The first three seasons of The Big Bang Theory are the data of this research.
There are 63 episodes of The Big Bang Theory in the corpus. The lines of the four
nerdy characters (Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj) will be the main point of this
research, since the goal is to examine how language contributes to character building
as nerds. The lines of Penny and other minor and recurring characters will be taken
into consideration if necessary, since they often serve the function of a reference point
to the four nerds. In addition, the research focuses on sociolinguistic aspects of humor,
thus non-verbal humor, such as eccentric movements or peculiar facial expressions
performed by actors, are excluded from the discussion.
The reason why one can directly claim that the four men are nerds are implied on
the official website of this sitcom, since it is the premise and the main source of
humor of the show. In the section of “About the show”, it says:
Leonard and Sheldon are brilliant physicists, the kind of "beautiful minds" that understand how the universe works. But none of that genius helps them interact with people, especially women. All this begins to change when a free-spirited beauty named Penny moves in next door. Sheldon, Leonard's roommate, is quite content spending his nights playing Klingon Boggle with their socially dysfunctional friends, fellow CalTech scientists Wolowitz and Koothrappali.
However, Leonard sees in Penny a whole new universe of possibilities...
including love.
(cited from CBS The Big Bang Theory website, section “About”)
From the introduction about the show, one can see that the four characters have
“beautiful minds,” a direct reference to the biography of the mathematician John
Forbes Nash, Jr. and the popular film adaptation starring Russell Crowe. Nash is a
Nobel Prize laureate in Economics, and received his Ph.D. degree at the age of 22. He
is a genius, as praised by Nash’s MA thesis advisor (Nasar 2001, xii); however,
beginning from his 30s, he was plagued by paranoid schizophrenia that has troubled
him for decades. Nash is a quintessential example that excellence of knowledge of
someone does not help him/her engage in the society. The comparison between John
Forbes Nash Jr. and the four nerds are obvious: they are extremely smart, but lack the
ability to adapt to the society as a whole. The four nerds are depicted as having
trouble with interacting with people, especially with women; they are “content with
playing Klingon boggle,” and are “socially dysfunctional.” The qualities of nerds are
introduced in this excerpt: they are sci-fi fans, and they are social underachievers.
Penny, on the contrary, is introduced as a “free-spirited beauty,” thus one can see that
she is not a nerd because nerds are not in any way “free-spirited”.
Since the language in sitcoms is not naturally-occurring language, we should not
treat the data as many researchers do when they conduct their studies with
naturally-occurring language as data. Rather, an audience perspective will be taken to
see how truthful the playwrights of the show represent and depict the linguistic
practices of the nerds, or the deliberate violation of the linguistic practices of this
social group. In addition, the audience of a sitcom may have all the presuppositions
necessary to perceive an exchange hilarious, but the character in the sitcom may not.
In the vein of humor research, laughter is regarded as a proof of humor, but the segmentation of the data is not divided according to laughter, but to topic chains.
Following Chui (2002), this study treats topic chain as “a sequence of clauses about
the same subject matter” or phrases that are semantically-related. There are different
levels of topic chains, and there may be subdivisions within a topic chain.
An example of dividing topic chains is presented below. In this episode, Leonard
and Penny had broken up, but Sheldon wants to keep his friendship with Penny.
Howard and Raj warned him that it is inadequate to hang out with your best friend’s
ex-girlfriend. However, Penny offers to cook spaghetti, his favorite food, for Sheldon,
and Sheldon accepts the offer. He insists that hot dogs must be cut into dices and
added in the spaghetti. Penny runs out of hot dogs, so Sheldon tries to smuggle some
out of his refrigerator without being discovered by Leonard, Howard and Raj by
hiding these frozen hot dogs in his pants.
Example (from 320)2
TC 13
(Sheldon and Howard are downstairs)
2 320 means Season 3 Episode 20. The first digit means season number and the last two digits refer to
Sheldon: Say hello to your mother for me.
Howard: OK. (opens the front door, while Sheldon stands still) (laughter) Sheldon: What? (laughter)
Howard: You said you’re going for a walk.
Sheldon: I didn’t say outside. (laughter)
Howard: So what, you’re just gonna walk up and down the stairs?
Sheldon: No, of course not. (laughter) That would be odd and suspicious behavior.
(laughter)
(They walk outside the building)
TC 14
A woman passing by: Come on, …! Here boy! (calling her dog)
TC 15
Howard: Which way are you going?
Sheldon: Which way are you going? (laughter) Howard: I parked my scooter down the block=
Sheldon: =I am going the other way. Bye (not moving). (laughter)
Howard: Bye. (leaves, and turns around) Actually it’s this way. (laughter) (Sheldon and Howard walk along)
TC 16
Howard: Do I smell hot dogs? (laughter)
Sheldon: No. I mean I’ve no idea what you smell. (laughter) Howard: I definitely smell raw hot dogs.
Sheldon: Perhaps you’re getting a brain tumor. (laughter) (Howard arrives at his scooter)
TC 17
Howard: Alright. Have a nice walk.
Sheldon: I shall. Have a nice scoot. (laughter)
Howard: You might want to stand back, as I sit on top of 13 horses here (laughter) (Howard leaves riding his scooter, Sheldon waves goodbye) (laughter)
TC 18
(A ferocious dog appears in front of Sheldon) (laughter) Sheldon: Oh, hello, doggie. Nice doggie.
(The dog barks) (laughter)
Sheldon: I bet you think you smell hot dogs. (laughter) (The dog barks loudly)
Sheldon: (points) Look, a cat! (laughter)
(Sheldon runs away. The dog chases him) (laughter)
In the excerpt above, TC 13 begins with Sheldon and Howard coming down to
the first floor of the apartment building, signaling a change of place. They walk out of
the door, and a woman passes by and calling for her dog. TC 14 is marked because of
the introduction of a new character. TC 15 begins directly without any markers
because they just got out of the door, and naturally they have to talk about which way
to go, since they are heading for different destinations. TC 16 is designated because
Howard brings a new topic into their talk; in this case, he smells hot dogs. TC 17
begins with “alright” a boundary marker, and what follows it is another topic, namely
Sheldon and Howard bid goodbye to each other, and ends with Howard’s departure.
TC 18 begins with a new character into the situation, in this TC a ferocious dog
appears, going after the hot dogs Sheldon has been hiding in his pants.
In comparison with Shu’s (2007) and Wen’s (2006) segmentation, the method of
conversational topic chains is selected because punchlines in The Big Bang Theory
often carries sociolinguistic significance. The punchlines not only employs pragmatic
strategies of humor, but also a representation of a certain kind of stereotype. In Shu’s
(2007) research of Friends, pragmatic strategies of humor are her main focus, thus
segmenting her data with laughter are applicable. In Wen’s (2006) study of Waiting
for Godot, the data is a literary work that belongs to the theater of absurd, and the
author of this play does not intend to represent daily conversation, thus it is applicable
to segment the data with punctuation marks. Since The Big Bang Theory is a sitcom
with live audience, and sitcom usually reflects naturally-occurring conversation (see
Quaglio (2009)), it is not a literary work, so it is impossible to segment the data with
punctuation marks. Also, unlike Friends, the premise of The Big Bang Theory is to
bring nerds into center stage and nerdiness is the main source of humor, the
sociolinguistic factors must be considered when interpreting the data. Segmenting the
data laughter by laughter is unable to emphasize its sociolinguistic significance.
The data analysis will focus on the stereotypes of nerd as a humor resource.
According to Bucholtz (2001), nerds are “members of a stigmatized social category
who are stereotypically cast as intellectual overachievers and social underachievers”
(2001: 85). The punchlines that contribute to the stereotype of nerds will be sorted
into two major categories, “social underachievers” and “intellectual overachievers”.
Other stereotype-related punchlines, such as obsession of sci-fi genre works, ethnic
stereotypes, and mismatch of styles will be three other categories.
Nerds are regarded as people who are social underachievers and intellectual
achievers: they are awkward in social situations, i.e., they feel a certain degree of
anxiety when socializing with other people, or they do not have good conversational
skills. However, they are intellectually superior, and are enthusiastic about knowledge
and facts. In terms of linguistic performance, they tend to use formal register across
contexts, since this register of language is considered to be more precise than
colloquial register. The enthusiasm of nerds also shows in sci-fi genre of films, novels,
comic books, memorabilia, etc. The sociolinguistic analysis aims to examine how
these stereotypes are portrayed as humorous in this sitcom. In addition to the
stereotype of nerds, the stereotype of ethnicity will also be discussed since two of the
four nerds in the sitcom constantly make reference to their own ethnicity. The
emphasis of categorization of the data will cater to the dimensions of nerd stereotypes.