Beyond Tweets: Pragmatic Analysis of Humor as a Brand Image in Burger King’s Tweets

Marti Fauziah Ariastuti; Amadhea Naidriya Putri

doi:10.24821/jousa.v6i1.2567

Beyond Tweets: Pragmatic Analysis of Humor as a Brand Image in Burger King’s Tweets

Marti Fauziah Ariastuti, Amadhea Naidriya Putri

Abstract

Melebihi Tweet: Analisis Pragmatis Humor sebagai Citra Merek di Tweet Burger King. Salah satu bentuk strategi komunikasi yang paling populer adalah humor. Meskipun berbagai penelitian telah dilakukan untuk meneliti hubungan humor dan semantik dalam konteks iklan, relatif sedikit yang telah membahas hubungan antara tweet humor, komunikasi bisnis, dan pragmatik. Oleh karena itu, tujuan utama dari penelitian ini adalah untuk (1) menyelidiki konstruksi tweet humor berdasarkan delapan sumber daya pengetahuan dan (2) membahas fungsi pragmatisnya. Penelitian ini menggunakan versi ekstensi dari Teori Umum Humor Verbal Attardo (Tsakona, 2013), dilengkapi dengan analisis fungsional teks Brinker. Dipilih berdasarkan style humor yang digunakan (Martin, 2003), data untuk penelitian ini terdiri dari 111 tweet humor dari akun Twitter Burger King antara tahun 2016 dan 2018. Tiga tahun dipilih karena tampaknya ada korelasi positif antara penggunaan strategi humor di media sosial dan kinerja penjualan Burger King selama tahun-tahun itu. Temuan utama adalah bahwa Burger King: (1) menerapkan konstruksi humor yang berbeda di akun Twitter Burger King, terutama dalam oposisi teks, mekanisme bahasa, target, dan konteks; dan (2) menggunakan fungsi tweet humor yang berbeda untuk mempersonalisasi merek (2016), meminta pelanggan untuk melakukan beberapa tindakan (2017), dan mempromosikan produk (2018).

One of the most popular forms of communication strategy is humor. Although various studies have accounted the relation of humor and semantics in advertisement context, relatively little has discussed the link between humor tweets, business communication, and pragmatics. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to (1) investigate the construction of humor tweets based on eight knowledge resources and (2) discuss its pragmatic function. The study applies the extension version of Attardo’s General Theory of Verbal Humor (Tsakona, 2013), complemented with Brinker’s text functional analysis. Selected based on style humor used (Martin et al., 2003), the data for the study consist of 111 humor tweets from Burger King Twitter account between the year 2016 and 2018. The three years are selected because there seems to be a positive corellation between the use of humor strategy in social media and Burger King’s sales during those years. A key finding is that Burger King: (1) applies different construction of humor in Burger King’s Twitter account, especially in Script Opposition, Language Mechanism, Target, and Context; and (2) uses different function of the humor tweets for personalizing the brand (2016), asking the customer to do some act (2017), and promoting the products (2018).

Keywords

Burger King; cuitan humor; GTVH; pragmatik; analisis fungsi teks. Burger King; humor tweets; GTVH; pragmatics, text functional analysis

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.24821/jousa.v6i1.2567