LEXICAL AMBIGUITY FOUND IN MEMES ON @PUNHUBONLINE INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT

The study is concerned with lexical ambiguity and humor used in the conversations illustrated in memes presented on @punhubonline Instagram account. This study aimed to examine the types of lexical ambiguity and how memes can be analysed from the theory of humor applying Murphy’s (2010) theory of lexical ambiguity and Shade’s (1996) theories of humor. This study employed a descriptive qualitative method to provide an in-depth and clear description of the addressed concerns, focusing on memes indicating lexical ambiguity. The findings revealed that among all the posts on @punhubonline account, there were 61 data containing lexical ambiguity. In summary, the majority of memes on this account used the type of lexical ambiguity known as homonymy, in which two words can have the same pronunciation and spelling but different unrelated meanings. Using words with homonymy allows for creating situations with multiple meanings and achieving humor. This is followed by another aspect of the study where the predominant type of humor created by lexical ambiguity is the incongruity theory of humor, as the jokes of the memes were generally transformed through the violation of expectations. This study may encourage the reader to avoid misunderstanding ambiguous words in memes that use lexical ambiguity in their context and understand the meaning conveyed in memes on Instagram or any social media platforms.