (An Affair to Remember, US Lost Office). All are done in funny way.

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the language play. For example: ministainer, manny, pathet, An Affair to Remember, Sluts-R-us and Gary Poppins. However, according to my analysis in Chapter III,

apparently all of the characters have used at least one language play in the TV Series. Therefore, it shows how important the role of language play is in the TV Series and since it is a comedy, the purpose is of course to build the funny atmosphere.

The use of language play in Friends is somehow to make people aware of the fact that they can be creative with the language. This analysis somehow makes me realize that words do not have certain rules and boundaries. We are free to play with language. We can also combine two or more languages into one word. The example is the word ‘sous-stand’, which Phoebe says. It may not be in any dictionaries, but if we know the meaning of the two words, we can easily understand it.

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Primary Source:

Bright, Kevin. S, Martha Kauffman, and David Crane. Friends. DVD. New York: