Implied message on short-text Humors of Reader’s Digest Magazine

ABSTRACT

This study is focused on implied message on short-text humors of Reader’s Digest magazine which is an online edition using Grice’s theory of implicature. Implicature is a component of speaker meaning that constitutes an aspect of what is meant in a speaker’s utterance without being part of what is said. The theory of implicature classifies implicature into conventional implicature and conversational implicature. Furthermore, conversational implicature distinguishes implicature into generalized and particularized conversational implicature. Based on that background, this study is conducted with the following problems: (1) What implicatures are found in short-text humors of in Reader’s Digest magazine?. (2). How does impli cature occur in short-text humors in Reader’s Digest magazine? This Study is conducted using a descriptive qualitative method based on Grice theory of implicature. The data are in the form of transcript of short-text humors of Reader’s Digest magazine.

Data analysis revealed some findings covering the formulated Study questions. Firstly, the joke is a kind of conventional implicature when the speaker (writer) is closely related to the lexical item. And it is non-truth conditional inference that are not derived from maxims. Secondly, the short-text humors of Reader’s Digest magazine is a kind of conversational implicature since the humors are in the form of conversation. While the speaker (writer) obeys or violates maxims. Thirdly, the jokes is a kind of generalized conversational implicature when the speaker made the jokes is one which does not depend on particular features of the context. Since the jokes are clear, the hearers can guess the intended message based on their general knowledge. Fourthly, the joke is a kind of particularized conversational implicature when the speaker made the joke is one which depends on particular features of the context. The hearers are required to hear the explanation from the speaker in order to understand the context of the jokes.

The last, the implicature are applied by obeying maxim of quantity, quality, relation and manner. The joke obeys maxim of quantity when the speaker does not give information than is required. And the speaker obeys maxim of quality when the speaker tries to make the jokes one that is true especially the speaker does not say what the speaker believes to be false and the speaker does not say that for which he lacks adequate evidence. Since the speaker made some contributions which are not relevant with the topic discussed means that the speaker obeys maxim of relation. Furthermore, the joke obeys maxim of manner when the speaker avoids prolixity and obscurity of expression.