My research article presenting in the U.S. (Results of the study)
8. Results of the Study
8.1 Content
After analyzing content of Isan comedy, it can be concluded as follows:
8.1.1 Content Structure
The researcher found out that both Sieng-Isan and Phetphinthong used three patterns of structure—Improvisation, single theme content, and mixed content. They often used Improvisation more than the other two.
8.1.2 Content
The content of the Sieng-Isan and the Phetphinthong music bands could be divided into 25 domains as follows:
8.1.2.1 Love and choice of mate
8.1.2.2 Family relationships
8.1.2.3 Political and social campaigns
8.1.2.4 Money
8.1.2.5 Place where the band showed
8.1.2.6 Sex
8.1.2.7 Customs and beliefs
8.1.2.8 Inferiority complexes
8.1.2.9 Age and volition
8.1.2.10 Hiring Morlam (Isan traditional ballads)
8.1.2.11 Competition
8.1.2.12 Imitation and mocking
8.1.2.13 Stinginess
8.1.2.14 Comedians’ remuneration
8.1.2.15 Occupation
8.1.2.16 Ordination/monk/temple
8.1.2.17 Death/illness/accident
8.1.2.18 Consumer culture
8.1.2.19 Personal information
8.1.2.20 Alteration of song lyrics
8.1.2.21 Traveling/means of transportation
8.1.2.22 Leaving the band/Setting up a new band
8.1.2.23 Gambling
8.1.2.24 Literature/Old fiction
8.1.2.25 Blessing
These contents reflected the following points:
1. Habit, behavior, mood, truth of life
2. Culture
3. Comedian’ status
4. Media mocking
1. Habit, behavior, mood, truth of life
1.2 Behavior
There were various behaviors reflected from the content, for example, the behavior that the audiences slept while the comedians were showing might be interpreted that the show was boring or presented too late at night. Moreover, people who did not listen carefully would get into trouble.
1.3 Mood
The content reflected the feelings of some people who did not reveal their feelings to others. In addition, humor of people and impatience could be seen from the content.
1.4 Truth of life
The content reflected truth of life in the aspect of elder. For example, the comedians mocked one another about their elder.
2. Culture
2.1 Traditional culture
The contents reflected many aspects of Thai and Isan’s life as follows: custom of Isan in wooing, consuming culture, paying respect to the senior, a witty remark, Isan shadow play, Isan rocket custom, blessing ceremony, ordaining, Isan’s social value about Mercedes Benz, an opportunity to hire Morlam (Isan traditional ballad), ordination, funeral ceremony, .Isan’s beliefs about ghost and guardian spirits in rice fields, Isan’s worldview in mate selection, Isan’s worldview to a woman, cultural preservation, and an easy lifestyle of Isan people.
2.2 Changed culture
The humorous shows of Sieng-Isan and Phetphinthong, reflected changed culture in various sides such as, wedding, how a wife treated her husband, changing of Isan local language, changing of people in society, transportation in Isan, pouring water during Songkran festival, Isan traditional ballad, and listening to a sermon.
3. Comedians’ status
The shows of both bands reflected many aspects of comedians’ status as follows: in Sieng-Isan’s show, some songs reflected the comdians’ life that they tried to do everything to make their audiences laugh, though they had to get hurt. Another aspects were the status of Sieng-Isan member that he was in debt when he stayed in this band. In addition, the contents reflected the result of not increasing humorist’s remuneration and remunerative standard. In Phetphinthong’s show, the members of the band had to wear a neat costume by wearing a necktie. The contents also reflected the discipline of the band’s members that they had to take turn to buy ice.
4. Media mocking
The content of Sieng-Isan and Phetphinthong reflected media mocking such as television and advertisement. For advertisement mocking, the humorists imitated the advertisement that people often saw and recognized. For television mocking, they copied the way the cartoon spoke and the current incidents.
When these matters were in people’s acknowledgement, the comedians could talk about them, including mocking and imitating what they saw in those media.
When categorizing those 25 domains into humorous logic, it could be divided into 3 groups:
1. Playing jokes with people’s daily life
The content in this group consisted of family relationships, ordaining/monk/temple, money, travelling/means of transportation, personal information, leaving the band/setting a new band, imitation/mocking, age/volition, inferiority complex, political and social campaigns, place where the band showed, competition, custom/culture/belief, hiring Morlam, stinginess, comedians’ remuneration, consuming culture, alteration of song lyrics, gambling, and blessing.
2. Playing jokes with people’s mood
The content in this group consisted of sex, death/illness/accident, and love and choice of mate. For sex and death, the comedians revealingly presented content that people concealed, escaped or did not want to talk in public.
3. Playing jokes with life mechanism
Only the content about occupation presented in this group of
playing joke. The humorists alternated the roles between a cop and an
alleged offender. This made the story deviate from its old pattern.
8.1.3 Language mechanisms
There were 9 categories of language mechanisms as follows:
8.1.3.1 Using foreign language
Both Sieng-Isan and Phetphinthong used English transliteration, and word groups and sentences.
8.1.3.2 Puns
The comedians often used this strategy in their shows. There were 13 categories as follows:
8.1.3.2.1 Using repeated words
8.1.3.2.2 Using words that had the same pronunciation, but different meaning
8.1.3.2.3 Using words that their pronunciation was nearly the same
8.1.3.2.4 Using inversely confined words
8.1.3.2.5 Using homonym between Thai and foreign languages
8.1.3.2.6 Changing vulgar language to polite language
8.1.3.2.7 Changing polite language to vulgar language
8.1.3.2.8 Using antonym
8.1.3.2.9 Using abbreviation
8.1.3.2.10 Word alternating
8.1.3.2.11 Translating words
8.1.3.2.12 Using the basis of combined words of Pali and Sanskrit language.
8.1.3.2.13 Using various names of the same words
8.1.3.3 Vulgar language
Vulgar language can be separated into 6 types—vulgar language about ghost, bad things, person, eating, animals, and vulgar language that was censored.
8.1.3.4 Figures of speech
The comedians used 3 types of figures of speech—simile, personification, and hyperbole.
8.1.3.5 Idioms
There were 2 types of idioms—the standard Thai language idioms, and Isan idioms.
8.1.3.6 Slang
8.1.3.7 Harmonious words
The humorists used harmonious words in songs, verses, message of greetings, and a witty remark (done by singers of traditional ballads at ends of verses).
8.1.3.8 Double entendres
8.1.3.9 Using the wrong pronoun
All these 9 categories were in a group of playing jokes with language. The humorists presented language wrong from its old meaning. This caused language to be livelier.
9. Comparison between Sieng-Isan and Phetphinthong
9.1 In the aspect of content
9.1.1 Content structure
Showing form of Sieng-Isan often repeated, just changed conversation, while that of Phetphinthong did not. In improvisation, Sieng-Isan had Chalee, the spokesman of the band, as the main humorist who ran the content, whereas Phetphinthong had Noppadol, the head of the band, as a running content person who had this role in some VCDs only.
The main content structure of improvisation of both bands was similar in some issues—talking to the musician and the audience, showing in a song, and singing. However, the details of content were different. The content structure of improvisation appeared in Phetphinthong more than in Sieng-Isan.
The single theme content appeared only in Sieng-Isan’s shows. The mixed content structure was founded in 4 VCDs of Sieng-Isan, while it appeared in only 2 VCDs of Phetphinthong.
9.1.2 Content
Sieng-Isan’s content that was presented in the first level (all 6 VCDs) was sex. In the second level (5 VCDs), Sieng-Isan showed about comedians’ remuneration and money. In the third level (4 VCDs), it presented about the place where the band showed, death/illness/accident, personal information, and alteration of song lyrics.
Phetphinthong’s content that was presented in the first level (5 VCDs) was love and choice of mate, and death/illness/accident. In the second level (4 VCDs), Phetphinthong showed about family relationships, sex, and ordination/monk/temple. In the third level (3 VCDs), it presented about money, inferiority complexes, consuming culture, and alteration of song lyrics.
When comparing the content that both bands showed, it could be seen that their contents were both similar and different. The similarities were that they showed about alteration of song lyrics in the same level. The content about sex and money was occurred nearly the same level. This reflected that no matter what era the bands were famous in, the sex and money content were still in people’s way of life and were just facts people had to face unavoidably. Though sex was a taboo topic of Thai society, the comedians could talk about it every era. This could help both comedians and audiences release stressed that they had towards sex issue.
In the content reflection aspect, both bands also aimed to reflect culture of Isan and Thailand. This could greatly foster the next generation’s acknowledgement of their cultures.
The difference was that Sieng-Isan mostly presented an easy content that was closed to their life. This could be seen from the content about humorists’ remuneration, the place where the bands showed, and personal information. The comedians mocked another humorists who were well-known by the audiences. This helped the audiences understand easily about what the humorists tried to present. It showed that Sieng-Isan could select humor to suit for its audiences’ background that they were general people with different sexes, ages, education background and so on.
Though Phetphinthong also presented content that was suited for its audiences, some content such ordination/monk/temple and consumer culture seemed to be difficult for some audiences to understand, such as children and people who were not Isan and did not have the same frame of experiences.
9.2 In the aspect of language mechanisms
There were both similarities and differences in language mechanism between Sieng-Isan and Phetphinthong. The similarities were that they used foreign language and vulgar language in all VCDs. The second one was puns and figures of speech.
The difference was that Phetphinthong mostly used foreign language in the form of word groups and sentences more than Sieng-Isan.
In the aspect of using vulgar language, it could be seen that both bands used it in their 6 VCDs. However, after considering vulgar language of Phetphinthong, no vulgar language that was censored did appear in its show. This reflected that though Phetphinthong’s comedians did not used censored vulgar language, they could make people laugh. In contrast, Sieng-Isan used censored vulgar language more than Phetphinthong. This might be assumed that people in present society dared to reveal and hear obscene things more than in the past.
10. Discussion
When considering the way that the comedians presented the essence of the 4 reflections, both playing jokes contrasted to and followed the trace of traditional culture were founded. In the contrasted point, the comedians showed the band things that people should not do while the other comedians told people about what they should really do. In the aspect of following the trace of traditional culture, the comedians just talked about it and told people directly.
The use of long sentences of foreign language without some audiences understanding might signify that the comedians would like to show their wisdom and a modern image of their bands. In addition, the ability that Isan comedians could speak foreign language might be able to delete image of Isan people that other people often looked down on.
Though Sieng-Isan was similar to Phetphinthong in using vulgar language in all VCDs, Sieng-Isan used ruder words than Phetphinthong. This was because its comedians chose the direct word to speak. Therefore, these words were censored in Sieng-Isan’s VCDs, while they did not appear in Phetphinthong at all. However, the way the Sieng-Isan comedians chose that type of words could help the audiences understand the content directly and easily.
Regarding the way Sieng-Isan’s comedians chose words and the contents they presented, needless to say why Sieng-Isan, a new wave of Isan comic team, could stand on the first rank of Isan comedy show and become the most popular Isan band at this time.
11. Recommendation
For further study, the researcher recommends that other researchers also study qualitative content reflecting contemporary society and determine the frequency of that content. Also, other local languages of comedy shows, such as Northern and Southern, should be studied so that the readers will know what the content and language use are. Moreover, other researchers should compare content and language use between humorists showing in cafés and in music bands to study their similarities and differences.
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