Being a stand-up comedian with medical issue requires the ability to apply certain techniques to create humor when performing stand-up comedy. Josh Blue (JB) is one of those well-known stand-up comedians diagnosed with cerebral palsy. This study aims to investigate the linguistics aspects applied by JB in delivering his jokes and how these aspects relate to identity JB wants to present. This research employed a qualitative descriptive method to analyze the data. The results reveal that JB uses irony in his stand-up comedy. In terms of linguistic features, JB mostly applies silent pause, while in joke technique JB applies self-ridicule. These findings suggest that the linguistics aspects used by JB present that disability can be a special identity that affects people’s perception and their ways of interaction with other people. JB linked each of his experience of being disabled by wrapping it well as his joke technique. JB has privilege in processing his disability into a primacy in joke technique without sounding condescending and even sarcastic.
From year to year, the world of stand-up comedy keep growing and even has expanded widely todays. According to
This research is conducted to reveal how JB applies the linguistics aspects as his strategies in performing stand-up comedy, especially in his performance Being Disabled Has Its Perks in 2021. This performance was chosen by researchers due to the reason this performance shows and sparks the most about identity that JB wanted to show as it is what the researchers seek for. In this research, the researchers limit the linguistics aspects into three parts such as figurative languages (Abrams, 1999), linguistic features (MacGregor, 2008), and joke techniques (Schwarz, 2010). As a type of verbal humor, it is common that a stand-up comedy performance involves these three elements to create humor and deliver certain messages.
Figurative language deals with words or phrases that do not represent precisely what is written or spoken. Figurative language is the use of words that have meanings that are not literal. According to Abrams (1999), several types of figurative language include simile, hyperbole, personification, irony, allusion, sarcasm, and symbol. They can be described as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
In terms of linguistic features, according to MacGregor (2008), it can be classified into silent pause, filled pause, repetitions, repairs, prolongations, and lexical fillers.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Ridicule is one of joke techniques used by stand-up comedians (Schwarz, 2010). Wilson as cited in Heidari-Shahreza & Masaeli (2017) breaks down ridicule as follows:
1.
2.
3.
In relation to humor and identity, Lowe as cited in (Setyaningsih, 2013) asserts that humor is important in shaping group identity and solidarity. There are two types of identity according to Burke & Stets (2009), namely lower identity and higher identity. The lower identity is a control mechanism that works to align people's views of situations with the lower identity's goals. On the other hand, the higher identity refers to a control system that acts to manage its perceptions by modifying the lower identity standard, to the extent that the lower identity modifies the meaning perceived or controlled by the higher identity (Burke & Stets, 2009). Social behavior is not directly controlled by higher identities. This identity has perceptions, comparators, and standards; however, its action is to control the "lower" identities’ standards or objectives. The lower identity acts to match the meaning in the situation with the meaning held in its standard (its goal), but the meaning is determined by the higher identity. Therefore, what the lower identities do is determined by the higher identities' aims. As in some ways the higher identities control the lower identities, they cannot conflict. Meanwhile, the lower identity serves the higher identity. The higher identity does not instruct the lower identity on how to verify itself; rather, it instructs the lower identity on which meanings should be validated.
Meanwhile, studies on comedy, figurative language, and identity have been done by several scholars. Handika et al. (2019) analyze the kinds of minority figurative language majors used in stand-up comedy by Hasan Minhaj. The results show that minority figurative language was broken down into metaphors, similes, metonymy, irony, allegory, personification, and hyperbole. Utami (2018) tries to identify the pragmatic and linguistic strategies, humor functions, and the community’s responses towards humor strategies of children comedians in the Stand-Up Comedy program. The results reveal that the dominant pragmatic strategies used are presuppositions, maxim violation, and implicature. Meanwhile, the linguistic strategies that are dominantly found are nonsense, ridicule, irony, and misunderstanding. The function of humor which is dominantly found is to provide understanding to the public to find solutions to an issue in ways that are presented in a pleasant way. However, people think that a few spoken words incline to set a bad example since they come across as disrespectful and patronizing.
Abujbarah (2019) examines what disabilities comedians achieve in their humor and what non-disabled audiences learn from attending their shows. The result shows that comedians with disabilities use their life experiences to convey their humor. Comedians with disabilities are aware that they belong to an oppressed minority community and they reflect their experiences in their humor. Lockyer (2015) analyze the thematic analysis of material and ideological motives, intentions, and life experiences of comedians with disabilities. This research concludes that even though stand-up comedy is not a simple process, stand-up comedy performed by comedians with disabilities have the potential to be a strong weapon for challenging and renegotiating hegemonic norms around disability.
Yuniar (2013) explores
Bamgbose (2019) examines linguistic devices, humor strategies, and multimodal cues deployed by characters in Jenifa’s Diary and Professor JohnBull, with the aim of identifying various categories of humor and taking into account the linguistic complexity of humor creation in character dialogue. This study found that layering and related concepts, implicatures and audience responsibilities, and assumptions from previous discourse processing, and stereotypical cultural representations were humor strategies used. The joking frame is conveyed through the manipulation of the properties of texts and the sociocultural factors such as sense relations and shared knowledge. The humor potential of these linguistic devices is foregrounded through the techniques of punning, allusion, retort, putdowns, teasing and register clash. The practice of warning, informing, advising and satirizing addresses domestic violence, indecent dressing, electioneering and state of infrastructures in Nigeria.
Dynel (2009) characterizes several semantic and pragmatic types of verbal humor, primarily those which cannot be reduced to (canned) jokes. The study finds that verbal humor could be divided into two types namely jokes and conversational humor, which contain a variety of semantic-pragmatic categories like lexemes, phrasemes, witticisms, retorts, teasing, banter, putdowns, self-denigrating humor, and anecdotes. It is also demonstrated that the categories are not mutually exclusive, and that there is some overlap between them, as well as the possibility of combining the categories in certain cases of humor. In addition, using witticism as an example, some language formulations are offered, with puns, irony, and allusions being the most prominent.
Other studies concern on figurative language in songs and newspaper article. Arifah (2016) analyzes the meaning of figurative language in five songs by John Legend. Hyperbole was the most dominant type of figurative language because an exaggeration is used for special effect. Sutrisno & Putri (2017) intend to find the kinds of figurative language and the general meaning in selected lyrics of Justin Timberlake song. The results do not only show the figurative language, but also its meaning. The figurative language found consists of symbol, metaphor, personification, and simile. Arfani & Damayanti (2019) seek to find the figurative language in Katy Perry song. This paper concludes that there are five types of figurative language found in Katy Perry’s song. The figurative language found consists of alliteration, idiom, metaphor, simile, and onomatopoeia. Armuzad (2017) analyzes the use of figurative language in sport rubric of The Jakarta Post newspaper. The result shows that the function of figurative language is to shorten the writing, to give a deeper meaning, to create a larger effect and stress to a specific point, and to stimulate ideas, associations, and to give an extra information to the reader. In nearly similar vein, Putri et al. (2016) also explores figurative language, especially in Russel Peter’s stand-up comedy. This study finds that various topics were presented, among others are those dealing with ethnicity, issues in society, and culture. In the humor delivery, irony and hyperbole are mostly used to attract the audience’s attention. Hyperbole is used to make the joke less aggressive and indirect. In addition, figurative language is used to add creativity in Russell Peter’s stand-up comedy performance.
Rostami et al. (2021) concerns on identity issue by focusing on multiple facets of the professional identities of Iranian in-service teachers in exceptional schools. The study indicates that possessing a positive collective identity can downplay the lower identity perceptions by the teachers. Fadlilah (2022) identify Chris Rock’s identity through his humor in stand-up comedy. This paper found several identities in Chris Rock’s stand-up comedy, such as not being prominent in politics, not being a religious person, believing in racism, having a bad personality but learning through experience, and being a responsible person. Setyaningsih (2014) focuses on identity as produced in linguistic interaction on the Twitter account of @AsliSemarang. The finding of this study suggests that the linguistic elements used in the Twitter posts index and maintain the local identity of the speakers of Semarangan Javanese.
As can be seen from the previous studies above, there has not been any research that analyzes and links linguistics aspects and identity in the realm of comedy. Exploring identity is necessary as stand-up comedians have their own characteristics in performing and representing their persona on stage. Reciprocally in this case, this study gives a certain identification to Josh Blue, a comedian with disability, to find the special identity he represents and power that he uses as a disabled person by examining the linguistics aspects he employs. Besides, some previous studies above only focus on one aspect while in this research, the researchers analyze the three aspects. This research attempts to fill in the gap from the aforementioned studies as it is aimed at examining the linguistics aspects applied in a stand-up comedy performance and looking at to how these aspects can relate to identity presented by a comedian with disability.
This research used a qualitative descriptive method to analyze the data. A qualitative research involves the inductive investigation of the data to identify repeating themes, patterns, or concepts and the description and interpretation of the data (Nassaji, 2015). Meanwhile, (Sulistyo, 2019) explained that descriptive method is a research method that seeks to describe the condition of the object of research in accordance with the conditions found or observed in the field. In this case, the researchers observed the data and made categories, then elaborate the data analysis by using descriptions instead of statistical procedures.
The data source of this study was taken from a video downloaded from YouTube platform on
In this research, the analysis follows the frameworks proposed by Abrams (1999) to analyze figurative languages, MacGregor (2008) on linguistic features, Schwarz (2010) on joke techniques. Furthermore, the analysis on linguistics aspects used by JB and identity JB wants to present followed the framework proposed by Burke and Stets (2009). In addition, besides focusing on the verbal aspects, non-verbal aspects were considered to support the analysis.
This section elaborates the research results and discussion in order to answer the research purpose. The purpose of this research is to examine the comedy material applied by the subject to have a further result about the identity conveyed by the subject. This study particularly focuses on linguistics aspects and identity shown by JB. Based on the analysis, the results of linguistics aspects can be classified below.
| No | Linguistics Aspects | ∑ | % | |
| Type | Sub-type | |||
| 1 | Figurative Language | Irony | 15 | 6% |
| Hyperbole | 8 | 3% | ||
| Allusion | 4 | 2% | ||
| Sarcasm | 12 | 5% | ||
| Simile | 4 | 2% | ||
| Personification | 2 | 1% | ||
| Sub-total | 43 | 18% | ||
| 2 | Linguistics Features | Silent pause | 65 | 26% |
| Filled pause | 31 | 13% | ||
| Repetitions | 6 | 2% | ||
| Repairs | 2 | 1% | ||
| Prolongations | 16 | 7% | ||
| Lexical fillers | 29 | 12% | ||
| Sub-total | 149 | 61% | ||
| 3 | Joke Techniques | Private ridicule | 20 | 8% |
| Shared ridicule | 4 | 2% | ||
| Self-ridicule | 28 | 11% | ||
| Sub-total | 52 | 21% | ||
| TOTAL | 246 | 100% | ||
Table 1 describes the total summary of linguistics aspects used by JB in delivering the jokes in his performance. Of 347 lines, 246 lines are identified and qualified as linguistics aspects. The findings consist of figurative language (18%), linguistics features (61%), and joke techniques (21%). In figurative language, the most dominant type is irony. This happens because JB often shares his experience implicitly. This appears to be what creates laughter to audience. In linguistics features, the most dominant type is silent pause. This is because JB’s jokes are so funny that most of audiences cannot stop laughing, therefore JB had to wait until the audiences become calm in order to start new topic and avoid sounds colliding with the audiences. In joke technique, the most dominant type is self-ridicule. This is because most topics that JB shared are about his condition of being disabled. Further explanation is described in detail as follows.
In JB’s performance, figurative language is found in the forms of irony (15), personification (2), hyperbole (8), allusion (4), sarcasm (12), and simile (4). Some examples are presented below.
a. Irony
Irony refers to a speech or circumstance in which the meaning contradicts the appearance or presentation of an idea. Irony is the used in comedy because humor is resulted from what is common becoming unusual or what is familiar becoming unfamiliar. JB uses irony as can be seen in Excerpt 1.
Excerpt 1
318JB: That's the great thing about having a
319disability. When you have one, you can
320have them all.
(mins. 22:19- 22:27)
In Excerpt 1, JB uses irony to describe his feeling. In the context, JB apologizes if he says something that offends the audience. In case he does offend some people, he acknowledges that he also has the Tourette syndrome but he does not. He claims that is a great thing to have a disability. If the audience have one, they have them all. This sentence shows irony since it does not intend the actual facts. It is not a great thing to have any kind of disability.
b.Hyperbole
In JB’s performance, hyperbole concerns with exaggeration which is used as a rhetorical tool or figure of speech. It may be used either for describe a feeling, emphasize a point, or comedic delivery.
Excerpt 2
223 JB:Some of those players that were so good.
224Like, the Russian team.
225I’m just on the field looking at them.
226Like, okay, well there's nothing even
227wrong with that guy right there.
228 Audience: [Applause]
229 JB:I call BS number five, man.
230 Audience: [Applause]
231 JB:We better get a neurologist out here!
(mins. 16:01- 16:37)
In Excerpt 2, JB uses hyperbole to exaggerate his utterances. Generally, there is a doctor at the soccer game to avoid medical accidents. A neurologist is a specialist doctor who treats conditions that affect the nervous system. Here, JB uses hyperbole by exaggerating as he wants to bring a neurologist into the match to really check whether the player has a disability or not.
c.Allusion
Allusion deals with something that can be defined as an inferred reference related with literature. Allusion can be indirect or direct, meaning that JB might explicitly state the name of the thing he is referring to, or he might give a hint to audiences. The purpose of allusion is to give the audiences a context for what is happening, or it can be part of characterization.
Excerpt 3
132 JB:I guess I’ll admit that early in my
133 career, I tried to do my
134show from a Southern Belle point of view.
135Could never get that to play quite right
(mins. 09:44- 16:37)
In Excerpt 3, JB uses allusion to describe his point of view. The term "Southern Belle" refers to a young woman of an upper class family from the South of the Unites States
(
A Southern Belle is polite, respectful, and they use certain words in their speech and generally have a tempting southern accent. JB’s utterance can be said as an allusion because Southern belle alludes a reference that describes characteristics of a woman from the South of the US.
d. Sarcasm
Sarcasm refers to a harsh word to mock someone or to criticize something, usually in a humorous way. Particularly, JB uses it to say of what is true to make someone look or feel silly.
Excerpt 4
159JB:I live in like a dual world like
160we're walking down the street and
161somebody come back, oh!
162can I get an autograph? I saw you on TV.
163And then, like
164two steps later, like, get away from me
165you, drunk ass!
(mins. 12:00- 12:25)
In Excerpt 4, JB uses sarcasm to describe experience. JB has long blonde hair, thick beard, and white skin. JB suffers from cerebral palsy that makes him walk unbalance. Therefore, it makes JB walk like a drunk man. The word “drunk ass” can be classified as sarcasm because it directly offends JB himself that he looks like a drunk man. Furthermore, in this excerpt he satirizes those who admire him and those who want him to stay away from them because he looks like a drunk man.
e.Simile
JB applies simile to compare two things that are unequal in nature to reveal a similarity between them. He uses simile by making an explicit comparison by asserting that two different things are similar.
Excerpt 5
344 JB:Now, that I know that little trick. I’m
345walking in like a zombie invasive.
(mins. 23:39- 23:51)
In Excerpt 5, JB uses simile in his speech as indicated by the word “like” in his utterance. Here, JB compare how he walks like a zombie invasive since he suffers from cerebral palsy which is a disease that causes disturbances in muscles, movement, and body coordination. Therefore, JB does not walk like normal people.
f.Personification
Personification is used to refer an inanimate object, non-human creatures, or abstract thing in human terms. The purpose of this figure of speech is to show inanimate things to life to explain them clearly. JB uses personification to make his speech clearer and to make the audience understand the object.
Excerpt 6
3JB:Well, people always ask me if this
4bracelet is one of those
5copper magnetic healing bracelets.
6How does that thing work?
7Oh yeah man, I was in a wheelchair last
8week.
9This thing's been kicking some butt for
10 me, man.
(mins. 00:07-00:34)
JB uses personification to describe his feeling as shown in Excerpt 6. Here, JB gives an attributing human being toward a non-human being thing which is bracelet. JB gives attribute of human being to the bracelet as if it were human that could do a good thing to him and help him walk.
In terms of linguistic features, there are 162 data that use silent pause (65), filled pause (31), repetitions (6), repairs (2), prolongations (16), and lexical fillers (29). The examples are as follows.
a. Silent pause
In JB’s performance, silent pause deals with him being silent intentionally used for a certain purpose. Silent pause is periods of quiet that allow the performer to think about what he or she will say next, or during which the audience can reflect on what the speaker has said previously.
Excerpt 7
87 JB:it is good to be here you know I'm not
88 from Salt Lake
89 but I look like I am
90 Audience:(applause)
(
91 JB:just another wobbly guy on the sidewalk
92 Audience:(applause)
(
(mins 06:41-07:05)
In Excerpt 7, JB is joking about himself who look like a person from Salt Lake and poor. There are two lines of situations which are considered as the silent pause. In line 90, JB uses a long silent pause for about 11 seconds. This silent pause has a purpose to give the audience time to understand his joke’s punch line. Besides, in this case JB also wants to allow the audience finish their laughs as in that situation, the audience really laugh out loud for long. Pauses before the punch line excite the audience's interest and lead them to speculate about what will happen next, leading to expectations that are rarely met. In many jokes, the disappointment effect generated by the unexpected punch line is the source of laughter. Next, in line 92, JB again uses a long pause for about ten seconds in silent. However, in this line, the purpose of this situation is a little bit different from line of 90. In the line of 92, the use of silent pause is intended to prepare JB to switch to his next topic. Besides his preparation, the silent pause used here is also to give a ‘hint’ to his audience for getting ready to a new topic coming.
b. Filled pause
In linguistics features, pauses can either be completely silent or filled with vowel sounds. In JB’s performance, filled pause refers to him using certain vowel sounds spoken in short to cover the empty state in the stage such as "uh". On the other hand, pauses do not always imply that JB loses his stage, but it is more like a strategy of preparation and essential methods used by JB to maintain his audience’s interest and amusement maximally.
Excerpt 8
277 JB:you know my whole life I’ve always had
278 people uh… kind of stare at me and uh…
279 you know I thought it was because of my
280 cerebral palsy and then I I went to the
281 Paralympics and then
282 uh… in the cafeteria there's like 3.000
283 disabled people
(mins 20:23-20:36)
JB tells about his experience with other people who stare so hard at him because he has cerebral palsy when he went to a cafeteria which actually all people in that cafeteria also had disability. JB uses three filled pauses in line 278 and 282 in the shape of “uh” spoken by JB. The use of filled pauses in this situation might be caused by JB trying to put back his memory on words he wanted to say to the audience or in other words, the pauses he used were a kind of his planning stage.
c. Repetitions
Repetitions refer to reduplication of word or phrase in order to underline an important meaning for a certain purpose. They are primarily utilized to set the pace of a joke performance. This feature is also used by JB for dramatizing circumstances and making his audience laugh.
Excerpt 9
249 JB:uh we came up with this
250 game where we would see who
251 could hold open their jacked-up hand
252 longer
253 Audience:(laughter)
254 (applause)
255 JB:good game good game
(mins 17:46-18:15)
JB tells his experience with his friends where in the middle of their spare time they were playing a little game. As JB and some of his friends are experiencing the same spot of disability which is hand (jacked-up), one of JB’s friend was holding a game. The game was about who can open their jacked-up longest is the winner. In lines 253 and 254 JB was practicing to the audience about the situation in opening his jacked-up hand. At the end of his story, he said “good game” for twice speaking to his other friends to express his excitement to his friends.
In line 255, there is a phrase of noun which is mentioned twice known for using repetition. In that situation, JB clearly repeats his words by saying “good game” twice. The use of repetition in this situation is considered to dramatize the funny odd situation that JB experienced together with his friends. Besides dramatizing, the use of repetition is also meant to raise a humor for the audience.
d. Repairs
Repairs deal with correction of word or phrase spoken by JB to clarify something. Besides reason of making mistake, the use of this feature can be also use intentionally to build jokes.
Excerpt 10
44 JB:I’m sure uh sure glad we got cell phones
45 uh you know come a long way the flip
46 phones was no good for me that uh
47 I missed a lot of call... calls with that
48 one you know
49 gotta get a oyster sucker to open it
(mins 03:15-03:33)
JB tells about his experience of having a flip cell phone in Excerpt 10. In his case, JB was always facing a hard difficulty in using the cell phone because one of his hands is jacked-up. This is the reason why JB stated that phone was no good for him because it was hard for him to open a flip cell phone and that is also the reason why he missed a lot of calls.
From Excerpt 10, there is a situation which can be considered as repair. The aspect of repairs can be found in line 47. The first word that he stated is “call” but only in a second he changed that into “calls”. The use of repetition in this situation is because JB wanted to underline that he did not only miss a call, but so many calls because of his jacked-up hand.
e. Prolongations
Prolongations refer to the utilization of extending syllable for a certain purpose. The use of prolongations is quite famous among comedians including JB. This feature is used to make a dramatic effect in delivering jokes.
Excerpt 11
114 JB:well I’d like to mention i have cerebral
115palsy
116 I like to get that out of the way early
117 in the show
118 I do talk about it a little bit you know
119 there's a few reasons i talk about
120 number one is I’ve come to find if I
121don't mention it
122 after a little while the audience is
123 like
124 does… he... know...?
125 he has that
126 Audience: (laughter)
(mins 08:51-09:34)
JB tells about some of his audiences that may not know completely about him. That is why he mentioned about his condition of having a medical issue named Cerebral Palsy just in case to face audiences who suspected him for knowing nothing about his own condition.
Lines of 124 and 125 are considered as prolongations because he says the words “does he know?” with prolongation. The using of prolongations by JB in this situation is intended to dramatize the situation and build an atmosphere of humor to become funnier.
f. Lexical fillers
Lexical fillers describe words that help comedians to connect them to the previous words or utterances spoken. Lexical fillers can help and make easier for the audiences to understand what the comedian is saying. Generally, the use of lexical fillers can be used to mark a shift in topic or even give the comedian a pause time to consider about the continuation. Example of lexical filler in JB’s performance can be seen in Excerpt 12.
Excerpt 12
295 JB:you know represent your country which is
296 great that's awesome i love representing
297 our wonderful beautiful country but
298 you know we're a bunch of crippled dudes
299 trying not to stick out as it is you
300 Know
301got us all wearing the same goofy
302 Tracksuit
JB talks about how good it is to represent a country by using the same tracksuit with his other football team friends. However, he felt a little bit embarrassed because he and his friends have disability. He regarded it as an odd thing to be wore together with his other disabled friends he had.
In lines 295, 298, and 299-300, JB uses lexical filler. The words “you know”, “I mean”, “like”, “basically” are identified as lexical fillers. The using of lexical fillers in this case is to help JB in connecting other words or utterances he used before. The use of lexical fillers in speaking is also for initiating a new topic to start.
3. Joke Techniques
The following section discusses ridicule as the joke techniques in JB’s performance.
a. Private ridicule
Private ridicule in JB’s performance deals with cornering jokes on certain subject, not to himself, but certainly to someone/somebody. This definition demonstrates that private ridicule is directed at real persons. The use of private ridicule is to make fun, insult, and even attack someone verbally. In ridicule, audience’s laughter is kind of feedback which proves their agreement to the jokes delivered.
Excerpt 13
173 JB: A lot of people don't know this about me
174 but for many years, I was a member
175 of the US Paralympic national soccer
176 team.
177 Audience: [Applause]
178 JB:Where were you guys at the games?
179 Sure could have used those 30 claps.
In Excerpt 13, lines 173-179, JB uses private ridicule on his joke technique. Here, JB indirectly offend the audience for not coming to his soccer match. JB said that because not much people that attend to his match and support him.
b. Shared ridicule
Shared ridicule refers to joke that is addressed to both the audience and the comedians their selves at the very same time. The using of this joke technique can build rhythm, response, and bounding for both comedian and the audiences.
Excerpt 14
114 JB:Well, I’d like to mention I have
115 cerebral palsy.
116I like to get that out of the way early
117 in the show. Uh,
118 I do talk about it a little bit. You know,
119 there's a few reasons I talk about.
120 Number one is I’ve come to find if I
121 don't mention it
122 after a little while, the audience is
123 like…
124 Does he know
125 that he has that?
126 Audience:[Laughter]
(mins. 08:51-09:29)
Lines 114-126 in Excerpt 14 shows that JB expands shared ridicule on his joke. These show that JB makes a parody of the way the audience would react if he did not mention that he has cerebral palsy. On the other hand, he also mocked himself that he has a cerebral palsy and was confidently take the stage. Thus, JB mock himself and the audience simultaneously.
c. Self-ridicule/Self-deprecation
In one of techniques used by JB in his performance, self-ridicule/self-deprecation refers to term used by comedian to make fun of himself in front of the audience. Self-deprecation creates comedy by exposing the comedian's own flaws, which he tries to entertain the audience with. As a result, it can be viewed as a beneficial source of humor, as it helps standup comedians in expressing their selves and also getting the audience to identify comedians’ identity with them.
Excerpt 15
61 JB: I went to New York recently, and I tried
62 to hail a taxi, and I caught a pigeon.
(mins. 04:10-04:13)
JB uses self-ridicule in his utterance. JB suffers from cerebral palsy that makes his muscle become stiff. He has a stiff right palm facing inward and shaped like a bowl. While he tried to hail a taxi, he suddenly caught a pigeon in his right hand. Thus, in this excerpt he indirectly makes fun of his disability of having cerebral palsy.
JB used various types of figurative language in order to express his identity on stage. As previously mentioned, irony becomes the most dominant figurative language that JB used in his performance. Irony is about saying something in reverse. Irony is part of JB’s identity as a comedian. By applying irony in his joke, JB was able to talk casually about his negative experience so as to create laughter instead of pity to his audience. This slightly shows the identity of JB that as a disable person, i.e., JB does not seem to want to be pitied. That is why he reversed his negative experience into something that is positive and even brings laughter.
Linguistic features are meant as tools that help the speaker to proceed the verbal object. In linguistic feature, the use of silent pause dominates among other types. JB often paused his joke to give the audience time to laugh and to contemplate his next topic. These show the appreciation of JB toward his audience and sense of aware to hinder mistakes.
As it was written above, JB also often uses self-ridicule/self-deprecation in his performance. The use of self-ridicule is highly related to identity Josh Blue wants to show in his performance. By implicitly deprecating himself in the form of jokes, JB seems to want to deliver to the audiences in his point of view for how all this time society regarding on him as a disabled person, an identity of a disabled person that sticks to him.
Excerpt 15
298 JB:you know we're a bunch of crippled dudes
299 trying not to stick out as it is you
300 Know
301 got us all wearing the same goofy
302 Tracksuit
303 all I'm saying coach is just give us a
304 chance
305 Audience:(laughter)
306 just a chance we got people walking by
307us like
308oh that's nice they took them to the
309Mall
310some of them got stuff
Excerpt 15 tells about a moment where JB shares one of his experiences about going to the mall with his other disabled friends. Lines 308, 309, and 310 show some of people’s reactions of seeing them walking at the mall. Society stared differently at them and felt pity for them. Having disability can indirectly build people’s perception towards those who have disability. Perception of weak, helpless, and poor are sticking in their identity.
Excerpt 16
329 JB: I was at a restaurant with a bunch of
330 friends
331and the server went around the table and
332took everyone's order
333and then when they got to me they're
334like
335and what will he have (glancing to JB)
In Excerpt 16, JB shared his experience with his other normal friends at the restaurant. Line 335 shows how people make interaction with JB. This situation tells where a waiter asked the menus each people (JB’s friends) ordered at that table except JB himself. Instead of asking personally to JB, the waiter asked his other friend for what JB wanted to order by having a glance at JB. The waiter did not make any interaction to ask what JB wanted for his order. From JB’s story, it can be inferred that being identified as a disabled person can affect how or in what way the society interacts with him.
Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that irony is mostly used in JB’s performance. Irony is important in his jokes as it can be used to turn tragedy into comedy. In linguistics features, the mostly used type performed by JB is silent pause. This might happen as when performing, JB often waited his audiences to stop their laughs and calmed the situation before changing to the next topic. In joke technique, self-deprecation/self-ridicule is mostly used. This is because JB seemed to put himself or his condition to be the main material of comedy he performed. These findings suggest that the linguistics aspects used by JB demonstrates that disability identity can be a special phenomenon that affects people’s perception and their ways of interaction with other people. JB tries to relate each of his experience of being disabled by wrapping it well as his joke technique. JB has a privilege in processing his disability into a primacy in joke technique without looking condescending and even sarcastic. In addition, this present study is expected to contribute specific knowledge in terms of various verbal aspects to stand-up comedians in delivering their jokes. Nevertheless, due to some limitations in this study, several points are worth addressing to improve future studies. As this study only involves one comedian with disability and emphasizes on language aspects and identity, it cannot be generalized with other stand-up comedians with different types of disability. Besides, this study only uses one performance to be analyzed, thus, future researchers are suggested to enhance the number of comedians and performances to analyze to gain a more generalized result.
This work was supported by Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Dian Nuswantoro.
Abrams, M. H. (1999).
Abujbarah , K. (2019).
Arfani , S., & Damayanti , S. C. (2019). The use of figurative langugae in Katy P erry song.
Arifah , K. (2016). Figurative Language analysis in five John Legend’s Song. Maulana Malik Ibrahim State Islamic University of Malang.
Armuzad , A. F. (2017). Figurative language used in sports ru bric in t he Jakarta Post Newspaper. State Islamic University Sunan Ampel Surabaya.
Badara , A. (2018). Stand-up comedy humor discourse in local perspective in Indonesia.
Bamgbose , G. A. (2019). Humour strategies, linguistic and multimodal devices in two Nigerian situation comedies , Jenifa’s Diary and Professor Johnbull. University of Ibadan.
Burke, P. J., & Stets, J. E. (2009).
Dylew ski , R. (2021). Dissecting the w ord: The use of the lexeme shit in selected performances of comedian Dave Chappelle’s stand-up routine .
Dynel , M. (2009). Beyond a joke : Types of conversational humour.
Fadlilah , U. (2022). Humor in stand-up comedy : Exploring Chris Rock’s i dentity. Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang.
Handika , D., Syarif , H., & Marlina , L. (2019). An analysis of minor figurative language used in stand-up comedy performed by Hasan Minhaj entitled Homecoming King.
Heidari-Shahreza , M. A., & Masaeli , B. (2017). A linguistic analysis of para -jokes and meta-jokes in Persian Verbal Humor.
Lockyer , S. (2015). From comedy targets to comedy-makers : Disability and comedy in live performance .
MacGregor , L. J. (2008). Disfluencies affect language comprehension : Evidence from event-related potentials and recognition memory.
Nassaji , H. (2015). Qualitative and descriptive res earch: Data type versus data analysis .
Putri , M. W., Oktoma , E., & Nu rsyamsu , R. (2016). Figurative l anguage in English stand-up comedy .
Rostami , F., Yousefi , M. H., & Amini , D. (2021). A qualitative study on identity construction among teachers working with students with disabilities .
Schwarz, J. (2010). Linguistic aspects of verbal humor in stand-up comedy . In Universität des Saarlandes . Universität des Saarlandes.
Seizer, S. (2011). On the uses of obscenity in live stand-up comedy .
Setyaningsih , N. (2013). Ethnic stereotypes in stand-up comedy . Prosiding t he 5th International Co nference on Indonesian s tudies: “Ethnicity and Globalization,” 144–157.
Setyaningsih , N. (2014). I Tweet, Therefore I Am: Indexing Identity through Language Choice on Twitter Posts of @ AsliSemarang Account. Proceedings of KOLITA 12: Konferensi Linguistik Tahunan Atma Jaya 12, 147–151.
Sulistyo , P. B. (2019). Metode Penelitian Kualitatif [Qualitative Research Method]. In Metode Penelitian Ilmiah [Scientific Research Method]. Universitas Mercu Buana.
Sutrisno , B., & Putri , A. (2017). A figurative language analysis of song lyric ‘Mirrors’ by Justin Timberlake.
Utami , I. I. (2018). Strategi Humor pada Acara Stand Up Comedy [Humor Strategy in Stand-Up Comedy Program].
Yuniar , D. (2013). Ya as discourse m arker: Indonesian stand – up comedy strategy in producing laughter .