CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter will describe background of the study, problem statements, purposes of the study, significance

of the study and definition of key terms. 1.1 Background of the Study In everyday life people may be confused if someone asks them what the meaning of discourse is. Actually, when people talk with each other or when a person writes about something in the book, the language that people use to speak up among them and the language which people use to write about something in the book or in another media is called discourse. Murcia and Olshtain (2000) state that discourse can be classified in the dimension of written text and spoken text. Discourse is language forms that are produced and interpreted as people communicate with each other. The statement implies that people often use discourse in daily life without realize that they are using it. The term discourse is use in the communication or interaction between people in the context of communication of conversation, speech, novel, song, magazine, internet, etc. Nowadays, internet has become important parts of modern people life. People can use internet to access information and to communicate with others. On Internet people can find many things related to discourse. For example, the phenomenon of Internet memes in

Internet. The term Internet Memes, according to Shifman & Thelwall can be explained by referring to Richard Dawkins explanations of memes from his book The Selfish Gene (1976 cited in Shifman & Thelwall, 2009, p. 2567). Although Dawkins works is based on the evolution of genes in biological study, the term can be used to describe the process of idea dissemination which spread from person to person via the internet (2009, p. 2567). In these contexts the designation meme identifies digital objects that riff on a given visual, textual or auditory form. For a digital object to become a meme, it must be appropriated, recoded, and slotted back into the Internet infrastructures it came frommemes require continued user adaptation. Thus, memes are co-constitutive with the user practices of creative (re)production that are default modes of communicative interaction on major social media platforms such as Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. Memes are frequent objects of analysis among scholars of contemporary digital culture, socio-linguistics, fan culture, and social networking, wherein they are assessed as forms of generative vernacular communication and art-making that defy traditional models of top-down capitalist consumer control of mass media forms. Yet the speed, volume and insularity of meme-making often frustrates aesthetic, formal and techno-infrastructural scholarship on memes and meme distribution. The most popular internet memes website is 9GAG. According to allthingsd.com, on July 2012 9GAG had 67 million unique visitors and more than two billion page views in that past month

(Gannes, 2012). This made 9GAG as one of the largest comedy-website on the Internet. The reason why the writer takes this research is because many people dont understand the funny point when read 9GAG memes due to their lack of knowledge about discourse. Based on this phenomenon, the writer will investigate why discourse can influence the readers understanding. The flow how meaning in 9GAG memes is conveyed interested the writer. The structure of memes that uses literal meaning and implied meaning is important for the study of discourse analysis. Specifically, the language properties that support the analysis of text, such as topic, setting, context, and grammar are important in the study of discourse. In the view humors, it is interesting to see how the creator convey the message in the text and picture of memes to make the readers laugh. In addition, discourse is a crucial part in meme performances. Through discourse, one can understand the meaning and express their amusing when read the memes. Taking the above facts into account, the writer then decides to conduct research on memes found in 9GAG. Discourse topic is selected because not many college students take this study as their thesis, and the writer finds discourse learning has many rooms to improve, especially on internet. In addition, 9GAG is selected because it is the largest and the most popular memes-based humor website in internet.

1.2 Problems of the Study Concerning the background of the problem above, the researcher formulates two problems as follows: 1) What is literal meaning found in 9GAG memes? 2) How is intended message in 9GAG memes achieved by the readers?

1.3 Purpose of the Study Based on the statement of the problems above, the purposes of the study are to see: 1) The literal meaning used in the 9GAG memes. 2) The intended meaning in 9GAG memes achieved by the readers.

1.4 Scope and Limitation of the Study To focus the study, the writer states the scope and limitation of this study as follows. 1) The scope of this study is discourse analysis on internet memes. It means that the writer focuses the study on the characteristics of internet memes. To make the study more focus, the scope is limited into two areas. The media is only internet memes taken from 9GAG website www.9gag.com and twitter @9GAG. In addition, the time collecting memes are memes published from May to June 2013.

2) The variable of this study is discourse properties in internet memes. The indicators of the study include: grammar, sentences, dictions, settings, topics, and context used in internet memes posted in 9GAG from May to June 2013. 3) The approach of this study is qualitative approach using content analysis design. The objective of analysis and discussion is to describe characteristics of memes in 9GAG using explanation of logics or arguments. No statistical analysis is used in this study.

1.5 Significance of the Study Practically, learning English through internet especially from humor website might be little difficult because it is rarely done. So, it is hoped that this study will contribute or would be any value to other students in conducting further research of the similar topic. Theoritically, many people say that Discourse Analysis is one of the subjects that is very difficult to understand and has limitation for learning references, it is hoped that the result of the study will give more confirmation on the theories of Discourse Analysis.

1.6 Definition of Key Terms In order to get clear understanding, this study gives the definition of key terms about the concept that will be used for measuring the variables. To avoid

misinterpretation about the title the researcher will explain the terms as follows: 1) Discourse Analysis is discourse which paired with the term analysis and treated as an umbrella terms that refers to a variety of approaches to the study of approaches, and there are significant ones, discourse analysis always involves study of particular segments of talk or text where excerpts are used to make scholarly arguments. 2) Internet memes are the process of idea dissemination which spread from person to person via the internet. In these contexts the designation meme identifies digital objects that riff on a given visual, textual or auditory form. For a digital object to become a meme, it must be appropriated, re-coded, and slotted back into the Internet infrastructures it came frommemes require continued user adaptation. 3) 9GAG is an image-based social media website which centres around useruploaded, comical images dubbed "Fun". The site had 2 billion monthly page views as of July 2012, according to co-founder Ray Chan. The website is mainly known for recurring use of internet memes. 4) Diction is defined as choice of words for the expression of ideas; the construction, disposition, and application of words in discourse, with regard to clearness, accuracy, variety, etc 5) Context is a notion used in the language sciences

(linguistics, sociolinguistics, systemic

functional

linguistics, discourse

analysis, pragmatics, semiotics, etc.) in two different ways, namely as verbal context and social context.