English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies ISSN 2640-9836 (Print) ISSN 2640-9844 (Online) Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls 33 Original Paper Functional Pragmatic Analysis on the Humorous Discourse in Balinese Language as a Media of Socialization of Health Protocols during the Covid-19 Pandemic Nengah Arnawa 1* , I Putu Karpika 2 , I Made Gde Putra Wijaya 2 , Nyoman Astawan 2 & Ida Ayu Agung Ekasriadi 2 1 Department of Indonesian Language Educatioan, University of PGRI Mahadewa Indonesia, Denpasar, Indonesia 2 University of PGRI Mahadewa Indonesia, Denpasar, Indonesia * Nengah Arnawa, Department of Indonesian Language Educatioan, University of PGRI Mahadewa Indonesia, Denpasar, Indonesia Received: December 14, 2022 Accepted: January 25, 2023 Online Published: January 29, 2023 doi:10.22158/eltls.v5n1p33 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eltls.v5n1p33 Abstract This study describes the choice of humor style used to reduce the anxiety experienced by Balinese people during the Covid-19 pandemic and also explains the language variations as well as linguistic phenomena for constructing a humor. The relationship between humor style and linguistic features is expected to explain the specificity of the humor discourse structure of Covid-19 in Balinese language. The data of this qualitative study were obtained through note-taking and sorting out some short films which were displayed on YouTube from April to May 2020. Furthermore, there were 13 discourses used as data source, and some of the humor styles include affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating. The humor functions as a foundation for information on topics arranged deductively and inductively. The variations in Balinese language used are variety of kepara (general) and kasar (low). Also, the dominating linguistic phenomenon includes code mixing and switching, as well as semantic inaccuracy regarding word similarity. This study can establish public-communication model in a friendly atmosphere to eliminate the impact of socio-psychological gap. Keywords balinese language, Covid-19, discourse, humor www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 34 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 1. Introduction The Covid-19 pandemic has devastated various parts of human life in the world including Bali. Therefore, the majority of the residents were anxious and worried. Anxiety is triggered by an increasing number of positive cases, beyond those that have been successfully cured. This can cause difficulty in decision making due to fear of mistakes, which affect an individual's future. Anxiety is also a psychological reaction due to feelings of fear caused by either a real or abstract occurrence (Adwas et al., 2019; Annisa & Ifdil, 2016; Khakpoor et al., 2019; Maina et al., 2016). Hence, the Covid-19 pandemic is an abstract cause of anxiety. The Indonesian government has established the pandemic as a national disaster, in which the solution should involve all ministries and local governments across sectors. In relation to the national policy, the Provincial Government of Bali formed a mutual cooperation task force to cope with the Covid-19 outbreak involving desa adat (traditional villages). This issued policy promotes the concerned parties as well as the art community to contribute in accordance with their potential. Balinese local artists had taken several roles in the socialization of the Covid-19 prevention program. Concretely, they were involved in educating the community through a variety of art products, such as pop songs, pupuh (traditional songs), and theatrical performances in Balinese language. Out of the three-art works, theatrical performance had the highest productivity and accessibility. Balinese art community considered Cenk Blonk, bondres (Balinese comedy performing arts), as well as the community of shadow puppet, traditional performing arts, and modern theater arts to be productive in discussing health protocols. The educational works they produce are then displayed through YouTube channels. Balinese is one of the local languages in Indonesia and is generally used in Bali Province as a means of association, customs, and culture. Local languages were often used to educate residents during the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, various genres of Balinese discourse are used for this purpose, one of which is the humorous discourse produced by the theater arts community. Therefore, public education through the humorous discourse is expected to achieve a double effect, namely providing general knowledge about the pandemic and reducing public anxiety. Various studies have proven that there is a relationship between anxiety and a sense of humor, as reported by Arifiati and Wahyuni (2019), Hardi et al. (2018), Widyowati and Priambodo (2016), Grant and Zies (2017). Humor is a kind of discourse (Listiorini, 2017), where the participant deliberately chooses linguistic constructions that can make the audience laugh. Humor was involved in this context to control the audience as it is a pragmatic text that enables the mental audience to participate intensively. The humorous discourse is a communicative text without intending to offense the audience (Grant & Zies, 2017). Its usage in Balinese is expected to increase public understanding of Covid-19 as an effort to overcome the epidemic. Balinese humor discourse is a linguistic fact that can be studied by including eclectic linguistic theory. Furthermore, in the context of Covid-19, the discourse was examined in this study based on socio-pragmatic theory. The sociolinguistic theory has been used to explain the choice of speech levels www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 35 Published by SCHOLINK INC. in the humorous discourse. This is because, there are known levels of speech in Balinese language whose usage is usually linked to social strata and variables. Meanwhile, the pragmatic theory explains the inference of its citizenship. Therefore, the eclectic application of the two branches of linguistic is expected to be able to explore the lingual form of the humorous discourse and the process of interpretation by the audience. Referring to the socio-linguistic reality explained above, there are two main issues that will be discussed in this study. First, the dominant style of humor used to educate and entertain people during the Covid-19. Second, the choice of various languages and linguistic phenomena in the humorous discourse. Focusing on these two problems, it is used as a form of linguistic application in establishing an effective communication model as well as an effort to deal with the pandemic disaster of infectious diseases. Moreover, it is the main motivation for conducting this study. Therefore, to answer these two problems, the humorous discourse of Covid-19 was analyzed with a functional pragmatic approach (Arifin, 2012:111). This approach assumes that discourse is a form of using language to carry out something manifested through speech acts (Widya, 2017). As a form of speech acts, discourse can be seen from three aspects, namely locution, illocution, and perlocution (Azhari, 2018; Budiasih, 2019; Grundy, 2000). Humor can be analyzed through interdisciplinary perspective. From the viewpoint of health education, it can foster a therapy for nervousness of patients prior to medication. Meanwhile, from the psychological aspect, it is associated with happiness and optimism. Linguistic study sights humor from various angles, namely lexical, semantic, pragmatic, and discourse. A number of review on literature related to humor is explained below. Covid-19 pandemic has become a source of anxiety, which is a mental disorder that needs to be overcome. Health experts have used humor to address this challenge. According to some health reporters, there is a correlation between anxieties and sense of humor (Herman, 2017; Savage et al., 2017). Hardi et al. (2018) stated that the average anxiety of the elderly was 31.26 before humor therapy while it decreased to 21.86 after the therapy. Based on the statistical calculation, it was concluded that the anxiety of the elderly which significantly decreased due to humor is believed to increase the endorphin and serotonin hormones that control mood. Arifiati and Wahyuni (2019) confirmed this by stating that humor therapy is effective in reducing anxiety and overcoming the depressed mood of the elderly since it might be used for counseling services. Besides being addressed by health experts, humor has also become a study for the psychologists. The eclectic study between these two disciplines occurs as humor is one of the forms of effective communication used by human being to maintain physical and mental health. Moreover, humor is a complex interaction involving physiological emotional, and cognitive response. Physiological response is embodied through laugh, emotional is expressed through joy, while cognitive is related to the understanding of stimulus (Dionigi, 2018). The accuracy of this concept was proven by Muskerina et al. (2018) and Yue et al. (2017) claiming that the style of humor correlates with students’ optimism. These www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 36 Published by SCHOLINK INC. psychologists explained that the affiliative and self-improvement of humor has a significant positive relationship with optimism. On the contrary, aggressive and self-defeating styles have a negative relationship. Furthermore, the style of affiliative and self-enhancing humor are very useful for individuals to overcome problems and increase optimism. Affiliative humor tends to be expressed with funny and spontaneous words that help build relationships and reduce anxiety while self-enhancing is a manifestation of amusement due to an event that causes laughter. This psychologists' report was in line with Zulkarnain (2009), who stated that humor plays a significant role in reducing anxiety when facing exams. Furthermore, it contributes positively to reduce psychological pressure when faced with threats. In relation to that study, Covid-19 is a threat that raises public anxiety, hence, its discourse is a relevant choice for conveying public information about health protocols during the pandemic. Similar reports were made by Chen and Martin (2007), Sirigatti et al. (2014), Ford et al. (2016), as well as Balmores-Pauliono (2018), who affirmed that each humor model reflected a different dimension. The affiliative and self-enhancing humor model are asserted to have positive dimensions, while aggressive and self-defeating are negative. This generalization of differences of the humor dimensions is what Balinese humor discourse aims to prove. This effort is very urgent because there are quite a lot usage of the aggressive humor style in Balinese discourse which has positive implications for the relations between involved parties. At least, in specific situations and relationships, the aggressive and self-defeating humor models do not have a negative dimension. Humor has also become a linguistics study from a different perspective. Kobzieva et al. (2020) studied humor with psycholinguistic approach which views it as a verbal behavior, namely speaking and responding words. The report concluded that humor is a stimulation-response which is inseparable from linguistic awareness. Knowledge and humor are two different but interconnected things. Furthermore, from different perspective, Listiorini (2017) stated that humor is a complex discourse that works to build solidarity and control conflict in conversations between men and women. Lo-Cicero (2019) reported that irony and non-prototypical humor could be used to strengthen relationships with others. Irony and humor can also be used to show solidarity that has a positive effect. Both are often used complementarily to explain actual issues. Furthermore, Gan (2015) revealed that humor is an effort to achieve optimal relevance in speech through wordplay and is a rhetoric that combines certain styles and effects to realize contextual relevance. Meanwhile, some previous studies concluded that it is a rhetorical style lined with physical and mental health variables. As a rhetoric, humor is developed on the basis of local culture as it is closely related to norms and choice of language style of its speakers (Kianbakht, 2020). This concept was used in this study and the aspects of local culture, such as choice of Balinese language varieties and insertion of local culture was mapped in the study of Covid-19 humor discourses. This study focused on the linguistic aspects used in constructing and inferring the humorous discourse of Covid-19 in Balinese language. The choice of linguistic form was related to social variables while the inference process was related to the epistemic context as a presupposition for the audience. This www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 37 Published by SCHOLINK INC. inference of the humorous discourse was an implicative representative of contextual conversation, which was studied based on sociolinguistic and pragmatic theories. A number of social variables used for analyzing discourse or utterances, such as power, distance, and rank of imposition were used to examine learners’ responses on the role of English as Foreign Language (EFL) class in Indonesia (Somawati et al., 2019). However, there are some other social aspects that people frequently use to produce appropriate utterances. The reliance on the mentioned aspects will certainly give predicate of competent pragmatically to speakers (Widanta et al., 2020). Humor, also known as bebanyolan is one of the forms of oral tradition and is mostly used in folklore. Linguistically, there are some constructions of Bali traditional humor, namely cecimpedan, bladbadan, wewangsalan, cecangkikan, and each of them has a unique linguistic form. Cecangkikan is identical with puzzle or guessing game and is always constructed with question. Meanwhile, bladbadan is identical with lexical paraphrase, that is, a word modified as phrase to form a longer linguistic construction. In this sort of humor, a semantic transposition occurs from one lexicon to another with phonotatic similarity. Wewangsalan is Bali traditional humor in the form of short poet, and each of its stanza consists of two lines. The first line is called sampiran of wewangsalan, the second refer to its meaning, and they are both related to the rhymes. Cecangkikan is a traditional humor which is based on ambiguity of sentence meanings. In this case, their intonation variation will change sentence meanings and this becomes its cheater. Therefore, the forms of Balinese traditional humor are used in intimate situation and are not entirely found in a serious speech (Arnawa, 2016; Arnawa, 2022). During the nineteen eighties, this form of humor was used in traditional theaters, such as drama gong or sendratari performance, and were also developed linguistically. Meanwhile, in this decade, Bali humor appears in spontaneous narration which is not related to forms, such as cecimpedan, bladbadan, wewangsalan, and cecangkitan. Traditional artists reserve freedom to construct utterances. Furthermore, the modern humor style, namely affiliative, self-enhancing, aaggressive, and self-defeating has begun to develop in Bali (Chen & Martin, 2007; Arnawa, 2022). However, Balinese traditional humor was not necessarily neglected. In various speech events, traditional humor was frequently combined with modern style, one of which was in performance of leather shadow puppet and bondres, at the Bali tradition comedy. The humorous discourse can be used during the Covid-19 epidemic to build solidarity, reduce anxiety, and increase public understanding of health protocols in order to prevent the spread of the infection. As a rhetorical style, the linguistic aspects of the humorous discourse can be studied from various approaches, one of which is functional pragmatic. This approach assumes that discourse is a form of speech acts. Each speech construction in discourse is related to linguistic and non-linguistic variables underlying the use of language expression. This variable forms the context in which the discourse textures are established (Badara, 2012). The integrity of the humorous discourse can be traced through context relations, hence, the linguistic construction gap often found can be explained. Based on a functional pragmatic approach, this study focused on the linguistic aspects used to construct www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 38 Published by SCHOLINK INC. and infer the humorous discourse of Covid-19 in Balinese language. Pragmalinguistic is a part of pragmatic which focuses on form or language (Widanta et al., 2018; Arnawa, et al., 2021), including the form-function mapping. The choice of linguistic form was related to social variables while the inference process was related to the epistemological context as a presupposition for the audience. This inference of the humorous discourse is an implicative representative of contextual conversation, which was studied based on sociolinguistic and pragmatic theories. Experts define sociolinguistics differently in editorial terms. However, conceptually, their views are relatively the same, namely the study of linguistic variations and their relationship to social variables (Latifah, 2017; Nuryani et al., 2018; Senjaya et al., 2018; Setiawati, 2019; Waridah, 2015). The relationship between social variables and variations in Balinese can be observed in the use of speech levels. Experts, such as Suwija et al. (2019), Mastini (2019), Wirawan and Paryatna (2016), Paryatna and Wirani (2015) identified these speech levels differently but in the same pattern. In general, there are three levels in Balinese language, namely alus (high), kepara (general), and kasar (low). Functionally, the use of the speech level variant is related to participants social variables and topics of conversation. The participant variables that affect the use of speech levels include castes, social status, and age. Balinese alus (high) is used for the realm of customs and religion as well as for greeting people of higher social status or Balinese who are not known. Kepara (general) is utilized to discuss the topic of daily life among the social groups involved, which are traditionally classified as low caste. Meanwhile, Kasar (low) is used as a sign of disappointment or anger and is generally utilized to swear. These basic sociolinguistic concepts form the basis for explaining the variety of Balinese used in the humorous discourse of Covid-19. Language usage does not occur all of a sudden as there is always a reason. Furthermore, its context will require an individual to say things that are most appropriate and effective in a certain way. This consideration is not only based on grammatical rules but should always consider extra linguistic factors. The use of language is examined in pragmatics, whose definition varies between pillars. Nevertheless, experts rely on the same concept, namely the study of meaning in language usage. Pragmatics is the study of language usage from a functional perspective (Widya, 2017). In accordance with that, it is externally expressed as a study of meaning (Al-Hindawi & Saffah, 2017) or its relation to the situation mentioned (Smolka & Pirker, 2018). The most relevant aspects of pragmatics for studying the humorous discourse of Covid-19 are speech acts, presupposition, and conversational implicature (Lubis, 2015; Martini, 2018; Shardimgaliev, 2019). These three concepts will explain the difference in speech with the intention of utterance in the discourse. In summary, pragmatics plays an important role in analyzing the meaning of utterances for interlocutors to comprehend the implied meaning that are hidden. Therefore, interlocutors’ concept mastery is certainly required in the topic and language used (Widanta et al., 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 39 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 2. Method This study used a qualitative design based on phenomenological logic. The assumption that every linguistic expression can be interpreted as a meaningful social action is associated with the humorous discourse analysis. In pragmatic studies, the social actions that manifest by utterances are called speech acts. Based on the phenomenological logic interaction and the concept of speech acts, this study applied a functional pragmatic approach. This approach developed a concept that each discourse is a meaningful manifestation of words, therefore, each expression of speech is very functional in its context (Arnawa, 2016). Referring to this concept, the distorted utterances in the humorous discourse of Covid-19 can be explained functionally. Discourse study with functional pragmatics approach examines each utterance from three aspects, namely locution, illocution, and perlocution (Altikriti, 2011; Sari, 2017). The study of locution emphasizes the expression of speech units to ascertain the mode used. Meanwhile, illocution emphasizes the function of each utterance, and perlocution examines the resulting effects. In order to express these three focuses, observations were made by paying attention to actions, gestures, and para-linguistics when making utterance, grammatical construction of sentences, selected diction, interpretation of speech functions, and paying attention to the effects occurring on the involved parties (Martini, 2018). This study used the primary data obtained from fifteen humorous discourses of Covid-19 in Balinese. All the data sources were broadcast on YouTube channel from April to May 2020. while their selection was based on the principle of purposive sampling (Sugiyono, 2016). Moreover, the sources were selected based on the quantity and quality of humor as well as the scope of Covid-19 information. The data were obtained using survey research model by recording each unit of speech in the source (Hammarberg et al., 2016). Furthermore, the unit of analysis was a unified context that maintained the integrity of the Covid-19 humorous discourse. The Paralinguistic aspect was also a concern in the process of data collection and analysis (Nor & Aziz, 2010). 3. Result There are three data groups found in this study, namely the data regarding the use of humor style, use of variations in Balinese, and linguistic phenomena in the humorous discourse of Covid-19. The groups are presented as follows. 3.1 Data of the Use of Humor Style Referring to the definition proposed by Muskerina et al. (2018); Kfrerer (2018); Richards & Kruger (2017), the humor style used in Balinese language discourse for the socialization of Covid-19 pandemic is presented in the following Table. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 40 Published by SCHOLINK INC. Table 1. The Use of Humor Style in Covid-19 Discourse No. Code of Data Sources Humor Style Total Affiliative Self-enhancing Aggressive Self-defeating 1. CB-1 12 - 5 - 17 2. CB-2 18 3 16 2 39 3. CB-3 18 2 8 7 35 4. CB-4 20 8 7 3 38 5. CB-5 23 1 7 3 34 6. CB-6 22 5 3 2 32 7. CB-7 26 6 6 - 38 8. MP-1 20 16 6 - 42 9. STI-1 8 2 - - 10 10. DA-1 4 1 - - 5 11. PA-1 4 1 - - 5 12. PA-2 14 6 2 1 23 13. PA-3 10 3 - - 13 14. PA-4 19 6 2 - 27 15 PA-5 10 7 - - 17 Total 228 67 62 18 375 Percentage 60.80% 17.87% 16.53% 4.80% 100% Table 1 shows that all styles of humor were used in the socialization of Covid-19 information, however, it is dominated by the use of affiliative style. The domination represents the characteristic of Balinese who are loyal with their community and are committed to avoiding social gap. For these residents, spontaneous affiliative humor style, are valued to be able to realize the intention. Moreover, the domination of the use of such humor reflects some of their cultural aspects. First, humor discourse always appears in intimate social context. Therefore, the use of affiliative was believed to be able to avoid the occurrence of social conflict among speech participants. Second, the usage represents equal status among participants. Social hierarchy, which always exists in each community group of Bali originated from traditional and modern culture. It can be minimized during the occurrence of affiliative humor interaction in order to build equal social and psychological relationship. The use of self-enhancing and aggresive humor styles is relatively balanced. Self-enhancing was realized in form of participants’ foolish event and attitude. In traditional art performance, this style is frequently realized through the topic of face, such as harelip(s), dented mouth, funny appearance, or even foolish attitudes. Furthermore, aggressive humor is usually use to make fun of someone the speaker is well acquainted, familiar or intimate with. Due to such relationship among participants, this style is not meant to attack www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 41 Published by SCHOLINK INC. or insult interlocutors, but as representation of intimacy. The least frequently used humor style was self-defeating and is realized with expressions which humiliate or insult the speakers. It is generally used as response to aggressive style of humor in order to avoid conflict. 3.2 Data on the Use of Balinese Variations Referring to the general classification of speech levels available in Balinese, the various languages used in the Covid-19 discourse are presented in the following table. Table 2. The Use of Speech Levels Variations No. Code of Data Sources Speech Levels in Balinese Total Variety of Alus (High) Variety of Kepara (General) Variety of Kasar (Low) 1. CB-1 2 241 22 265 2. CB-2 5 226 38 269 3. CB-3 4 228 41 273 4. CB-4 6 202 48 256 5. CB-5 - 193 36 229 6. CB-6 3 221 29 253 7. CB-7 1 183 32 216 8. MP-1 - 236 28 264 9. STI-1 - 160 13 173 10. DA-1 - 91 2 93 11. PA-1 - 18 - 18 12. PA-2 7 142 93 242 13. PA-3 - 112 18 130 14. PA-4 - 167 63 230 15 PA-5 - 87 6 93 Total 28 2507 469 3004 Percentage 0.93% 83.46% 15.61% 100% In the Table 2 above, the usage of various Balinese languages of Kepara (general) dominates the humorous discourse, while that of alus (high) is very low. This fact indicates that in Bali, society humor is an egalitarian discourse which equally position each speech participant. Balinese humor discourse is generally used in informal, relax, and intimate speech event. For society, kepara variety is valued to be more natural for expressing humor. Moreover, its naturalness can be seen in a number of fables and other folklores. Sociolinguistic factors seemed to influence the high frequency usage of this variety in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 42 Published by SCHOLINK INC. humor discourse. From the view point of sociolinguistics, kepara variety of Balinese language functions as lingua franca, and humor frequently appears spontaneously in such association. Besides kepara, kasar (low) variety of Balinese language is also found. In dealing with humor, this variety was generally used to express aggressive style. In this variety, humor was used to insult and joke according to the following excerpt. Excerpt 1 A : Ja, keweh san cai ngangkat telepon! ‘Puja, it seems difficult for you to answer the phone!’ B : Ngengken Dek Jun? ‘What’s up Dek Jun?’ A : Keweh san ci ngangkat telepon. Uling tuni awake nelpon cai. Ja, hai Ja. Ibi ake ngipi, cai. ‘It’s hard for you to answer the phone. I have been calling you Puja. I had a dream last night.’ B : Men, cai ngipi adi ake telepon? Kaden ake jual beli ipian! ‘So, you dreamed yourself but why did you call me? Do you think I sell or buy dreams?’ A : Ndas keleng cicing! Sing keto Ja. Ne, ipiane agak aneh Ja. Ibi kan kajeng kliwon, ake ngipi nglablab tipat, Ja; tapi sing lebeng-lebeng, Ja. Apa artine to Ja? ‘Damn you. It’s not like that. Like this, I dreamed something odd. It was kajeng kliwon day yesterday, wasn’t it? I dreamed of boiling ketupat (rice packed with banana leaf), but it did not get cooked. What does it mean?’ B : Ento artine gas kompor caine telah. ‘It means your stove is run out of gas.’ A : Hai cicing, awake metakon seken-seken, cai! Nu masih cai macanda. Ja, kira-kira ada masalah apa ja ento Ja o? ‘Damn. I asked you seriously but you still made fun of me. What problem might happen to me?’ B : Yen suba kanti ngipi, ento artine cai pules. Yen suba ngidaang pules, artine cai sing ada masalah. Yen cai konden pules tapi suba ngipi, nah to mara sedang ada masalah. Nawang Cai.. ‘When you dreamed, it means you have slept well. Meaning you have got no problem. But when you dreamed before sleeping, it is problem. You know that?’ A : Buik, tumben beneh cicinge ene! ‘Wow, it is the first time you are right.’ Source: Puja Astawa, episode ‘Corona Makes Stress’ Code PA4 In the excerpt 1, kepara variety of Balinese which tends to be kasar (rude) was used, including some www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 43 Published by SCHOLINK INC. curse, such as phrase ndas keleng ‘bangsat’ (damn), cicing (anjing) ‘dog’. However, their usage did not disturb the social relationship between both speech participants. Conversely, the use of such curse was an evidence that they were familiar and intimate. 3.3 Data of Linguistic Phenomenon Some linguistic phenomena used in the humorous discourse of Covid-19 in Balinese are presented in the following Table. Table 3. Linguistic Phenomenon No. Code of Data Sources Linguistic Phenomenon Total Code Mixing Code Switching Ambiguity 1. CB-1 22 64 - 86 2. CB-2 16 9 1 26 3. CB-3 37 3 - 40 4. CB-4 29 9 - 38 5. CB-5 16 10 - 26 6. CB-6 21 25 - 46 7. CB-7 13 15 - 28 8. MP-1 14 - 1 15 9. STI-1 11 12 - 23 10. DA-1 4 6 - 10 11. PA-1 3 28 - 31 12. PA-2 14 44 - 58 13. PA-3 14 11 4 29 14. PA-4 27 14 - 41 15 PA-5 11 - 2 13 Total 252 250 8 510 Percentage 49.41% 49.02% 1.57% 100% Table 3 above reveals that the linguistic phenomena of code switching and mixing dominated the humorous discourse, as in excerpt 2 below. Excerpt 2 Context: Someone feels happy because of the long holiday. He wants to travel. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 44 Published by SCHOLINK INC. A : Adi bisa libur, cai? (Why do you have time off?) B : Ada edaran uli pemerintah, 14 hari libur, cai. Ha..hai... (There is an announcement from the government, 14 days off. Huraaay...) A : Badah, jelemane ne! E.., cai orahina libur to, cai tundena istirahat di rumah, adi jalan-jalan, cai? (Well, look at you! Hey..., you were told to take the days off and rest at home, why are you traveling?) B : Hai cicing, anake ngalih cuti apang maan jalan-jalan, jani suba maan libur, nelik jumah. Awake apang maan jalan-jalan, nani! (Hey, you are a dog! People are asking for time off in order to go for sightseeing. Now, I am allowed to take a day off, why should I stay at home? What are you thinking? I have to travel, son of a bitch!) A : He..he.. ajaka nutur! Mai ja! (Well... well... let us talk! Come here!) A : Dingehang imbauan pemerintah dengan baik. Beristirahatlah di rumah sementara. Beraktivitas di luar seperlunya. Hindari keramaian agar tidak kontak langsung. Corona cai, Corona cai. (Listen to the government's advice! In the meantime, stay at home! Do activities outside the home as needed only! Avoid the crowds and try not to get direct contact. Corona! Corona!) B : Hai cicing, justeru ngoyong jumah to ba berarti kalah. Lawan nani! lawan nani! (Hey dog, staying at home means we lost! Fight, son of a bitch! Fight, son of a bitch!) A : Hai Tung, yen dadi ajak mejaguran ba, ketangtangin mejaguran viruse to. Kadong suud olahraga gati awake. (Hey, Jentung! In case I can fight it, I challenge the virus, while I have exercised!) Source: Puja Astawa, episode “Corona Virus Keep Our Distance” Code PA-2 In excerpt 2, there were code-mixing, such as the use of jalan-jalan (sightseeing), libur (vacation), and istirahat (holiday) which were Indonesian words. Meanwhile, in Balinese, they should be mlali-lali (sightseeing), prai (vacation), and mareren (resting). In addition to the code-mixing, in excerpt 1, there was also code-switching, such as the use of the Indonesian sentence “Beristirahatlah di rumah sementara. Beraktivitas di luar seperlunya. Hindari keramaian agar tidak kontak langsung” (In the meantime, stay at home! Do activities outside the home as needed only! Avoid the crowds and try not to get direct contact). This sentence can be expressed in Balinese as “Ngoyong jumah malu! Yen sing perlu, eda pesu! Eda ka rame-ramene, apang tusing kalalahin!”. The code mixing and switching were used to deliver the message in full and convey the core topic of Covid-19, as cited in excerpt 3 below. Excerpt 3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 45 Published by SCHOLINK INC. A : Napi ciri-cirinya, Dok? (What are the symptoms, Doc?) B : Ciri-cirine: demam, batuk, pilek atau bersin, sakit tenggorok, tambah keras, bisa sampai sesek. (The symptoms might be fever, cough, runny nose or sneezing, sore throat, and shortness of breath) C : Men, kenken cara penularane, Dok? (How is it transmitted, Doc?) B : Penularane punika ada 2 cara. Langsung dan tidak langsung. Secara langsung itu melalui virus yang keluar pada saat orang itu bersin atau batuk, kemudian percikannya mengenai wajah kita. (The two means of transmission are direct and indirect. The virus can be transmitted directly when someone sneezes or coughs, and the spark touches the face) A : Terus yang tidak langsung, Dok? (How about the indirect one, Doc?) B : Kalau yang tidak langsung melalui benda-benda yang tercemar virus tersebut, kemudian kita pegang, dan tanpa sengaja kita memegang wajah kita. (It can be transmitted indirectly through contaminated objects that are held, and accidentally contact the face) C : O, keto! (Oh, I see!) Source: Puja Astawa, episode ‘Corona Virus Keep our Distance’ Code PA-2 Excerpt 3, further justifies that the events of code mixing and switching with Indonesian language was done to convey the core topic. This includes the doctor's speech, even though the participant who asked questions used Balinese. In this case, the core topic was not packed in the form of humor. 4. Discussion The data revealed that the four humor styles were used in the humorous discourse of Covid-19 with different percentages. The affiliative, which was 60.80%, was very dominating. This style is expressed by spontaneous utterances without offending others. The freedom from individual bias causes this humor style to be the safest. In Balinese, a pandemic is an absorption word, which means 'plague'. Moreover, there is the construction of the Pan Demi, a noun phrase meaning 'father of Demi'. In this language, this linguistic phenomenon is called raos ngempelin (ambiguity) which is caused by changes in intonation. Therefore, the humor can be understood when the audience knows Balinese nomenclature. This knowledge is the epistemic context of the speaker and the audience. Furthermore, the context becomes a presupposition for successfully understanding the humor implicature. Based on the utterances in citation 3, the style of humor used was affiliative, which is a spontaneous speech to arouse www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 46 Published by SCHOLINK INC. laughter without offending the person (Gibson, 2019; Arnawa, 2022). From this humor, the participants managed to convey core information about the pandemic inductively. In the second rank, the use of self-enhancing humor style (17.87%) was expressed through silly and strange events. The use of this style is not bound by participant variables and is free from social ties, therefore, it is stated to have positive dimensions (Chan et al., 2018; Kfrerer, 2018). Some experts claim that aggressive style of humor has a negative dimension (Balmores-Pauliono, 2018; Gan, 2015; Muskerina et al., 2018). In this study, there was 16.53% usage of this style, which were expressed by mockery or the attack of the involved parties, however, it did not cause negative perceptions. This is because their usage fulfills conditional needs, which are the level of participant familiarity and the same socio-cultural prejudgment. The use of pronouns in the humorous discourse is a manifestation of aggressive style implementation. However, there was no negative perception among the involved parties since they have a high level of familiarity and are bound to the same socio-cultural. Therefore, this high level conditions are required when using an aggressive humor style. This study reported a total of 4.80% use of self-defeating humor style, which was expressed through condescending or self-mocking to win the hearts of others (Landoni, 2019). The frequent use of this style is relatively low because it is generally a response from the words of other actors, therefore, it cannot be raised spontaneously. Table 3 shows that the humorous discourse of Covid-19 was dominated by the use of various Balinese of kepara (general) with 83.46%, followed by kasar (low) with 15.46%. Their usage is intended to achieve the effects of intimate perlocution. In addition to causing laughter, the use of intimate variety is intended to make the main message easily understood, because not all Balinese are skilled in alus (high). The disclosure of humorous expressions through Balinese language variants of kepara and kasar is a strategy to attract the attention of the audience and condition them to understand the main information about Covid-19. This is generally delivered in Indonesian language to cause linguistic phenomena of code mixing and switching. Table 4 shows that this phenomenon dominated. The occurrence of code mixing and switching reflects that Balinese population is a bilingual society. Another motivation leading to this occurrence is the avoidance of distorting messages about Covid-19 because Balinese is a cultural and traditional language, therefore, it does not have vocabulary and terms that can be used to express health protocol information. One pragmatic postulate that often occurs is the difference between what is said and what is intended. The meeting point of this difference lies in the similarity of presuppositions between the speakers and the audience. Furthermore, these differences in presupposition were often used to form the humorous discourse of Covid-19. For examples during the pandemic, the proverb was switched to Bersatu kita runtuh, bercerai kita teguh (United we collapse, divided we are firm or stand). This change of words pair in the proverb resulted in imbalanced meaning which stimulated audience’s laugh. The entailment of the switched words pair is that when people unite or gather during the pandemic, the virus will spread, infect quickly, and several persons will get sick. Conversely, there will be no infection when www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 47 Published by SCHOLINK INC. distance is kept. The understanding of the humor highly depends on the epistemic context between participants. The same cognitive process can be implemented to comprehend the sentence Jani, yen dot menang, cukup Bli ngoyong jumah dogen. Suba menang nglawan viruse ento. “Todays, when you want to win, you just need to stay home. It is enough to win against the virus”. In order to understand the intention of this humor, the soldiers have to be involved in battle, similarly, to win the corona virus, people just have to stay home. This epistemic context is a presupposition for successfully understanding the humor implicature. According to the utterances in excerpt 8 and 9, the style of humor used was affiliative, as there was a spontaneous speech to arouse laughter without offending the person (Gibson, 2019, p. 28). From this humor, the participants managed to convey core information about the Covid-19 pandemic inductively. In Balinese discourse, there are four humor styles used for public outreach and education about Covid-19. These styles are affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating, where affiliative was the most often used, in contrary, self-defeating had the most infrequent use. Furthermore, Balinese variants used are kepara (general) and kasar (low). The humorous discourse relatively pays less attention to the aspects of cohesion, although, they are still maintained. The integrity of information is more important in order to have frequent code mixing and switching. Acknowledgement Thank you to all informants who have contributed to this research. 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