Abstract :
Humor has been studied from different disciplinary viewpoints including
philosophy, psychology, sociology, literature, rhetoric, linguistic and others by
many scholars and experts. Thus, with the development of humor study, the
linguistic perspective is becoming the mainstream of thoughts because it is more
applicable and more systematic. In that case, to understand the pattern of
communication in humor, the study of pragmatic is needed. Therefore, this
research is aimed to analyze humor that are produced in The Big Bang Theory (a
famous sitcom in America) from the perspective of cognition and communication.
The analysis is done by applying descriptive method and using Sperber and
Wilson?s theory of relevance theory. As the result of the analysis, it shows that
there is a lot of humors that are based on relevance communication so that the
application of relevance theory must be applied in order to understand the context
of the humor. Further, the writer also noticed that the form of verbal humor used
in The Big Bang Theory mostly showing about common problems and drama
situation such friendship, job and daily life. In addition, regarding to the relevance
theory of communication, the writer also noticed that the mechanism of humor in
The Big Bang Theory is using the moment of optimal relevance of cognitive
principle which means that when the audience has a common presumption of a
context of conversation, the speaker or the characters in the sitcom is producing or
uttering something unexpected in order to make the audience laugh or joy in
humor.
Keywords: context of humor, humor, pragmatic, relevance theory