Electronic Theses and Dissertation

This research was intended to investigate the advanced efl learners’ humor comprehension in internet-based comic strips and their challenges in grasping the humor. the research contained four types of linguistic humor adopted from servaite (2005): morphological, syntactical, lexico-semantic (homonymy), and phonological humor. this research was a mixed method study with explanatory sequential as the research design. the sample of this study, chosen by using random sampling technique, was 30 graduate students from magister program of english education department at syiah kuala university. to collect the data, two instruments were used: mirth response test and interview. based on the findings, it shows that (1) syntactical and phonetical humor were the most difficult humors to be understood followed by lexico-semantic humor on the second place, while morphological humor was regarded as the easiest one, (2) based on the mirth response test (mrt), most of the students showed no response or a blank face with the percentage of 59%, followed by a half or slight smile with 15%, laugh with 13%, full smile 9%, and negative response with only 4%, and (3) the source of challenges that obstructed the students from grasping the humor in comic strip was the inability to comprehend the context with 29 occurrences, followed by unknown words with 19 occurrences, complex phrases with 7 occurrences, and unknown sentences’ meaning with 5 occurrences. ?