The Humourous Effect of the Inappropriateness of Speech Acts in the Sitcom of Still Standing

Abstract

This study investigates selected scenes extracted from the American sitcom of 'Still Standing'. It answers the questions: what is the most common type of speech acts used in the sitcom of 'Still Standing', how is the inappropriateness of a speech act in relation to its context causes humour?, and what is the most common technique of using humour in interaction used in the selected sitcom. This study explores how humour is generated because of the inappropriateness of speech acts in relation to their contexts. The study focuses on the aspects of the humorous language, pragmatic context of humour, and speech act theory. Humour is considered in this study as resulting from the inappropriateness of speech acts in relation to their contexts. The study tries to find out how humour is generated in some selected scenes. The findings of the study provide an outline of the functions of humour in the American sitcom of 'Still Standing'