My research article presenting in the U.S.
บทความนี้ ฉันเขียนสรุปเนื้อหาจากวิทยานิพนธ์ เพื่อนำเสนอในการประชุมไทยศึกษาครั้งที่ 9 ที่ Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, U.S.A. เมื่อวันที่ 3 เมษายน 2548 จะเห็นได้ว่าในปี 2548 นี้ ฉันได้มีโอกาสนำเสนอบทความจากงานวิจัยของฉันถึงสามครั้งด้วยกัน นับได้ว่าเป็นปี (ทอง) ที่ดีจริง ๆ (น่าจะทำอีกนะเนี่ย)
Analysis of Content and Language in Isan Comedy Shows
1. Rationale
At present, people in society face different kinds of problems such as family problems, economic problems, political problems and social problems. These problems which occur almost everyday cause each person’s life to have chaos and competition. People try to find a way to escape from those problems. These cause them stressed and endless cycle of problems. One thing that can relieve stress is “humor”.
Humor is a product of culture that reflects each period of Thai society in a form of fun and liveliness (Metha Serithanawong, 1996 : 4). Moreover, people adjust humor to its social context such as the comedy shows of the Sieng-Isan and the Phetphinthong music bands in the Northeast of Thailand. They use Isan local language in their shows relating to the background of the Isan audience. Both bands show their comedy funnily. Moreover, the contents of comedy express various sides of Isan culture.“Sieng-Isan”, established in 1975 by Maiyakij Chimluang and Noknoi Uraiporn, is the biggest and the most famous band of Thailand at this time (Dongruk Phanomroong, 2001 : 72). In addition, it can be said that this band is a superstar in Isan people’s heart as well as “Bird” Thongchai McIntire, a popular singer of Thailand. During the show season, Sieng-Isan performs a show everyday. Its showing queues are fully reserved until 2004 (Sumalee Phopayuk, 2002 : 8).
Sieng-Isan presents not only songs and traditional Isan music, but also comedy show that is so popular among people. In addition, Sieng-Isan has the comic team, which can be said that it is a selling point of the band.
“Phetphinthong”, established in 1971 by Noppadol Duangporn, is the first music band that speaks Isan local language. Throughout Isan area, people know the name of this band. Its showing forms consist of singing songs, presenting traditional Isan music and presenting Isan comedy that is quite popular among their audiences and has become a distinguishing point of the band. In the past, Phetphinthong used to have long lists of showing queues, but at present, it has a few shows only.
As we see, both bands are noted for their comedy shows. For Phetphinthong that used to be the most popular band in Isan, though it only has a few shows at present, the audiences still warmly welcome it. Sieng-Isan, if comparing with Phetphinthong in the aspect of popularity, is like a new wave that comes to replace Phetphinthong. The researcher, therefore, is interested in studying the comparison between these two bands in the aspects of content and language use in presenting Isan comedy to find out why they are so popular among people throughout this half century.
2. Objectives of the Study
2.1 To analyze content of Isan comedy
2.2 To analyze language using in presenting Isan comedy
3. Benefits of the Study
3.1 To know the content of comedy and the way comedians use comic language
3.2 To understand ways of life, social condition and culture of Isan people
3.3 To distribute the research output of Isan culture to public
4. Research Methodology
This study was a qualitative research. The researcher used content analysis method and presented data as a descriptive analysis.
5. Population and Sample Groups
Population of this study was Sieng-Isan and Phetphinthong comic Video Compact Disks (VCD) that were sold in the year 2002, 6 VCDs for each band were studied. For the Phetphinthong VCDs, they were not the same shows as Mali Samrong (2000) had studied before.
6. Data Collection
The researcher studied only content and language use in Isan comedy shows from VCDs of the comedian teams who were Isan and used Isan local language in their shows. After surveying, the researcher found that these kinds of VCDs were sold everywhere. Furthermore, the comedian team who used Isan local language and was the most popular was Sieng-Isan and the second one was Phetphinthong. The researcher collected data from the comedy shows only.
7. Data Analysis
After analyzing content and language using, the researcher categorized them according to “humorous presentation” by using the concept of humorous logic as criteria.
