The Role of Non-Observance of the Gricean Maxims In Building the Humor in 2 Broke Girls TV Series Season 1.

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ABSTRACT

Dalam penulisan skripsi ini, data yang saya gunakan berasal dari salah satu serial televisi Amerika Serikat yang mengedepankan unsur humor, yaitu 2 Broke Girls. Saya menganalis peranan pelanggaran teori bidal atau maxim dalam memicu timbulnya efek humor.

Pertama-tama, saya mengklasifikasikan pelanggaran sesuai dengan teori bidal dan memaparkan implikatur yang terbentuk. Selanjutnya, untuk menganalisis efek humor yang ditimbulkan, saya menggunakan teori incongruity-resolution dari Jerry Suls dan Thomas Shultz. Teori ini digunakan untuk meneliti efek humor yang ditimbulkan karena adanya perbedaan antara ekspektasi penonton dengan kejadian yang sebenarnya.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1Background of the Study

When having a conversation, we are sometimes unable to convey what we actually mean. We tend to give more or less information than we have to and it might lead to conflict, misunderstanding or even humour. The effects are variable, depending on the situation the person is in.

Furthermore, some people rarely say precisely what they mean. Some of the reasons are they do not feel comfortable to say the truth or they have an intention to mislead their hearer. To really know the implied meaning behind a speaker’s utterance, the hearer needs to observe the situation and condition of the speaker, or else the hearer will fail to understand the message behind it. That is why I choose the topic The Role of Non-observance of Gricean’s Maxims in Building the Humor in 2 Broke Girls’ TV Series Season 1.

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2 Universitas Kristen Maranatha as some people fail to recognize the humourous effect of the joke simply because they could not understand it.

The topic I choose belongs to one of the areas of linguistics known as Pragmatics. Pragmatics is the study of meaning, both in use and in context, which involves both the speaker’s meaning and the interpretation of an utterance. Meanwhile, the specific theories which I am going to use are four basic maxims of conversation and the conversational implicature of Herbert Paul Grice. Conversational implicature is concerned with the additional or implied meaning within one’s speech. I use this theory because it is suitable for analyzing the verbal humour in 2 Broke Girls TV Series.

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This thesis focuses on the analysis of humor in the 2 Broke Girls TV Series, based on Grice’s theory. The selection of this TV series is basically due to its amusing and comical dialogues. This TV series shows several non-observances of the maxims, which play a major role in creating humorous effects. The characters in this series tend to ignore the main topic of the conversation and answer it with sarcasm or words which are actually irrelevant. As the whole series is a comedy, the purpose of this thesis is not to analyze all verbal humours that occur in this TV Series but to show that the failure to observe maxims can give rise to jokes.

It is interesting to analyze 2 Broke Girls simply because the situations which happen in that series are similar to our daily life. The amusing part is to see how the characters could use sarcasm and jokes at the right time. The language is also simple and easy to understand. Moreover, the main characters, Max and Caroline, can deliver the jokes so well. They always tease each other wittily, which creates humour in each episode. It makes this TV series entertaining and worth watching.

By writing this thesis I hope the reader will be more aware of the importance of observing maxims in daily conversation because the failure to observe maxims actually frequently happens. This thesis will help them, as speakers, to start to convey precisely what they mean in order to avoid misleading others. As hearers, it will help them to interpret speaker’s utterances which have implied meanings.

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1.2Statement of the Problem

Based on the background of the study above, the problems of this study are stated as follows:

1. What type of non-observance of maxims occurs in the utterance? 2. What is the implied meaning within the speaker’s utterance? 3. How does the failure to observe the maxims lead to humor?

1.3Purpose of the Study

From the problems that I presented previously, the purpose of the study are formulated as follows:

1. To find the type of non-observance of maxims that occurs in the utterance. 2. To observe the implied meaning within the speaker’s utterance.

3. To reveal how the failure to observe maxims leads into humor.

1.4Method of Research

First of all, I collected the data by watching three seasons of 2 Broke Girls

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1.5Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I will comment on all my findings based on the analysis I have written in Chapter Three. The findings contain the type of non-observance of the maxims that the characters do, the reason why the failure of observing maxims leads to humor and the analysis of the humor. This chapter also becomes the conclusion of this thesis.

The aim of this thesis is to reveal the occurence of non-observance of the Gricean maxims in building the humor. There are nineteen data, which is taken from ten scenes in 2 Broke Girls TV Series Season 1. The result of the analysis is that flouting a maxim plays a crucial role in creating the humor and hilarious situations in this TV Series. In fact, out of the five types of non-observance of the maxims, almost all of them are flouting of a maxim. There is only one data which violates the maxim; infringing a maxim, opting out a maxim and suspending a maxim are not to be found.

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46 Universitas Kristen Maranatha something. One of the main characters, Max Black, tends to be sarcastic all the time. Her utterance is usually bitter and sharp. The audience will eventually get used to her sarcastic character. However, they will not be able to predict what she is going to say. Max’s unexpected way to respond to something never fails to make the audience laugh.

Another result from analyzing the data in this TV Series is the interesting relationship between Max’s character and the failure to observe the maxims which commits. According to the data, Max has a tendency to flout the maxim more than the other characters because she often uses sarcasm in her utterances. Her sarcastic behaviour is probably because she comes from a poor background and a broken family; therefore, she always sees things bitterly. It is shown throughout the series that Max is extremely sarcastic. She constantly mocks others. She also insults and offends people without much thought. Therefore, she most frequently flouts the maxim.

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47 Universitas Kristen Maranatha The second type of non-observance of the maxim which is mostly found in this TV Series is flouting the maxim of reason. There are nine occurences and Max commits seven of them. Max flouts this maxim because being sarcastic, she often ignores other people’s goals in asking questions. As mentioned before, Max usually says something without much thought, which leads her to give irrelevant answers. The analysis of the data shows that giving an unrelated answer to the topic at hand is the easiest way to make the audience laugh. This is probably because at first the audience pays attention more to irrelevance of the answer before they consider another aspect of the joke.

There are only four occurences of flouting the maxim of quality found in the data. The analysis shows that Max usually flouts the maxim of quality because of, once again, her bitter and sarcastic character. Max often has a bad prejudice over something. Therefore, she casually says what she believes to be true although she does not have enough proof. Flouting the maxim of quality gives less effect to the audience because it is not easy to convey disbelief in a funny way.

Flouting the maxim of quantity occurred three times in the data. It shows that giving more or less information has less impact on the audience. The reason is that if someone gives less information, there is a significant probability that the audience would not to be able to understand what they are talking about because they are not explicit enough. On the other hand, it is likely to be boring if someone gives too much information.

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48 Universitas Kristen Maranatha used for bad intention. It can be seen that the motive of Max misleading another character is for a good purpose. Compared to flouting the maxim, violating the maxim seems less effective to make the audience laugh because it needs more effort to understand the joke. The audience have to know the truth first, or else they will not find the joke funny.

All types of flouting a maxim can be found in the data. Thus, it can be concluded that flouting a maxim is the most frequently used type of non-observance of Gricean maxim among the characters of this TV Series. However, the punch line also has a great importance in building the humor. All data in this thesis shows that the humor occurs when the outcome ruins the audience’s prediction. It catches the audience off-guard and gives rise to humor.

I hope that this thesis will be useful for the readers, especially students taking Linguistics as their major. For further researchers who are interested in analyzing humor in TV series. I would like to suggest 2 Broke Girls TV Series Seasons 2-4. I believe that this TV Series can provide many interesting data which are worthy to be analyzed. Lastly, I hope this thesis will help the readers to understand more about the failure to observe the maxim as it happens in everyday life.