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ABSTRACT
Dalam penulisan tugas akhir ini, saya melakukan analisis terhadap satu
drama serial yang berjudul Revenge. Saya menganalisis
pelanggaran-pelanggaran aturan dalam percakapan-percakapan antar tokoh-tokohnya, yang
kemudian berakhir dengan adanya konflik di antara mereka. Analisis ini saya
lakukan dengan menggunakan teori bidal dari H. P Grice (1975) yang
mengkategorikan pelanggaran-pelanggaran dalam percakapan tersebut ke
dalam beberapa jenis.
Beberapa tokoh dalam film serial ini seringkali menyelipkan arti
tersembunyi yang ingin ia sampaikan kepada lawan bicaranya dengan tujuan
tertentu. Makna tersembunyi tersebut kemudian menimbulkan konflik. Selain
menyelipkan makna tersembunyi, beberapa tokoh dalam film ini juga berbohong
untuk sekedar membela diri atau menyembunyikan rahasia yang mereka miliki.
Dalam analisis ini saya menemukan bahwa pelanggaran jenis flouting a
maxim of manner adalah jenis yang paling banyak dilakukan. Selain itu, semua
pelanggaran ini dipicu oleh dendam yang dimiliki oleh tokoh utama, yang
TABLE OF CONTENT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... i
ABSTRACT ... ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study ... 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem ... 4
1.3 Purpose of the Study ... 4
1.4 Method of the Research ... 4
1.5 Organization of the Thesis ... 4
CHAPTER TWO : THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 Flouting a maxim ... 8
2.2 Violating a maxim ... 11
2.3 Infringing a maxim ... 11
2.4 Opting out of a maxim ... 11
2.5 Suspending a maxim ... 12
CHAPTER THREE : ANALYSIS OF THE RISE OF CONFLICTS DUE TO THE NON-OBSERVANCE OF GRICEAN MAXIMS IN REVENGE TV SERIES SEASONS 1 & 2 ... 14
CHAPTER FOUR : CONCLUSION ... 29
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 33
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Human beings are social creatures who cannot live only by themselves. In
everyday life, we as human beings have to communicate with one another to
share our thoughts, to tell our needs, and to live. That is why communication is
inevitable for us. Thus, to fulfil the needs of communication, language is created.
According to Oxford Advanced Dictionary, ‘language is the use by human
of a system of sounds and words to communicate’ (“Language”, def. 2). Yet, for
some reasons, people cannot simply say what they want to say, accordingly;
Pragmatics exists.
It is not rare that people utter something opposite to what they actually
want to convey, or they say ambiguous things, or saying something that lacks
evidence, with or without any intention to mislead the hearer. All of those issues
are studied in Pragmatics. “Pragmatics is the study of the speaker’s meaning
In a conversation, there is a rule. This rule of conversation is made so that
the conversation can run smoothly. A philosopher from England who is a linguist,
H.P. Grice, introduced the four conversational maxims and the cooperative
principle. These four conversational maxims and the cooperative principle will be
explained in details in Chapter Two. Basically, this rule becomes an identifier to
categorize the utterances that fail to observe the principle into several categories
of the types of non-observance. There are flouting the maxim, violating the
maxim, infringing the maxim, opting out of the maxim, and suspending the
maxim. (Thomas 65)
As I have mentioned earlier, people often say something which is different
from what they really want to say. In Pragmatics, that speaker meaning is called
implicature. Accoding to H.P. Grice, “To imply is to hint, suggest or convey some
meaning indirectly by means of language” (Thomas 1). The implicature could be
understood by a lot of expectations and assumptions, and it all depends on the
situation and condition at that time.
In Revenge TV Series, I find some utterances which fail to observe the
maxims. In this thesis, I would like to analyze the conversation uttered by the
major characters: Emily Thorne (the protagonist), Victoria (the antagonist) and
the members of Victoria’s family, such as her husband, Conrad, and her children,
Daniel and Charlotte.
Because this TV series is about revenge, the characters have many
secrets and lies. Thus, I can tell that the non-observance of maxims often
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lying is not something rare in Victoria’s life.
Conrad, who is Victoria’s husband, apparently has an affair with Victoria’s
best friend. Hence, the same as Victoria, he has a tendency to lie or mislead
people around him. In other words, he often fails to observe the maxim.
Victoria’s daughter has family issues which make her use drugs and have
a lot of problems. She lies to hide the truth of her using drugs and it makes her
often fail to observe the maxims.
Victoria’s son, who is also Emily’s boyfriend, Daniel, knows nothing about
the situation that happens in his family. He usually becomes the one who is
misled by people around him because he trusts people easily.” (IMDb)
I hope my thesis can be beneficial to the readers. Misinterpretation
between the speaker and the hearer usually triggers a conflict. Through my thesis
about the rise of the conflict due to the non-observances of Gricean maxims, the
readers will become more aware of the implicature within one’s utterances, the
way they interpret what they hear or read, so that conflicts can be avoided.
Moreover, they can become more cautions of those utterances which intends to
mislead.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
In my thesis, there are three problems to be analyzed:
1. Which utterance does not observe the Gricean maxim?
2. What type of non-observance of the Gricean Maxim does it belong to?
3. How do the conflicts arise due to the non-observances of Gricean
Maxims?
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purposes of this study are:
1. To find out which utterance does not observe the Gricean maxim.
2. To classify the type of maxim it belongs to.
3. To analyze how these non-observance of maxims arise the conflict.
1.4 Method of Research
The first step I did for this research is I read the theory of maxims until I
really understood it. Second, I looked for a TV series which has so many conflicts
because of the failure of observing the Gricean Maxims. I watched it and
collected the data. Third, after I had sufficient data, I started to analyze the type
of the maxims which the character fails to observe and relate it to the conflicts.
1.5 Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One is Introduction, which
contains Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the
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Maranatha Christian University contains Theoretical Framework. Chapter Three contains the analysis of the data.
Chapter Four contains the conclusion of the discussion in Chapter Three. At the
end of this thesis, there is Bibliography, consisting of the sources and the
CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I would like to give my personal opinion about my findings
concerning the non-observances in Revenge TV Series that cause conflicts. In
order to make a conversation run smoothly, one should observe the rule of
conversation. The failure to observe it will cause a conflict between the speaker
and the hearer. In Revenge TV Series, there are a lot of conflicts which are
caused by the failure to observe the maxims. From analyzing 26 data in total, I
find 22 data of flouting the maxim and 4 data of violating the maxim. However, I
find none of suspending, opting out of, and infringing the maxim.
Based on the findings, the biggest number of data is the flouting of the
maxim; thus, there are a lot of implicatures which the speakers wish the hearers
to look for. Yet, the speakers all have different reasons to imply their meaning in
their utterances. In my opinion, besides the characteristics of the characters, I
can say that a certain situation causes someone to flout a certain maxim.
This biggest number data of flouting the maxim also gives an effect to the
audience. Since the speaker often flouts the maxim, the audience has to really
pay attention to the dialogues from the beginning until the end besides the
context of this TV series. If they miss some important parts of the stories, they
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Maranatha Christian University will not understand the causes of the conflict to occurs, which then makes this TV
series boring.
The characteristics of the character can also become one of the factors of
the failure of observing the maxims. For instance, the main character, Emily, is
often fails to observe the maxim by lying or changing the topic.
The other type of the non-observance is violating the maxim. There are
4 out of 26 data found or 15 %, so I conclude that in this TV series the characters
only have a slight intention to mislead. Frank and Charlotte are the characters
who violate the maxim. I believe it to happen because the situation forces them to
do it. They are being cornered by the other party and both of them want to protect
themselves from being blamed on something that they have actually done. Frank
pretends that he does not understand the reason why Conrad is mad with him,
while Charlotte lies about having taken drugs. As I have mentioned earlier, the
audience cannot afford to miss the episodes; or else they may not know if the
speaker lies or tells the truth.
In my analysis, I find some utterances of suspending, opting out of, and
infringing the maxim but they do not end up with conflicts. Therefore, they do not
become the data of my research. In this television series, there are indeed some
scenes in which the speaker is drunk, but I do not find anything from their
words or the ethical reasons which cause them to fail in cooperating the maxims.
There are four types of maxim that are flouted, namely flouting the maxim
of quality, quantity, relation, and manner. In my analysis, from those four types,
the most data found is flouting the maxim of manner, namely thirteen data. The
second most data is flouting the maxim of relation, which is five, and followed by
two data of flouting the maxim of quality, and one data of flouting the maxim of
quantity.
According to the number of data found above, it can be concluded that the
characters in this TV series are likely to talk indirectly or unclearly. It all depends
on the situation at that time. For instance, Conrad wants to fire his confidant,
Frank. Yet, the fact is Frank has been working for Conrad for quite a long time,
and he should be grateful to Frank. Because of that, Conrad does not want to say
his intention directly. The other example is Marion, who wants to ask for Victoria’s
help. However, she was very mean to Victoria in the past; moreover, they have
not been talking for 35 years. Therefore, she conveys her intention indirectly.
The second most data found is flouting the maxim of relation. The main
reason for this is because they want to avoid a topic. Referring to Charlotte and
Emily as examples, both of them want to avoid the question and change the
topic. Charlotte is afraid of her mother when her mother asks her about her taking
drugs, while Emily is also afraid that Daniel will find out her secret.
I only find two data which flout the maxim of quality uttered by Conrad and
Emily. Conrad says, ‘no’ when Frank asks him if he fires him, when both Conrad
and Frank know that the truth is the opposite. Emily says, ‘Oh I believe that’ with
a sarcastic tone and she roles her eyes. From her body language, we can see
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Maranatha Christian University Emily’s implicature which makes him really mad because he feels insulted. From
those cases, I conclude that when someone flouts the maxim of quality, they
expect the hearer to catch their implied meaning. Usually, when the hearer can
catch the implicature, a conflict arises.
Since the genre of this TV series is drama, conflicts are indeed the main
issue. I find verbal conflicts rather than physical conflicts because this series
revolves around revenge. The verbal conflicts caused by the non-observances of
the maxims make this TV series really interesting.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Data Source
“Revenge.” By Mike Kelley. IMDb, United States. 2012. Television.
References
About Conflict. Academic Leadership Support, 2015. Web. 16 March 2015.
“Languange.” Def. 2. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2010. Print.
Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics.
London & New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1995. Print
