Humor as a representation of community identity

The presence of humour in every human activity makes it an interesting object of research to explore from the perspective of culture, language, function, and discourse mechanism. The aim of this research is discovering how verbal humour can represent the identity of the Sundanese people, which is expected to contribute to humour research through a cultural perspective. Humorous conversations in Sundanese “Cangehgar” sketches are the object of research chosen to specify the techniques of creating humour and identity represented through the speech and attitude of the speaker. The data were obtained through recording and transcription techniques which were then analysed using Brown & Yule’s discourse analysis approach to explore the hidden meaning in a conversation and Berger’s concept of humour creation to determine the humour creation technique used. The results of the analysis show that humour is constructed using humour creation techniques by utilizing linguistic elements in the form of indirect insults, misunderstandings, and violations of the principles of politeness. The identity of the Sundanese people is represented indirectly through the behaviour and speech of the conversation participants in the form of polite attitudes, responsible, helpful, caring for others, honest and mischievous.