LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021. p-ISSN 1858-0165
Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X

293

A Manipulation of Semantic Meanings as a Humor
Construction Strategy

M. Masqotul Imam Romadlani1

imam.romadlani@gmail.com
1Gadjah Mada University

Abstract

This research is conducted to reveal how humorous utterances are constructed by manipulating
semantic meaning especially dealing with lexical semantics. Lexical semantics provides multiple
meanings that portray their meanings’ relationship among a word and they are potentially exploited to
elicit humor. This research examines utterances manipulating lexical semantics as the strategy of
humor creation in Mind Your Language situation comedy. Applying a descriptive qualitative approach,
the findings indicate that five types of lexical semantics are utilized as strategies of humorous
utterances creation. Those types of lexical semantics are polysemy, homonymy, homophone,
hyponymy, dan synonymy. Because of their multiple relation meanings, the speaker can refer to other
meanings to construct different meanings with the hearer. The speaker constructs an incongruent
meaning between what the hearer’s perception is and what the speaker meant. The deviation of lexical
semantics between the hearer and the speaker completely illustrates the concept of incongruity theory
of humor.

Keywords: Humor; semantics; lexical semantics; mind your language

INTRODUCTION

Ross (2005) conceptualizes humor as a certain
quality or potential of somebody or something to
be funny and amusing. Funniness and amusement
are commonly expressed by smiling or laughing.
Quite resemble Ross’s conception of humor,
Raskin (1994) defines humor as everything that can
evoke laughter, it can be an audio or visual thing
that stimulates something funny. Humor can be
expressed by a physical gesture or verbal language.
Some humorous expressions also employ both
physical and verbal humor.

Verbal humor exploits linguistic aspects as a
strategy of humor construction. The speaker can
manipulate some linguistic aspects such as
phonology, morphology, syntax, semantic, and
pragmatic to create humorous discourse. The
exploitation of those linguistic aspects in verbal
humor is closely related to the incongruity theory
of humor. Attardo (1994) highlights that

incongruity is based on the discovery of a reality
or a thought that turns out to be inconsistent with
what was expected. It means that the main
characteristic of that theory of humor is
incongruences. Based on that theory, a distorted
linguistics aspect could be represented by an odd
linguistic expression, contradiction, bewildering,
or disordering hearer’s perception. Berger (1976)
underlines that incongruity can be applied
linguistically in syllables, words, phrases, and
meanings to create humor.

“Incongruity is marked by conflict, contrast,
and differentiation” (Marmysz, 2003, p. 128).
Related to Marmysz’s characteristic of incongruity,
Wijana (1994) also states that the essence of humor
creation utilizes a different combination of two
meanings, perceptions, or conceptions between
speaker and hearer by which cause
unexpectedness and peculiarity as a humorous
construction requirement. That conception of
incongruity can be found linguistically by breaking

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the ruled-govern of a language which potentially
elicit laugh or smile as an indicator of humor
occurrence (Wijana, 1995). Even though laughter is
a primary indicator of humor, Meyer (2000)
involves smiles, grins, or even sudden exhalations
that can indicate the experience of humor. In a
particular context, Meyer asserts communication is
a key factor in nearly all theories of humor because
it results from a message or interaction perceived
by others.

Based on the conception of humor creation
above, Wijana (2004) and Hurley, Dennett, and
Adams (2011) identify several forms of verbal
humor such as puns and wordplay, situation
comedy, cartoons, musical jokes, fairy tale, riddle,
folk story, folk poetry, nickname, and an amusing
name of food. This research examines verbal
humor creation in one of the phenomenal and
controversial situation comedies entitled Mind
Your Language, a British comedy television
series produced by London Weekend Television (LWT)
in 1977. That sitcom told the audiences about
foreigners who learned English as their second
language. They came from different countries with
different first languages, cultures, and occupations
as well. The characters in that comedy series
involved Miss Courtney as the headmaster of the
educational college, Mr. Brown as an English
teacher, Gladys as a cafeteria school keeper, and
Sid as the cockney caretaker of the school. The
students’ characters presented Chung Su Lee from
China, Taro Nagazumi from Japan, Anna Schmidt
from German, Max from Greek, Ranjeet Singh
from India, Giovanni Capello from Italy, Ali
Nadim from Pakistan, Danielle Favre from French,
Jameela Ranjha from India, and Juan Cervantes
from Spain.

Because of their different knowledge of
English, their utterances mostly trigger laughter.
To make it more specific, this research investigates
lexical semantics as the strategy of humor creation
in Mind Your Language situation comedy. This
research focuses on the incongruence of lexical
semantics in manipulating meaning to construct
humorous utterances. Focusing on one of the
smaller linguistic units, hopefully, this research is
in a position to provide an applicable strategy in

constructing verbal humor. Semantic meaning,
especially lexical relation unconsciously is widely
used in daily conversation. This research should
contribute theoretically in creating verbal humor
by manipulating lexical relation meanings such as
synonymy, antonymy, homonymy, hyponymy,
and polysemy.

Theoretically, a study dealing with linguistic
meaning is known as semantics. Becker and
Bieswenger (2006) claim that words in a certain
language can be semantically related to one
another in many different ways. Finegan (2012)
labels that semantic phenomenon dealing with
word meaning and examines relationships among
word meanings is called lexical semantics (see also
Riemer, (2010) and Becker and Bieswenger, (2006).
Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams, (2011)
characterizes that lexical semantics often ends in
the bound morpheme -nym such as synonymy,
antonymy, homonyms, polysemy, and hyponyms
(see also Rowe and Levine, (2016) Akmajian,
Demers, Farmer, and Harnish, (2001) Finch, (2003);
O’grady, Dobrovolsky, and Aronoff (1997);
Finegan (2012); Yule (2014); and Saeed (2003).
Riemer (2010) also comprises meronym as part of
lexical semantics even though it has nearly
overlapped meaning with hyponyms.

Several pieces of research that examined
linguistic aspect especially dealing with semantic
aspect in verbal humor were conducted by Joloud
(2015); Lutfi (2019); Rahmi (2017); Sukardi,
Sumarlam, and Marmanto (2018); Litvinenko,
Sirazova, and Zharkynbekova (2020); Sukardi,
Yuwana, and Sumarlam (2016); and Anisah (2016).
Lutfi (2016) analyze semantic and pragmatic aspect
in English jokes while Rahmi (2017) examines
semantic and pragmatic aspects as a joke strategy
in situation comedy. Some of those previous
research findings show how lexical relation
meanings are manipulated to construct humor.
Joloud’s semantic analysis in The Reader’s Digest
humor found that homonymy, paronymy, and
polysemy are identified as humor creation
strategies. Quite resemble Joloud’s findings,
Litvinenko, Sirazova, and Zharkynbekova (2020)
found that the phenomenon of homonymy,
polysemy, and paronomasia is employed to create

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humor in English, French and Russian anecdotes.
Focusing on one type of lexical relations, Anisah
(2016) examines polysemy in Indonesian Lawak
Klub humorous discourse while Sukardi,
Sumarlam, and Marmanto (2018) examine
homonymy in Meme. another investigation
concerning lexical ambiguity is conducted by Jojić
(2013) and Charina (2017). Jojić (2013) examines
lexical puns in a situation comedy while Charina
(2017) investigates lexical and syntactic ambiguity
in 30 humorous and ambiguous sentences
occurring in newspaper headlines, advertisement
slogans, and jokes.

METHODOLOGY

By the background of the research, this research
applies a descriptive qualitative approach. As
Denscombe (2007, p. 248) highlights, “qualitative
research is disposed to be associated with words or
images as the unit of analysis, this research takes
words as the unit of analysis”. Scripts that had
been adjusted to the subtitles of Mind Your
Language in season 1 are proceed to be research
data. From those adjusted scripts, comprehensive
observation and annotation are needed to provide
data analysis. That sitcom has 4 seasons consisting
of 42 episodes. This research considers all 13
episodes in season 1 to limit the saturation of
repeated and similar data at the rest of the seasons.
Besides, the emergence of artificial laughter at that
sitcoms is also considered to establish utterances
containing humorous utterances especially related
to lexical semantics. This research identifies lexical
semantics exploited as a strategy of verbal humor
creation in Mind Your Language situation comedy.
After identifying the types of lexical relations, an
argumentative discussion is given to explain how
the meaning relationship in a word is manipulated
to build humorous utterances in that sitcom. This
interpretation is also strengthened by looking up
an oxford dictionary to understand the semantic
meaning.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

A distorted meaning in the semantic aspect can be
utilized to create humorous utterances. Involving
multiple meanings that potentially construct
ambiguous or incongruent meaning lead the
speaker and hearer to refer to a different meaning
of a similar word. Semantic aspects, especially
lexical semantics, are employed to create
humorous discourse in Mind Your
Language situation comedy. The findings show that
the forms of lexical semantics employed to create
humor are polysemy, homonymy, homophone,
hyponym, and synonym. The types of lexical
semantics which usually are originated in humor
construction is polysemy and homonymy. The
employment of those lexical semantics occurs
because they represent a similar word that has
more than one meaning. That is why Becker and
Bieswenger (2006) and O’grady, Dobrovolsky, and
Aronoff (1997) call them lexical ambiguity because
both polysemy and homonym refer to a single
lexical form that has two or more meanings.
Polysemy is used to the word which has more than
one and related meanings, while homonymy is
used to express a word that has more than one and
unrelated meanings. Rowe and Levine (2016)
explain that the term homonymy is labeled for
words that have different meanings and might be
spelled similarly or differently, but they are
pronounced similarly.

Polysemy

Semantically, a word meaning can be a primary or
secondary meaning. Some words in every
language have primary and secondary meanings,
depending on the linguistic context surrounding
them. A very common example of a polysemous
word is the use of the word head. That word can be
used to mean a part of a human’s body and it can
also be used as the highest position in an
institution or a group. Those two meanings are still
interconnected based on their linguistic context.
The meaning of the word head is a part of humans’
body as the highest position. The concept of the
highest position of the head in humans’ body is
involved to construct meaning as the highest
position in an organization. Because of those
multiple meanings, polysemy is often be employed
to produce humorous utterances. The use of two

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different concepts of meaning at the same speech
event potentially led to an incongruity as in the
example below.

(1) Mr. Brown: Let's see your observations on the
stars.
Juan: Por favor? Ah sí, stars. There is plenty
stars.
Mr. Brown: Yes, could you name some?
Juan: Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot.

The conversation above occurred in the
classroom between Mr. Brown and Juan. Mr.
Brown allowed each student to speak English for
one minute on a different topic. In Example (1), Mr.
Brown asked Juan to talk about stars. The
word stars mean objects in the sky that appear to
light up at night or they can also be interpreted as
planets. Mr. Brown asked Juan to describe the
object and named some of the stars or planets that
he knew. When Juan mentioned several names
related to stars, Juan did not name those kinds of
stars. He just mentioned several actresses’ names
such as Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot. Juan
perceived the meaning of stars as a secondary
meaning, while Mr. Brown asked Juan to talk
about stars in their primary meaning. The concept
of discrepancy in Juan's utterances above indicated
the emergence of humor by manipulating the
polysemous meaning of stars. Even though that
word was used in the different senses of meaning,
they still showed a related meaning. Both Mr.
Brown and Juan referred to different meanings of
that word that evoked laughter.

As mentioned in the previous section, the
meaning of a word has a primary meaning and a
secondary meaning. When a word used refers to
its original meaning, without being influenced by
the context of the situation, it can be classified as a
primary meaning. Conversely, if the word used
does not refer to the original meaning or the lexical
meaning it can be said to be a secondary meaning.
In other words, the primary meaning can be said
as literal meaning and secondary meaning as
figurative meaning. As an English native speaker,
Mr. Brown can produce meaning figuratively in
his utterances to contribute to the humor
construction.

(2) Mr. Brown: Taro, sit down. Now, before we
do anything else this evening, I want to find a
monitor.
Giovanni: O.K. You tell us where to look! We
find one.

(3) Mr. Brown: Taro.
Taro: Yes teacher?
Mr. Brown: Paris is in France.
Taro: No. to Buckingham Parace.
Mr. Brown: Ah, Buckingham Palace! I follow
you.
Taro: You follow me?
Mr. Brown: Yes.
Taro: I didn’t see you then.

Another example of the polysemous word in
constructing humorous utterance was found in
Example (2). Before Mr. Brown started teaching, he
wanted to find someone with good enough
English skills to handle the class if Mr. Brown had
to leave the classroom for a while. Mr. Brown
expressed it with the word monitor. As a native
speaker, Mr. Brown certainly understands the
figurative meaning of that word. However,
students who are still in the process of learning
English will take the meaning of monitor. A
monitor is one of the hardware devices on a
computer that functions to display images, video,
or other works. Meanwhile, Mr. Brown, in
Example (2), used the word monitor to refer to the
meaning of a person who can help him to oversee.
Giovanni, who took that meaning literally,
responded to Mr. Brown by saying O.K. You tell us
where to look! We find one. The funniness occurred
when Giovanni contributed a response that was
related to Mr. Brown, but conceptually, his
response was not appropriate to Mr. Brown’s
utterance. It was because of a different perception
between what Mr. Brown meant and what
meaning Giovanni was considered.

The use of figurative meaning in creating
humor was also carried out by Taro in Example (3).
When Taro shared his weekend experience in
Buckingham Palace, Mr. Brown misunderstood the
word Palace. That was because Taro
mispronounced that word by
saying parace for palace. That incorrect

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pronunciation sounded like pronouncing the word
Paris. After clarifying, Mr. Brown understood
what Taro meant that he attempted to say Palace.
To confirm, Mr. Brown told Taro that he
understood him by uttering I follow you. The
word follow means to come or to go after or behind
somebody or something. Contextually, Mr. Brown
used that expression to convey that he had
understood what Taro meant. On the other hand,
Taro considered the meaning literally that Mr.
Brown followed him during his weekend in
Buckingham Palace. It led Taro to respond to Mr.
Brown’s utterance by saying I didn't see you
then because he presumed that he did not Mr.
Brown there. Taro’s incongruent response above
also indicated a concept of incongruity theory of
humor. Taro’s irrelevant response made audiences
laughing.

(4) Mr. Brown: Ali.
Ali: Yes please.
Mr. Brown: Can I see you please?
Ali: You are seeing me now.

Another polysemous meaning to create
humor was found in the dialogue (4). When Mr.
Brown came to Ali in the classroom, Mr. Brown
wanted to have a serious discussion privately with
Ali in Miss Courtney's office by uttering can I see
you, please. Mr. Brown used that utterance
figuratively that there is something quite
important he wanted to talk to Ali in eyes on eyes.
Hearing Mr. Brown’s utterance, Ali perceived Mr.
Brown’s utterance literally and responded by
saying you are seeing me now. The funniness
occurred because Mr. Brown and Ali perceived
different meanings for the word see. Mr. Brown
used that word figuratively while Ali used that
word in the literal meaning. That incongruent
perception led Ali to produce an irrelevance
response which triggered humor. Based on the
Example (2), (3), and (4), it can be seen how
manipulation of literal and figurative meanings
can be conducted to elicit humor. An irrelevance
utterance represented the incongruent meaning
between the speaker and the hearer.

Homonymy

Nearly all languages, in general, have words that
present various meanings even though they are
realized with similar speech sounds and similar
spelling. Those concepts in constructing meaning
in linguistics are called homonymy. As Rowe and
Levine (2016) underline about homonymy, an
ambiguity caused by a similar sound, and
sometimes the same figure is utilized to create
humor. Fromkin et al. (2011) presume that
homonyms are good candidates for confusion as
well as humor. In more specific terms, homonyms
are an unrelated sense of the same phonological
word. Saeed (2003) highlights that some authors
distinguish between homographs, sense of the
same written word, and homophone, sense of the
same spoken word. Some examples of homonymy
use in the humor creation process can be seen in
some examples below.

(5) Miss Courtney: Go down the corridor.
Ali: Down the corridor.
Miss Courtney: Good. Turn left.
Ali: Turn left.
Miss Courtney: Right.
Ali: You are confusing me.

(6) Giovanni: There is Glasgow Rangers,
Glasgow Celtics, football.
Miss Courtney: I was not referring to football,
I was talking about the race.
Giovanni: No, no, no, is not a race, it’s
football. I see them play at milano in the cup.

A conversation in Example (5) occurred
between Ali and Miss Courtney. Ali visited Miss
Courtney's office to ask English class for
immigrants. After giving some information, Miss
Courtney gave Ali a direction to get to the
classroom. Miss Courtney also advised Ali to wait
for his teacher in the classroom. When Miss
Courtney was giving instruction, Ali’s gesture
seemed as if he understood what Miss Courtney
was saying. The funniness occurred when Miss
Courtney used the word right to confirm that what
Ali said was true. Meanwhile, Ali interpreted the
word right as a hint to go to the right side the
opposite of the left. That similarity of the spelling
and sounds of the word right presents a different
meaning that is perceived differently by Miss

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Courtney and Ali. It indicates a concept of
incongruity theory of humor which is
characterized by an inappropriate response from
the speaker.

A similar case was also found in Example (6)
on Giovanni’s utterance. Miss Courtney was
explaining the history of the English language.
Finding a word Celtic in Miss Courtney's
utterances, Giovanni who minded Celtics as one of
a football club in Scotland conveyed his opinion
about Celtics. Those different perceptions of the
meaning of Celtic between Miss Courtney and
Giovanni led them to a misunderstanding situation.
Miss Courtney had clarified that she did not talk
about football, but she talked about race. The
word race was perceived differently by Miss
Courtney and Giovanni. Miss Courtney used the
word race to refer to any of the groups into which
humans can be divided according to their physical
characteristics, culture, history, language, etc.,
while Giovanni interpreted that word as a contest
between runners, horses, vehicles, etc. to see which
one is the fastest. Those contradictive meanings are
manipulated to construct humorous utterances by
demonstrating an irrelevant response. That
homonymous word led Miss Courtney and
Giovanni in an awkward situation that triggered
funniness.

A different conception of one word that has
a similar sound and spelling was also found in the
example below. Before starting the meeting, Mr.
Brown gave a simple question about a term used
to describe the valley between two mountains.
Juan who seemed to be confused and did not
know the answer responded to the question by
saying pass. Juan used that word to say that he did
not know the answer to a question, especially for
the quiz. In another context, the word pass is also
used to refer to a valley between two mountains.
Unconsciously, Juan's intention to say that he did
not know the answer by saying pass made his
answer correct. The different meaning of the
similar word served by Juan and perceived by Mr.
Brown made Mr. Brown received Juan’s answer.
That ambiguous word portrayed the incongruity
between what Juan meant and what he did to
respond to the question. A similar word perceived

differently by Juan and Mr. Brown demonstrated
how homonymous words could be manipulated to
evoke laughter.

(7) Mr. Brown: Here is your question. What is
another name for a valley between two
mountains?
Juan: Valley between two mountains? Pass.
Mr. Brown: Correct.

Another example of homonymy which
happened because of naming as Sukardi et al.’s
findings (2018) could be seen in Example (8). It
illustrates the use of personal names ambiguously
to express lexical words related to a sort of color.

(8) Mr. Brown: I am Brown.
Ali: Oh, no. You are committing a mistake.
Mr. Brown: Mistake?
Ali: Yes, you are not brown! We are brown!
You are white.
Mr. Brown: My name is Brown! I'm your
teacher.

Mr. Brown introduced himself the first time
he met his students in the classroom by saying I am
Brown. Hearing Mr. Brown's utterance, one of his
students looked surprised. He then corrected Mr.
Brown's utterance by saying you are not brown! We
are brown! You are white. Based on that example, it
could be seen that there was an ambiguous
meaning of the word brown. Mr. Brown used that
word to refer to his name. Besides, a different
meaning was perceived by Ali who considered
that the word brown was used to refer to Mr.
Brown’s skin color. Their incongruent meanings of
the word brown were employed to construct
humorous utterances by showing the concept of
lexical ambiguity as what Becker and Bieswenger
(2006) and O'grady, Dobrovolsky, and Aronoff
(1997) presume. Ali and Mr. Brown expressed
different meanings to a similar word, brown, that
made audiences laughing. That different
perception also led Ali to produce an irrelevance
response.

Homophones

The term homonym is used to refer to the concept
of the same sound and spelling or it may spell
differently which has different meanings. Yule

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(2014) and Finch (2003) use the term homophones
to refer to the concept of a word which has a
similar sound but it has different and unrelated
meaning. The concept of homophones also refers
to the same sound but different in spelling. In
short, it can be said that homophones are different
words that have the same sound speech or
pronunciation (see also Becker and Bieswanger,
2006). Some examples of using homophones as a
strategy to create humor can be seen in the
conversation below.

(9) Mr. Brown: Max, question five! Quite a hard
one this one. Construct a sentence using the
word indisposition.
Max: Sure! Every Saturday I play the football
and I am being the goalkeeper! Because I
like playing in this position.

(10) Mr. Brown: Max, desk doesn't begin with the
letter A! I want a word beginning with A.
Max: A door.
Mr. Brown: Good, Adore! Well done.
Ali: Excuse please!
Mr. Brown: Yes Ali.
Ali: I am not understanding why you are
saying a desk is not right but a door is right.

Mr. Brown, in Example (9), asked Max to
make a sentence using the word indisposition. Max
responded to the question with a sentence that did
not contain the word indisposition as Mr. Brown
expected. However, in Max's sentence construction,
there was a speech sound that had a similar
pronunciation as the word indisposition. That
was in this position. Phonologically, those two
speech sounds are pronounced in the same
pronunciation. Max perceived the sound of the
word indisposition as the pronunciation of in this
position so Max made a sentence containing that
expression. Those homophonous speech sounds
are completely different in writing,
but indisposition and in this position illustrate a
similar sound. That different perception of the
same sounds also led Max to produce an
irrelevance response to answer Mr. Brown's
question.

An identical case was also found in Max's
utterance in Example (10). Mr. Brown asked Max

to give him an example of an English word
beginning with the letter A. At the first chance,
Max responded to Mr. Brown by giving the word a
desk that was no relevance to the question
because a desk was not a word and the
word desk began with the letter D. On the second
occasion, Max responded to Mr. Brown’s question
by giving the word a door. Conceptually, Max still
gave a similar response to the first one.
Nevertheless, Mr. Brown perceived the sounds of a
door as adore so he received Max’s answer right.
The word that Max meant was a door not adore.
That homophonous word unconsciously led the
speaker and hearer to perceive different words
that evoke laughter. That was because the sound of
the word adore was similar to a door. Based on the
example, it clearly can be seen how the concept of
homophone led the speaker and hearer to
construct humorous utterances by showing an
irrelevance response.

(11) Mr. Brown: If you want to be pedantic about
it Ranjeet, write your surname and forename.
Ranjeet: I am not having four names also.

(12) Mr. Brown: Anna, C.
Anna: Red.
Mr. Brown: Red? What's that got to do with C?
Anna: Red Sea.

A conversation between Mr. Brown and
Ranjeet in Example (11) also indicated the use of
homophones as a humor creation strategy. When
Mr. Brown briefed all his students before they had
an examination to get a certificate, he asked his
students to fill their name column first. Mr. Brown
used the word forename to refer to the first name.
One of his students, Ranjeet, considered that Mr.
Brown uttered four names so he responded to Mr.
Brown by saying I am not having four names also.
Although they have different meanings and
spellings, the word forename and the phrase four
names share a similarity in pronunciation. Ranjeet’s
word choice in his utterance represented
phonological manipulation of those words to
construct funny meaning. He seemed conscious to
exploit that homophonous expression to evoke
laughter. Ranjeet demonstrated the concept of
incongruity theory of humor by providing two

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incongruent words that have similar sounds in
pronunciation.

Another example of homophones use was
found in Example (12). Mr. Brown asked Anna to
give him an example of an English word beginning
with the letter C. Because of their resemblance
sounds, Anna supposed that the sound of the letter
C was the word sea. She responded to Mr. Brown’s
question by uttering Red, a kind of familiar sea's
name. Even though they are orthographically
different, they share a homophonous sound of two
unrelated sense of a letter C and the word sea. A
conversation between Anna and Mr. Brown
indicated the use of those homophonous words to
produce an ambiguity to elicit humor. Anna
responded to Mr. Brown’s utterance with her
misperception that led her to make an irrelevant
response.

Hyponymy

More specific words that constitute a subclass of a
more general word are called hyponyms (Rowe
and Levine, 2016). Saeed (2003), Finch (2003), and
Cruse (1986) highlight that hyponymy is a relation
of inclusion which means that a hyponym includes
a meaning of more general meaning with more
complete expression. An example of a hyponym
provides meaning in more complete words or
expressions. Yule (2014) underlines that
hyponymy can be identified when the meaning of
one word is included in the meaning of another.
As Riemer’s differentiation of hyponym and
meronymy, Becker and Bieswenger (2006) draw
the basic concept of those lexical semantics,
meronymy refers to terms for parts of real objects,
whereas hyponymy refers to a hierarchy.

One example commonly used to describe
the concept of hyponymy can be seen in the use of
the words cat and animal or grasshopper and insect.
Cats are a hyponym for animals, as well as
grasshoppers which are a hyponym for insects.
Based on the category, the word animals and
insects in a wider context are called hypernyms
because they are superordinate or a more general
term. A distorted concept of hyponymy is also able

to construct humorous utterances as in the
findings below.

(13) Mr. Brown: And before you discovered this
secret of eternal wealth, what did you do?
Ali: I worked at the Taj Mahal.
Mr. Brown: In Delhi?
Ali: No, Putney. The Taj Mahal Tandoori
Restaurant.

(14) Mr. Brown: Giovanni, what were you and
Juan quarrelling over?
Giovanni: He was making fun of Santa Maria.
Mr. Brown: Santa Maria, the Virgin Mary?
Mr. Brown: No, Louis G Santa Maria, the
Italian foot baller.

A conversation between Mr. Brown and Ali
in Example (13) took place when Mr. Brown was
fulfilling one of his students’ identities, Ali Nadim
from Pakistan. Mr. Brown asked Ali about his job.
Before he came to London, Ali said to Mr. Brown
that he worked at the Taj Mahal. Taj Mahal is
widely known as one of India's most popular icons
in Delhi, so Mr. Brown interpreted that Ali worked
in Delhi. However, what Ali meant about the Taj
Mahal was not referring to India’s icon located in
Delhi. The Taj Mahal meant by Ali is the name of a
restaurant in Putney, the Taj Mahal Tandoori
Restaurant. Ali’s utterance illustrated that he
produced incomplete meaning through his
utterance. Semantically, the meaning of what Ali
meant laid in another more complete utterance.
The use of hyponym could be seen in how Ali only
mentioned the Taj Mahal at first without
mentioning the complete name of a place where he
worked to construct the hearer’s perception. When
the hearer presumed that Ali worked in Delhi, Ali
said that he did not work in Delhi, but in Putney,
at the Taj Mahal Tandoori Restaurant. What Ali
meant about the Taj Mahal was the name of a
restaurant in Putney, not the Taj Mahal in Delhi. A
quite similar case was also illustrated by Giovanni
in Example (14). Mr. Brown assumed that
Giovanni's utterance about Santa Maria as the
Virgin Mary. Unfortunately, in a more complete
meaning, Santa Maria that Giovanni meant
referred to Louis G. Santa Maria, an Italian
footballer. Involving incomplete meaning in the

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301

previous utterance for more complete meaning
potentially lead the speaker and hearer have
different perception that can cause humor. That
was the realization of the hyponymy concept as
the humor creation strategy with irrelevance
response.

(15) Anna: Then I had to prepare a meal for the
bitch.
Mr. Brown: Anna, she may be a hard
taskmistress but I don't think you ought to
call her that.
Anna: Who?
Mr. Brown: Mrs. Valker... Walker.
Anna: I vas meaning the dog bitch.
Mr. Brown: Oh I see.

The use of hyponymy to produce humorous
utterance was also found in the Example (15).
Anna was telling Mr. Brown the reason why she
did not have time to finish her assignment. As an
immigrant who worked as a household assistant,
Anna told Mr. Brown how busy she was. After
completing her housework, Anna also had to
prepare food for her employer’s female dog. The
funniness arose when Anna, at her first utterance,
did not convey what she meant completely by only
saying then I had to prepare a meal for the bitch. This
made Mr. Brown assumed that Anna was
complaining and insulting her employer by calling
her a bitch. Hearing Anna’s utterance, Mr. Brown
attempted to reprimand Anna for not referring to
her employer as a bitch. That word, in English
contexts, is classified as a vulgar word. However,
at a more complete utterance, Anna then clarified
that the word bitch did not refer to her employer,
but she was referring to her employer’s dog bitch.
Before Anna explained what meant, it could be
seen how the first utterance brought partial and
uncomplete meaning to drive the hearer’s
perception. Then she produced the more complete
meaning and utterance in the second utterance to
explain what she meant.

(16) Mr. Brown: No, I was engaged once! As a
matter of fact, I proposed marriage but it
didn't really work out. There was quite a lot
of opposition.
Miss Courtney: Her father?

Mr. Brown: No, her husband I didn't realize
she was married.

Hyponymy usually provides a partial
meaning to build the first hearer’s perception that
is potentially broken by the speaker at the second
perception to create incongruity. Mr. Brown, in the
example above, was in an attempt to construct
Miss Courtney’s first perception by uttering that
he faced quite a lot of opposition to his previous
marriage proposal. The case of rejection in a
marriage proposal is usually designated by one or
several family members. Therefore, hearing Mr.
Brown’s explanation about his marriage proposal
opposition, Miss Courtney considered that one of
the people who oppose Mr. Brown’s proposal was
Mr. Brown’s girlfriend’s father. A person who
denied Mr. Brown's proposal was his girlfriend’s
husband. It means that the woman whom Mr.
Brown wanted to married was a married one. The
unexpected response by Mr. Brown was not only
incongruent literally, but it also opposed the social
norms. He cannot marry a married woman.

A language practice that distorted partial
meaning found in the previous examples was often
employed to construct humorous utterances. A
partial meaning in the first expression is used to
form the hearer's perception and the second one
which contains a complete meaning is used to
reverse the initial perception of the hearer. The
incongruity between the first perception at the first
utterance and the overall meaning conveyed at the
second utterance is one of the humor creation
strategies involved in the Mind Your
Language situation comedy series. Generally, this
strategy is also widely utilized to create humor in
daily conversation.

Synonymy

Fromkin et al. (2011) assume that the best-known
lexical semantics are synonymy and antonymy.
Synonymy is the use of some words to express the
same meaning in some or all contexts while
antonymy is the use of some words to express the
opposite meaning gradably or complementarily.
Phonologically, Saeed (2003) defines synonymy as
different phonological words that have the same or
very similar meanings. Akmajian et al. (2001)

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LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021

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underline that one of the central meaning relations
in synonymy is the sameness of meaning or
paraphrase. This kind of lexical semantics is also
found as a strategy to construct humorous
utterances in Mind Your Language situation
comedy.

(17) Mr. Brown: Su Lee Chung.
Su Lee: Plesent.
Mr. Brown: Ali Nadim.
Ali: Gift.
Mr. Brown: Gift?

(18) Mr. Brown: Good evening everyone. Nice to
see you all are bright and early. I expect
you're feeling a bit nervous.
Jamila: I am not nervous.
Mr. Brown: Good.
Jamila: I am putrified.
Mr. Brown: Petrified.

Two examples above illustrate how
synonymy was used to produce humorous
utterances. In Example (17), Mr. Brown, who had
just arrived at the classroom, asked his students to
say present when their name was mentioned by
him. After calling Su Lee's name, Mr. Brown then
called Ali Nadim’s name. Hearing his name was
mentioned by Mr. Brown, Ali did not follow what
Mr. Brown asked. Ali did not say present to
confirm his attendance, but he said gift. Ali
presumed that the word gift and present are similar
in various contexts. The word gift uttered by Ali, in
a certain context, has a synonymous meaning with
the word present. Both can be interpreted as a thing
that you give to somebody especially on a special
occasion or to say thank you. However, in that
context, the word gift was not synonymous with
the word present. That inappropriateness was
conducted by Ali to elicit humorous utterances.

Jamila’s utterance in Example (18) also
indicated how humorous utterance can be
constructed by manipulating synonymous words.
Before Mr. Brown’s students took their
examination for English proficiency certificate, Mr.
Brown entered the classroom just to greet and
motivate his students. Mr. Brown considered that
his students were nervous about the exam. Jamila
who was sitting in the frontline seat stated that she

did not feel nervous. Mr. Brown looked very
happy to hear that. The funniness occurred when
Jamila stated that she did not feel nervous, but she
felt very scared by uttering I am putrified. The
word petrified means much more than nervous or
feeling extremely frightened. It means that the
word nervous semantically has a synonymous
meaning with the word petrified. It implied that
Jamila felt very nervous or extremely frightened of
the examination. She even pronounced that word
incorrectly by sounding putrified for petrified.

CONCLUSION

Humor construction is semantically probable by
indicating incongruent meaning. Based on the
discussion above, by manipulating meaning,
people simply can provide humor. A meaning of a
word manipulated by a speaker commonly
opposites hearer’s perception of the meaning of the
similar word. It means that the humorous
utterance can be constructed by utilizing a word
that has more than one meaning as it shows by
lexical semantics. Because lexical semantics
provides more than one meaning, it certainly
works to elicit humor by manipulating those
multiple meaning. Focusing on lexical semantics
investigation, five kinds of lexical semantics was
found as humor creation strategy in Mind Your
Language situation comedy. Those are polysemy,
homonymy, homophone, hyponymy, and
synonymy. The humorous utterances are created
by presenting the incongruity concept of the
theory of humor. A mismatch meaning perceived
by the hearer and produced by the speaker is the
basic concept of humor in the incongruity theory
of humor. In other word, hearers presume an
incongruent meaning with what the speaker
means which then lead them in misleading or
misunderstanding condition. Multiple meanings in
lexical semantics and incongruity theory of humor
are employed in humor creation to evoke laughter
by demonstrating strange, unpredictable, and
irrelevance response.

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