Analysis of Non-Observance of Gricean Conversational Maxims in The TV Series 'Monk' (Season 1-5) in Building Suspense.

(1)

ii Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Dalam Tugas Akhir yang berjudul Analysis of Non-Observance Gricean Conversational Maxims in the TV Series Monk (seasons 1-5) in Building Suspense, saya menganalisis beberapa situasi di mana seseorang tidak mengikuti atau memperhatikan bidal. Saya mengambil data dari film seri televisi Monk. Dalam film tersebut seorang detektif menginterogasi seorang tersangka dalam kasus pembunuhan. Dalam interogasi tersebut, tersangka melanggar bidal. Akibat pelanggaran bidal ini, penonton menjadi penasaran, tegang dan ingin mengetahui siapa pembunuh sebenarnya dan apa yang akan terjadi selanjutnya pada cerita tersebut.

(4)

43 Maranatha Christian University

APPENDIX

NO DATA TYPE OF

MAXIM TYPE OF NON-OBSERVANCE

1 Monk : He is the guy.

Sharona : How do we know this?

Monk : Wedding ring. He cheats on his wife. Sharona : So, how could he have killed her? He cannot be in the two places at once.

Monk : I know. It is impossible but he is the explain why she jumped. Wouldn’t it? The baby’s father, whoever he was must have run out from her, huh?

Monk: You were the father.

Mr. Philby: unfortunately you cannot prove that, Mr. Monk. other day? Daniel Carlyle? Well, that was not the real Daniel Carlyle. The guy lies about playing a violin.

Natalie : He was not a violinist?

(5)

44 Maranatha Christian University 4 Monk : I hear you spent some time up there

with Ray Kaspo.

Spyder : Where did you hear that? Monk : Around. Is it true?

Spyder : Maybe yes, maybe no.

Maxim of manner _ Opting out of

quantity Violating a maxim

6 Monk: You killed Clea Vance a year ago and you killed Natasia Zorelle last night, do not you?

Julian Hodge: Oh and why would I do something like that?

Maxim of relation Violating a maxim

7 Monk: Roger, you know Debbie Barnet, right? Did you know she was pregnant? Roger: You are talking to a married man. Monk: Did you know she was pregnant? Roger: How would I know that?

8 Monk: Because she was about to go to public. She was about to tell the truth about you. That is why you killed her, isn’t it? Steve Wagner: I was on a spaceship, circling the earth with my crew.

9 Captain: Do you know a woman named Joanne Raphelson?

Steve Wagner: She is dead, isn’t she? Randy : You are not surprised?

Steve Wagner: Joanne has been depressed for months. She was about to have a book published, but somehow that made it worse.

(6)

11 Natalie: Dr. Beneth, were you in the Marina Wednesday morning? You do keep a boat there, right?

Dr. Beneth: I don’t think I should talk about this.

Opting out of a maxim

12 Monk: You used to work in Mendocino, right?

Sharkey: A lot of people live in Mendocino.

Maxim of relation Flouting a maxim

14 Monk : You did not do anything?

(7)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Communication is a tool that transfers information from a speaker to a listener. Considering that a human being is a social creature, every human being needs to communicate with each other. Through communication, people express what they want. Besides, through communication people can make a lot of friends. Therefore, communication is important for people both to convey their message in their interactions and socialize with others.

Seeing that people are not always cooperative in a conversation, I would like to discuss the non-observance of maxims in speech. The title of my thesis is Analysis of Non-Observance of Gricean Maxims in the TV Series “Monk” (seasons1-5) in Building Suspense. This title is derived from a general topic, conversational implicature, which is focused on a specific one: suspense that is created by non-observing the conversational maxim. This topic belongs to pragmatics, which is concerned with “the study of meaning as communicated

(8)

Owing to the fact that people are not always cooperative in speaking, a listener sometimes has to interpret the speaker’s intended meaning. There are some reasons why people choose not to be cooperative. It happens because they choose to mislead or deceive the listener intentionally as to make suspense occur. Suspense is ”a state of mental uncertainty, excitement or indecision which involves awaiting an outcome or decision, is derived from Latin words meaning ‘hanging up’ and therefore left undecided. Suspense refers to the anticipation of readers (or of an audience) concerning the outcome events in a novel, story or play. Suspense is a quality of tension in a plot which sustain interest and makes readers ask what happen next?” (Shaw 365-366)

When the speaker and listener are having a conversation, they have to cooperate with each other. The conversation will be successful when there is collaboration between the speaker and the listener. In everyday conversation, people sometimes mean more than what they say. In order to get the speaker’s intended meaning, the listener has to consider that “the speaker intends to communicate more than is said.” (Yule 35)

In conversation, a speaker’s message is sometimes not found directly so that the hearer has to find out the message that the speaker wants to convey. This is known as Conversational Implicature. The theory of implicature was proposed by H. P. Grice in 1976. (Thomas 56, 57)

(9)

When the listener does not get the speaker’s meaning, misunderstanding occurs. The basic purpose for analyzing the conversational maxim is to make people aware that sometimes the speaker does not utter what he or she means directly.

The reason I choose Monk instead of other detective movies as the source of data is that in most episodes of this film the non-observance of conversational maxims creates suspense. The non-observance of maxims is mostly created when the main character, Monk, is interrogating the suspect. When the suspect is being interrogated by Monk or other police officers, he or she always tries to mislead or hide something. This is how the non-observance of maxims occurs.

My data consists of five seasons of Monk TV series. In each season there are sixteen episodes. Almost in each episode the non-observance of maxims occurs. The non-observance of maxims is mostly produced by the murderer or the suspect when they are interrogated by the main character or other police officers.

My thesis is significant to make people understand that they do not always say what they actually mean. This study will make them more aware that sometimes in conversation they have to get the speaker’s intended meaning and they sometimes have to guess what the speaker means. This study can help them to notice that sometimes the speaker tries to mislead the listener or lie to the listener on purpose. Thus, hopefully both the speaker and the listener will be able to understand each other’s real meaning in a particular context of the utterances.

(10)

4 Maranatha Christian University Statement of the Problem

In this thesis, I will discuss:

1.Which type of non-observance of the maxim does the speaker do? 2.What kind of conversational maxim does the speaker fail to observe? 3.Why does the character fail to observe the conversational maxim? 4.How does failing to observe a maxim create suspense?

Purpose of the Study

By doing this research, I intend:

1.To find out which type of non-observance of maxim that the character do. 2.To find out what kind of conversational maxims that the character fails to

observe.

3.To know why they fail to observe the conversational maxim.

4.To know how failing to observe a conversational maxim creates suspense.

Method of the Research

(11)

5 Maranatha Christian University Organization of the Thesis

(12)

CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

Having analyzed the data of my thesis, I would like to make some

concluding points. In conversations, people do not always say what they mean.

They sometimes convey something indirectly. That is why a listener has to guess

what a speaker means in accordance with a particular context of the utterances.

This study is known as pragmatics. Pragmatics deals with the study of meaning

that is communicated by a speaker and interpreted by a listener. The branch of

pragmatics that I choose to analyze the data is conversational maxims.

Conversational maxims are significant for people to be aware that they do

not always say what they actually mean in speaking. A speaker’s message is

sometimes not found directly. Therefore, they have to interpret the speaker’s

meaning in order to get the speaker’s intended meaning and avoid

misunderstanding.

In relation to my research, I include suspense, which is a state that creates

(13)

39 Maranatha Christian University an event or decision. Suspense is created when the suspects, witnesses, Monk, or

the other police officers fail to observe the maxim. Their failing to observe a

maxim creates a question in the audience’s mind about the story. The audience

will ask why the suspect or the police officer violates, flouts or opts out the

maxim. They will also wonder who the real murderer is, and how Monk or the

police officer will prove that. Another question that the audience may ask is what

will happen next.

Based on the data that I have analyzed, the character fails to observe the

maxim by flouting, violating and opting out of a maxim. There are no infringing

and suspending a maxim that I found in the data. Infringing and suspending a

maxim is not found because when the suspect is being interrogated by Monk or

the other police officers, they tend to lie or mislead the interrogators, refuse to

give any information or force the interrogators to look for the hidden meaning

behind their utterances. I do not find any dialogues in which the speaker says

something in a condition of being drunk, too nervous or excited.

The maxims that the characters fail to observe mostly are violation. This

happens because when the suspect is being interrogated by the detective, Monk, or

the other police officers, the suspect tries to mislead them and hide something for

he or she does not want to be charged of the murder. This also happens because

the suspect has an intention of challenging Monk or the other police officers if

(14)

40 Maranatha Christian University Flouting a maxim is done by Monk when he discusses a murder case with

the other police officers. It is also done by the suspects when they do not have any

intention of misleading or they only want to tell Monk or the police officers that

actually they are not involved in that crime. Flouting a maxim is also done by the

real murderer when he or she cannot hide anything from Monk because Monk

strongly believes that he or she is the real murderer. This is seen in data 2. It can

also happen when the suspect wants the hearer to look for another meaning behind

what he says. This happens in data 9.

Opting out of a maxim is also done either by the detective or the suspect.

It is done by the lead detective, Monk, when he does not want to put others in

danger. It is done by the suspect when he or she is unwilling to give any

information for he or she does not want Monk or the other police officers to know

that he or she has committed the murder.

Different from opting out and flouting a maxim, violating a maxim is

only done by the suspect or the killer. A suspect or the murderer does this when

he or she has an intention to mislead or deliberately chooses to lie. In analyzing

the data, at first I do not find any opting out of the maxim because on the surface

all utterances containing the non-observance of maxims that the characters do

seem to involve just flouting and violating. It seems that the characters always

violate the maxims because they are afraid that Monk or the other detectives know

that they are hiding something. That is why they choose to lie on purpose. But

when I check it again carefully, there is an intentions of the characters to refuse to

give the exact answer or they indicate unwillingness to reply in the way it is

(15)

41 Maranatha Christian University The conversational maxim that the character fails to observe the most is

the maxim of relation. The characters tend to give an irrelevant answer in

answering a question in order to express the hidden meaning, mislead and refuse

to answer. The suspect mostly gives an irrelevant answer because he or she has an

intention to move Monk or the other police officers’ attention away from him or

her.

The conversations between the suspect and the police officers in Monk

detective series contain non-observance of Gricean maxims. When the suspect is

being interrogated, they usually fail to observe a maxim. The non-observance of

Gricean conversational maxims makes people aware that they are not always

cooperative in speaking. The hearer has to find out the speaker’s hidden meaning

in the utterance to avoid misunderstanding. In addition, the non-observance of

Gricean maxims creates suspense that makes the audience excited to find out what

happens next in the story.

For those who want to choose a similar topic for their thesis, they can

choose detective movies, humorous films, or action movies that contain suspense,

humor or conflict to analyze Gricean conversational maxims. In addition, I also

want to suggest they find other additional theories besides Grice’s.

Word count: 986 words.

(16)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

References

Parisot, Dean. Monk. United States: Universal Picture, 2006.

Shaw, Harry. Dictionary of Literary Terms. United States: McGrow-Hill Inc,

1972.

Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics. London

and New York: Longman Group Limited, 1995.