Decoding Digital Humor: An Analysis of the CSPC Shitposting’s Facebook Page through the Lens of the Gricean Maxims
Abstract
The relevance of meme culture in today’s generation together with the advancement of technology has transformed communication. Humor which represents expression and triggers emotional response appeals to the amusing quality of utterances. In real-life context, speakers often intentionally violate maxims to express their thoughts in unique ways to evoke laughter and arouse certain effects. This paper explores how the comments of Facebook users in a humorous post in the CSPC Shitposting Facebook page creates meaning and analyzes what Gricean maxims were frequently violated. The paper also aims to investigate how memes are perceived on digital platforms, providing deeper analysis of these utterances. The study was conducted using a qualitative discourse analysis research method to analyze the language used and, identify the flouted maxims. Following the study, the researchers discovered that when people use language to make humor, they typically violate the maxims of quantity and quality garnering a percentage of 31.57%, which undermines the language's impact. This offers a logical response to the question of how humans employ figures of speech, such as hyperbole, to produce hilarious statements. Furthermore, the researchers found out that Filipinos use a variety of different humor styles containing messages in a concealed manner, rather than being straightforward. Filipino online communication style is a mixed language of English and the local language, Taglish, where the use of slangs and abbreviations are evident. This underscores the intricacies of the usage of humor in language where violating Grice’s maxim becomes a linguistic tool rather than a communicative flaw.
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