The Occurrence of Humour Due To The Non-Observance of Gricean Maxims in 'How I Met Your Mother' TV Series Season I.

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ABSTRACT

Dalam tugas akhir ini, saya membahas tentang pada aturan-aturan bidal dalam situasi tutur serial televisi How I Met Your Mother musim pertama. Dalam menganalisis data, saya menggunakan teori H. P. Grice karangan Jenny Thomas. Tugas akhir ini terfokus pada pembahasan ketidaktaatan pada prinsip kerja sama dan aturan bidal di beberapa adegan dalam serial televisi How I Met Your Mother musim pertama. Aspek linguistik yang digunakan adalah Pragmatik, khususnya mengenai bidal. Selain itu, saya juga menggunakan teori humor yang diperkenalkan oleh Jerry Suls dan Raskin, guna mengkaji bagaimana para penonton mengapresiasi humor dalam serial televisi ini secara lebih mendalam.

Ketidaktaatan pada aturan bidal yang saya temukan pada serial televisi ini hanya melingkup satu jenis aturan, yaitu: flouting the maxim. Ketidaktaatan muncul dalam tindak tutur karakter dalam serial televisi ini saat berinteraksi satu sama lain dan upaya untuk menutupi kebohongan untuk membahas topik yang sama dalam suatu situasi tutur.

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APPENDICES

Types of Non-Observance of Gricean Maxims of How I Met Your Mother Television Series

NO DATA TYPE OF MAXIM TYPE OF NON-

OBSERVANCE OF MAXIM 1. Marshall : (Opens ring) Will you marry me.

Ted : Yes, perfect! And then you’re engaged, you pop the champagne! You drink a toast! You have sex on the kitchen floor … Don’t have sex on our kitchen floor.

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been there for all the big moments of you and Lily. The night you met. Your first date … other first things.

(Scene Freezes) Marshall : Hey!

Lily : Urgh. I’m exhausted. It was finger painting day at school, and a five year old boy (takes coat off revealing a purple hand print on her right breast) got to second base with me. Wow, you’re cooking?

Marshall : Yes, I am.

Lily : Aww — (They kiss) Are you sure that’s a good idea after last time? You looked really creepy without eyebrows.

Marshall : I can handle this; I’m full of surprises tonight. Lily : So there’s more surprises? Like what?

Marshall : BOOGITY BOO! And that’s all of them! I’m goanna go… cook. (Leaves) (1)

(1) Quality

(1) Flouting

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I’m not ready to settle down.

Barney : (ignoring) How does Carl land a Lebanese girl? (2)

Ted : It’s always been “don’t even think about it till you’re thirty”

Barney : Exactly —the guy doesn’t even own a suit! (3)

Ted : Plus Marshall’s found the love of his life. Even if I was ready, which I’m not, but if I was it’s like, “Okay, I’m ready! Where is she?” (Spots Robin)

(2), (3) Relation

(2), (3) Flouting

3 Ted : So these guys think I chickened out. What do you think?

Barney : I can’t believe you’re still not wearing a SUIT! (4)

Ted : She didn’t even give me the signal.

Barney : What is she gonna — is she gonna bat her eyes at you in Morse code (bats eyes)?? Ted (bats eyes) Kiss me— No, you just kiss her!

(4) Relation (4) Flouting

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your party was tonight. (Silence)

Ted : It is the party’s tonight. (Marshall’s mad) Yeah—uh— it’s a two day party. Because that’s just how we roll. Uh—so if you wanna swing by its—uh—you know, Casual. See ya. (hangs up) So that was Robin. (5)

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6 Robin : (To cameraman) Thanks. (Notices Ted) Ted? reporting a news story or something? (puts dip back) (9)

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8 Robin : Well, what if I'm just a cold person? Tonight, Mike was willing to look like a complete idiot for me, but I couldn't be Gretel. Why can't I be Gretel?

Ted : Because you just haven't met the right Hansel yet. One day you're gonna meet a guy who's gonna make you want to look like a complete idiot.

Robin : Really?

Ted : Yeah, he's out there somewhere, just like the Slutty Pumpkin. (echoes) pumpkin-pumpkin . . .

Robin : How do you do this, Ted? How do you sit out here all night on the roof in the cold and still have faith your pumpkin's gonna show up.

Ted : Well, I'm pretty drunk (12). Look, I know that odds are the love of my life isn't going to magically walk through that door in a pumpkin costume at 2:43 in the morning but it seems as nice a spot as any to just; you know, sit and wait.

(12) Quality

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

All human beings have had their own ways of communicating with others since they were born. Communication is an important aspect in a person’s life. By communicating, people can give and receive information. Communication is giving or exchanging of information, signals, or messages by talk, gestures, or writing (“What is communication”).

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In communicating with others, sometimes our utterance may indicate a meaning that is different from what we actually mean. Therefore, it may lead to the occurrence of misunderstanding. Commonly, the situation and context of a conversation cause people to make an utterance that contains more or less information than is needed, or that is not simple to be said, is irrelevant, or has an unclear expression. In a conversation, sometimes the utterance produced has different or additional meanings. Therefore, we have to be more aware of interpreting the intention of people within their utterances. In order to be able to interpret someone’s utterance appropriately, we need to pay attention to maxims.

Maxim is a rule of conduct which is found in a conversation. In a conversation, some speakers might not interpret others’ utterances appropriately. Thus, failure

to observe a maxim is the topic that I would like to discuss for my thesis.

In this thesis, I would like to observe the utterances of the characters in a TV series. I am going to use a situational comedy series as my data source. The reason why I use a TV series entitled How I Met Your Mother as my data source is because the characters in the film often fail to observe a maxim, which creates a funny atmosphere among them.

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utterances are not usually connected to the context. The third is Marshall. He is the only character in this TV series who really cares about education and is faithful to his spouse. The fourth is Ted. This man is not really confident to have a date with a woman, because he is always unsuccessful in having good relationships with a woman. The last is Robin. She is a television reporter who is not easy to fall in love. She is also more serious than the other characters.

The theory that is used to observe the utterances of the characters in these data is the non-observance of Gricean maxims. Non-observance of Gricean maxims occurs when the maxims are not observed due to implication or tendencies to deceive, mislead, or an imperfect linguistic performance and ethic.

The topic of my thesis is the occurrence of humor due to the non-observance of Gricean maxims in How I Met Your Mother TV series Season 1. This topic belongs to the study of Pragmatics as the main field. “Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics which studies speaker’s meaning and utterance interpretation, or it can be defined as meaning interaction” (Thomas 22).

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This study is done to show that the non-observance of the Gricean maxims may result in humor, which is seen in the TV series called How I Met Your Mother Season 1, as one of the examples of daily life. This is significant as

through this TV series, we can find that linguistic features have an important role to make the TV series interesting to watch. I want to make the readers know and understand that sometimes people do not always say what they actually mean. By analyzing this TV series, I will show them that sometimes the speaker has a different intended meaning when they utter an utterance. This analysis will also help readers understand that people often fail to observe Gricean maxims in conversation. Besides, this analysis will help them look at the other effect of failing to observe the Gricean maxims, which is the occurrence of the funny atmosphere.

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1.2 Statement of the Problem

The problems which I am going to analyze are:

1. What types of non-observance of Gricean maxims are found in How I Met Your Mother Season 1?

2. What types of Gricean maxims are not observed in How I Met Your Mother Season 1?

3. What implicature is generated?

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1.3 Purpose of the Study

This study is done:

1. To know what types of non-observance of Gricean maxims are found in How I Met Your Mother Season 1.

2. To know what types of Gricean maxims are not observed in How I Met Your Mother Season 1.

3. To know the generated implicature.

4. To know how the non-observance of Gricean maxims results in humour.

1.4 Method of Research

In analyzing my topic, I watched the TV series How I Met Your Mother Season 1 and then I selected the data in which the utterances fail to observe the Gricean maxims. Then, I searched for the references from the Internet and some books which are related to my topic. Finally, I analyzed the non-observance of the maxims in How I Met Your Mother TV series Season 1. Finally, after I finished analyzing my data, I made a conclusion based on the analysis.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to present my conclusion based on my findings. Having analyzed the data, I can find that there are a number of factors which can create humor in How I Met Your Mother TV series season 1, especially from non-observance of the maxims. This happens because there are many conversations that contain non-observance of the maxims.

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This is seen from all the conversations discussed in the analysis. The failures to observe the Gricean maxims in the conversations create a humorous atmosphere. In flouting the maxims, I find all the four maxims: quality, quantity, relation, and manner, are flouted. The non-observance of Gricean maxims which mostly appear in the seventeen data are flouting the maxim of relation, while flouting the maxim of quality only emerges in one data. Flouting the maxim of manner and quantity relate to two data for each type. In my data analysis, flouting the maxim of relation is conducted when there is an implicature of avoiding the topic, which makes the characters give irrelevant responses. It is seen in several data, such as in data (2), (3), (4), (6), (7), (8) and (11). In my opinion, it may also happen when the speaker has the wrong perception of what the hearer says and when the speaker does not understand what the hearer intend to say.

In addition, flouting the maxim of quality is conducted when there is an implicature because the speaker feels pressured by the hearer’s question. From data (1), (5), (8), and (12), I can conclude that the speaker gives a response which is untrue and wishes the hearer to look for another interpretation.

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conclude that the speaker flouts the maxim of quantity because he/she tries to cover the real information. In addition, I find that flouting the maxim of quantity may emerge at the same time as flouting the maxim of relation and manner in these data.

After analyzing the data, the non-cooperation between the characters causes the humorous effect. The audience finds the non-cooperation as a surprise in each scene. Besides, the humor which emerges in the data is in accordance with the Incongruity Resolution theory and Raskin’s theory of script incongruity.

The scene would not be considered funny by several audiences because people may have a different sense of humor. And, another reason is also the situation when the audience finds the surprise within the scene. In these cases, the incongruity case cannot be found if the context of the humor is confusing. Therefore, the important thing for a person to understand the humor is the audience’s background knowledge.

Through the data analysis, I also discover that the non-observance of Gricean maxims seems quite difficult to acknowledge. This happens because sometimes people do non-observance of the maxims accidentally. This is found when people’s utterances do not have any implied meaning, but their response to

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Actually, the hearer has to be aware of the speaker’s utterance because it may help the hearer to understand the context which is being talked about. When a person becomes a hearer, he or she has to understand what a speaker means through the utterance even if it is implicitly said. Besides, if the speaker and the hearer are trying to cooperate in a conversation, the speaker will produce a meaningful utterance, then the hearer should give a proper response. In other words, the speaker and the hearer are being cooperative and observant of the maxims.

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applies to scene 5 in which the topic about complimenting each other experiences has a twist into the statement of love. Thus, I can conclude that the humorous element in this television series occurs due to the unexpected / hidden script within.

In relation to misunderstanding, the humorous scene that occurs because of the misunderstanding is due to the insistence of the speaker and hearer for their topic to be listened to and talked about. What is also humorous is that the conversation still runs seriously despite the different topics discussed. As a result, I can conclude that the misunderstanding occurs when the speaker and hearer are not aware of his/her partner’s topic which is being discussed. And yet, the misunderstanding also happens when the speaker utters something to the hearer and the hearer cannot catch what the speaker actually means.

In relation to incongruity, it can be concluded that the incongruity actually centers on the utterance, which if communicatively understood, carries an implicature which is different from what is seen on the surface. An example is from the utterance we are now. The utterance carries communicative meaning. Thus, I can conclude that the incongruity is resolved if the hearer has the same perception and resolution with the speaker, which falls into the category of pragmatics.

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humorous elements used in this television series relies on laughing at someone’s nervousness and weakness.

Actually, the non-observance of Gricean maxims is not only found in the dialogues of a film, but it also can be found in our daily situations. It often happens when there is a situation when the speaker and the hearer do not want to cooperate. This situation may be found, for example, when the speaker tries to cover something by uttering a lie and the speaker does not want to hurt someone’s

feeling.

Personally, I wish that my thesis which is the study of the occurrence of humor due to the non-observance of Gricean maxims in How I Met Your Mother television series can be useful as a reference for further researchers about maxims. I suggest that the further researchers may find the data which contain the non-observance of Gricean maxims from other kind movies or television series.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Text

Thomas, Craig. How I Met Your Mother Script, 19 September 2005. Web. 9 February 2011.

References

Cook, Guy. Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.

Dornerus, Emma. ”Breaking maxims in conversation.” 2005. Web. 20 March

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Grandy, Richard E. and Richard Warner. “Grice.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006. Web. 15 March 2011.

How I Met Your Mother. Dir. Carter Bays. Perf. Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Alyson

Hannigan, Cobie Smulders, and Neil Patrick Harris. 2007. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2007. DVD.

“Is communication, What.” Your Online Dictionary. 17 March 2011. Web. 12

February 2011.

“Is Gricean maxims, What.” Gricean Maxims and Politeness. 2006. Web. 15

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“Laughter.” Superiority Theory in Humor. 2003. Web. 2 May 2012.

McGhee, P. E and Jeffrey H. G. Handbook of Humor Research. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1983. Print.

Mooney, Annabelle. 2004. Co-operation, Violation and Making Sense. Journal of Pragmatics. 33:1601-1623. Print.

“Of Misunderstanding, Analysis.” Misunderstanding in Humor. 2008. Web. 2

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