AN ANALYSIS OF CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
IN THE INTERVIEW MOVIE
A THESIS
Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
By:
INES SERI PINTA ULI BUTAR BUTAR
Registration Number 2113220020
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTEMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
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ABSTRACT
Butar Butar, Ines. 2113220020. An Analysis of Conversational Implicature in The Interview Movie. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan. 2015.
The study was deal with the types of conversational implicature occur in the utterances of all of the characters in The Interview Movie. The objectives of the study were to identify and classify the types of conversational implicature and explain the reason why it becomes the dominant type that occur in the movie. The data was analyzed by identifying the utterances found in the movie script. The findings shows that the two types of conversational implicature were occurred in the movie. The characters conveyed an implicit meaning when giving statement or opinion or information and answering the question in their conversation based on the truth condition or facts in the movie so that the viewers can draw assumption from the implicit meaning of the utterances all the characters.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Great thanks and praise to the Almighty Jesus Christ who has blessed and given the ability to the researcher to complete her thesis as the partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Sarjana Sastra at the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and the help of several individuals who always contributed and extended their valuable assistances in the preparation and completion of this thesis. The researcher’s special appreciation goes to:
Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean Faculty of Language and Arts, State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature Departmentand as her Thesis Examiners, Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English Department, Nora Ronita, S.Pd., S.S., M.Hum., the Head of English Education Program and Syamsul Bahri, S.S, M.Hum., the Head of English Non-Educational Program, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
Drs. Muhammad Natsir, M.Hum, as her Thesis Supervisor.
Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd and Drs. Lidiman Sahat Martua Sinaga, M.Hum as her Thesis Examiners.
Maam Eis Sri Wahyuni, M.Pd., as the Administration Staff of English Butar, Chacha Butar Butar and Evita Butar Butar. And also given to her beloved cousin: Olivia Lumban Gaol.
All her beloved friends in English Literature A and B 2011, especially for her close friends in campus Eren Gultom, Bripda Henny Anggria, Lusi Manalu, Swari Fadhillah, Swarman Siahaan, Ucha Sinaga, Viatari Dipa Pencawan and others that cannot be mentioned all. Thanks for their support, kindness, great love and care to the researcher, also warm hearted encouragement friendship in finishing this thesis.
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The people who direct or indirectly contributed in this study, your kindness means a lot to her.
Medan, December 2015 The Writer,
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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ... 1
A. The Background of Study ... 1
1. Conventional Implicature ... 14
2. Conversational Implicature ... 15
D. Cooperative Principles ... 15
1. Maxim Quantity ... 15
2. Maxim Quality ... 16
3. Maxim Relation ... 16
4. Maxim Manner ... 16
E. Conversational Implicature ... 17
1. Generalized Conversational Implicature ... 18
2. Particularized Conversational Implicature ... 19
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CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 28
A. Research Design ... 28
B. The Source of Data ... 28
C. The technique for Collecting Data... 28
D. The Technique for Analyzing Data ... 29
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 44
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LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX Pages
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A.The Background of the study
People need to communicate to each other to fulfill their social interaction.
Basically human communicates with language; language remains to hold an
important role in interacting with others. As a communication tool, language has
an important role in any aspects of life. Language is a tool for human to express
their thoughts and feelings. Without language we cannot communicate to one
another; Communication is one of the language’s function.
Communication is the way for someone to give an information or ideas to
another. According to Lewis and Slade (1994:4), communication is the sharing of
ideas, knowledge and feeling. This is mean that people communicate often to
deliver their ideas, knowledge and express their feeling in daily life. Without
communication, people cannot socialized to each other. To get an effective
communication, both listeners and speakers should understand the exact
information that the speakers intends. People usually try to convey the meaning of
what it said straight to the point or sometimes they use implied meaning to deliver
their thoughts. If the speaker cannot speak in a clear sentence while deliver what
they mean literally, it may build miscommunication or misunderstanding between
the speaker and listener. So to avoid miscommunication and misunderstanding
between the speaker and listener, they must be cooperative. Cooperation is a
necessary feature of communication because it allows both speaker and listener to
understand the meaning. Yule (1996:36) states co-operative principle means that
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conversational contribution should be made such as is requires, at the stage at
which is occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged. Cooperative principle is the reference in communication.
The cooperative principle is the principles of communication when they
attempt to achieve the successful and idea of communication. Yule (1996:37)
states cooperative principle is the assumption of cooperation is so pervasive.
The speakers and the listeners involved in conversation generally cooperating
with each other. According to the philosopher H.P Grice there are four
conversational maxims; maxim of quantity (the contribution as informative
required), maxim quality (be truthful), maxim relation (be relevant) and
maxim manner (avoid ambiguity and be brief).
Cooperative principles provides the rules of conversation. It controls
the participants in doing conversation, so their conversation works in
cooperative and polite ways. In conclusion, by following the cooperative
principles the conversation can work reasonably. A conversation is not only
depends on the speaker but also the listener, both speaker and listener must be
clear in giving and sharing topic in conversation so that misunderstanding can
be avoided. In our conversation, the speakers and listeners are generally
cooperating with each other. However sometimes people do not state their
statement directly or sometimes they prefer saying something implicitly. For
example when someone says A but actually what he means is B, it needs the
listener to interprets what is the speaker meaning. This phenomena in the
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Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning. Yule (1996:3) said that
pragmatics necessarily involves the interpretation of what people mean in a
particular context and how the context influences what is said. It means that how
the speaker organizes what he wants to say appropriately with the listeners.
Because to build a good communication both the speaker and the listeners have to
understand about the utterances of what it said. Yule (1996:3) states pragmatics
the study of speaker meaning. This study concerned of the meaning as
communication by a speaker and interpreted by a listener. It is more like the
analysis of speaker’s meaning in their utterances. Pragmatics also talk about many
aspects such as speech act, presupposition and implicature.
The advantage of using pragmatics while speak is we can say something
to others without hurting their feelings by implicitly. People talk as their way to
communicate with each other. In the communication, they do not always use a
clear and explicit language. They modify how to deliver and change the content of
what they talk to imply some intention. They intend to say something more
specific with adding up another meaning in their utterances. This means that the
meaning is more than just what the word said. Actually, we always use this
phenomena in daily conversation; it is called as implicature.
Implicature is an additional conveyed meaning. Implicature is one of
the pragmatics branch that studies about implicit meaning. It means that the
meaning of the word is stated implicitly. However, in some circumstances, a
speaker intends to communicate more than is said, that something must be more
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explicitly and implicitly. The meaning is directly expressed in the utterances and
sometimes is not. The implicit meaning of the utterances is called as
Conversational implicature. It is an additional meaning that needs the listener to
work out the real meaning or the exactly meaning that said by the speaker.
Conversational implicature is an matter of a sentence but instead of an utterance’s
meaning.
Conversational implicature is one of branch studies in pragmatics
which deals with how the listener interprets what the speaker means more
than she/he says. Yule (1996; 40) states it is the speakers who communicate
meaning via implicature and it is the listeners who recognize those communicated
meanings via inference. It means that the speaker is the one who speak in
implicature and the listener is the one who draw a conclusion from the implication
of the utterance. There are two types of conversational implicature, they are:
Generalized Conversational Implicature and Particularized Conversational
Implicature. Generalized conversational implicature is a kind of implicature that
does not need special features of context to understand the meaning whether
Particularized conversational implicature is the opposite of generalized
conversational implicature, it needs special context or background of knowledge
to interpret what the speaker meaning,
There are some of the researchers that also took conversational implicature
as their study and the researcher takes their studies as a relevant studies in order to
build the researcher’s point of view in conducting her own study about
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Nanda, Sukyadi, Sudarsono (2012) in their journal Conversational
Implicature of The Presenters in Take Me Out Indoensia in the findings shows
that the presenters tended to use generalized conversational implicature (59, 8%)
rather than the particularized (40,2%). Based on the functions, inferences or
motive it contains, generalized conversational implicature can be classified into
ten categories implying: (1) the presence of the opposition, (2) the invalidity of
the expressions or events at the time of speaking, (3) “not all”, (4) events that have
not yet occured, (5) the actual position, (6) persons or things having similararity,
(7) “not completely”, (8) further actions, (9) the others of the similar kind, and
(10) the opposite of the real situations.
Yamazaki in his thesis Conversational Implicature in Stand-up Comedies
examines the pragmatics effects of conversational implicature in Japanese-style
stand-up comedies.
Listiani (2012) ih her thesis “Analysis of Conversational Implicature in
Pariah Movie Episode of Smallville Serial Movie. In her thesis, she examines
about the conversational implicature and the violation of the co-operative
principle which appears in the ‘Pariah’ episode of Smallville serial movie. The
subject of her thesis is the utterances which contained the conversational
implicature in scene one and scene two of act one in written script of the movie.
Her findings are the violation maxims that occur in the movie based on Grice’s
theory. In her findings, she examines four maxims that flouting in the movie, they
are: maxim quality, maxim quantity, maxim manner, maxim relevance and there
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The three of the relevant studies took the different object in analyzed
conversational implicature. In the first journal, the researcher took variety show as
the object, the second researcher took stand-up comedies as his object and the
third researcher took radio talk show to analyzed conversational implicature.
Following the previous studies, the researcher takes The Interview Movie as the
object of the study to be analyzed in conversational implicature because this
movie is well-known as a controversial movie and this is also a satire political
comedy action movie. The researcher want to disclose about how implicature used
in the satire political comedy action movie. There are some of conversational
implicature used by the characters that found in the movie, for example:
Dave : How an old person might say, “ I think what this guy is telling me..
this Eminem.. is that I should go kill my self, and I.. you know, I don’t
like that”
Eminem : I mean I don’t necessarily rap about the things I hate, it is more
about.. the things I fear.
The type of conversational implicature that found in the utterance is Generalized
conversational implicature. By saying this Eminem doesn’t give his answer but he
gives statement to Dave’s answer. He clearly emphasize that the lyric song he
made is about his fearful not about his hatred.
Eminem : When I say things about gay people or people think that my lyrics are
homophobic, you know it is because I’m gay.
Dave : What you meant by that exactly?
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Dave : Uh, I’m just a little confused here, because “gay” can mean a lot of
things.
In the utterance above, Eminem giving an ambiguity answer which is leaving
Dave in confusion. He doesn’t give his statement clearly. The Conversational
implicature that found is Generalized conversational implicature which is people
can interprets what Eminem say by his statement.
Darryl : I am Marshall’s publicist, and I’m telling you pull the fucking plug
right now.
Aaron : No. This is gold.
In the utterance above, Aaron refuse to pull the plug off because he thinks that this
moment of Eminem’s confession is the right moment for raising his shows rating
up. The conversational implicature that found in the movie is Particularized
Conversational implicature which is a special context or background of
knowledge needed to interprets what Aaron’s meaning,
Aaron : What the heck just happened?
Dave : The real Slim Shady just stood up. That’s the heck just happened.
Aaron : This is like Spike Lee just said he’s white.
In the utterance above, the type of conversational implicature that found was
Particularized Conversational Implicature because it needs special context to
understand the meaning of the utterance.
By choosing The Interview movie, the researcher found conversational
implicature occurred in the utterances that have been transcribed. And all the
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the researcher analyzed the implicature available in the utterance of the characters,
identified and classified the types of conversational implicature, and described the
reasons why is it become the dominant type of conversational implicature. The
method used is descriptive qualitative method. Sources of data obtained from the
transcript of movie.
B.The Problem of the Study
The problem of the study can be stated as the following:
1. What kinds of conversational implicature are found in The Interview’s
movie?
2. What is dominant conversational implicature that found in The Interview’s
movie?
3. What makes the dominant type of conversational implicature occur as the
way they are in The Interview’s movie?
C.The Objectives of the Study
Based on the relation problems of the study, the objectives of study are:
1. To find out the types of conversational implicature that is used in The
Interview’s movie.
2. To find out the dominant implicature that found in The Interview’s movie.
3. To describe the reason why it becomes the dominant type of conversational
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D.The Scope of the Study
In this research, the researcher focused on the using of conversational
implicature as found in the utterances of the characters in The Interview’s movie
based on Yule’s theory. The data are taken from the movie script itself.
E.The Significance of The Study
Theoretically the finding of the study is expected to give a contribution for
linguistics study of pragmatics especially in analyzing the use of conversational
implicature that found in movie. The finding of the research also expected to be
one of the sources for implicature study especially for students who learn English.
Practically the finding of the study is expected to be a contribution to
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A.Conclusions
After analyzing and determining the types of conversational implicature
from the conversation that has been transcripts in The Interview’s Movie, the
conclusions are presented as follows;
1. The two types of conversational implicature were occurred in The
Interview’s Movie, they were Generalized Conversational Implicature (63)
and Particularized Conversational Implicature (57).
2. The dominant type of conversational implicature was Generalized
Conversational Implicature conveyed by all the characters with 63
occurrences (52.5%) which is occurred in The Interview’s Movie.
3. The characters conveyed opinion, statement, information or answer briefly
and clearly based on the fact or the truth condition so that the viewers can
easily catch the meaning without having special background knowledge.
B.Suggestions
By considering the research findings and the conclusions, there are some
suggestions which are presented as follows;
1. The students are suggested to comprehend Pragmatics especially
knowledge about conversational implicature so that they can catch the
meaning in the conversation implicitly and English teachers are suggested to
increase their learning style and enrich their teaching materials by choosing
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movie to improve the students’ ability and to attract the student’s interest in
conversational implicature.
2. Implicature is very useful to be studied by increasing awareness when
having conversation with others because people often applied implicit
meaning in their daily conversation. Sometimes people used implicit
meaning when they are arguing with someone, giving opinion or providing
a statement. So that is why implicature is very useful in life because
sometimes people need to speak carefully to avoid misunderstanding.
3. This thesis could be a relevant study for others researchers who are
interested in doing research in the same field of Conversational Implicature
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