An Analysis of Conversational Humor in the British Sitcom "Mind Your Language" Episode 1 Season 1

This research studies the conversational humor appeared in the British Sitcom entitled “Mind Your Language” Episode 1 Season 1. It is conducted to find out the humor techniques of Arthur Asa Berger’s theory, which appear in this episode and describe the humor function that applied in this Sitcom. This research deals with a pragmatic approach. This research uses descriptive qualitative method to analyze the data. The data are all the humor utterances, which are able to arouse laughter from the audiences that have significant relationship with the techniques. They are analyzed by using Berger’s humor theory and further describe the humor function of all data. From 15 of humor techniques, there are only 7 techniques found in this episode and fourteen data which will be analyzed since they have the same characteristics with the techniques used. They are Allusion, Definition, Insult, Infantilism, Irony, Misunderstanding, and Ridicule. The results of this study shows that the researcher uses 7 humor techniques for analyzing conversational humor in British Sitcom “Mind Your Language” Episode 1 Season 1. Furthermore, the researcher finds 14 data using humor techniques, 7 data using misunderstanding, 2 data using ridicule, then 1 data for each other techniques such as allusion, definition, insult, infantilism, and irony. The researcher findsthat there are 3 function of humor conveyed by the character in delivering humor. They are entertaining function, criticizing or ridicule function, and delivering function. In addition, by calculating the result of the data, Misunderstanding is a humor technique that is mostly used in humor especially British Sitcom “Mind Your Language” Episode 1 Season 1, so it gets the most percentage of 50%. Keyword: Humor, Humor Techniques, Conversational Humo