English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies ISSN 2640-9836 (Print) ISSN 2640-9844 (Online) Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eltls 33 Original Paper Functional Pragmatic Analysis on the Humorous Discourse in Balinese Language as a Media of Socialization of Health Protocols during the Covid-19 Pandemic Nengah Arnawa 1* , I Putu Karpika 2 , I Made Gde Putra Wijaya 2 , Nyoman Astawan 2 & Ida Ayu Agung Ekasriadi 2 1 Department of Indonesian Language Educatioan, University of PGRI Mahadewa Indonesia, Denpasar, Indonesia 2 University of PGRI Mahadewa Indonesia, Denpasar, Indonesia * Nengah Arnawa, Department of Indonesian Language Educatioan, University of PGRI Mahadewa Indonesia, Denpasar, Indonesia Received: December 14, 2022 Accepted: January 25, 2023 Online Published: January 29, 2023 doi:10.22158/eltls.v5n1p33 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eltls.v5n1p33 Abstract This study describes the choice of humor style used to reduce the anxiety experienced by Balinese people during the Covid-19 pandemic and also explains the language variations as well as linguistic phenomena for constructing a humor. The relationship between humor style and linguistic features is expected to explain the specificity of the humor discourse structure of Covid-19 in Balinese language. The data of this qualitative study were obtained through note-taking and sorting out some short films which were displayed on YouTube from April to May 2020. Furthermore, there were 13 discourses used as data source, and some of the humor styles include affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating. The humor functions as a foundation for information on topics arranged deductively and inductively. The variations in Balinese language used are variety of kepara (general) and kasar (low). Also, the dominating linguistic phenomenon includes code mixing and switching, as well as semantic inaccuracy regarding word similarity. This study can establish public-communication model in a friendly atmosphere to eliminate the impact of socio-psychological gap. Keywords balinese language, Covid-19, discourse, humor