Analysis of The Non-Observance of The Gricean Maxims in Creating and Building Up The Conflict in 'Private Practice' TV Series (Season 1).

(1)

ABSTRACT

Dalam penulisan akhir ini, saya menganalisis pelanggaran-pelanggaran

maxim atau yang disebut bidal dalam Bahasa Indonesia. Data yang saya ambil

bersumber dari penuturan karakter-karakter utama yang menimbulkan konflik.

Sumber data yang saya pilih adalah sebuah serial televise berjudul “Private

Practice” season 1. Serial televise ini menceritakan tentang kehidupan para dokter di

sebuah rumah sakit.

Setelah menonton serial televisi ini, saya menemukan banyak perkataan serta

ucapan dari karakter-karakter utama yang menunjukkan pelanggaran-pelanggaran

bidal. Terdapat juga perkataan-perkataan dari karakter-karakter utama yang

mengandung maksud terselubung yang disebut juga implikatur.

Setelah menganalisa tiga belas data, saya menarik kesimpulan bahwa bidal

(2)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Generally, language is a media to convey messages to other people in our

daily life. With language, people can deliver a lot of things such as opinions,

feelings, needs, etc through the forms of speaking and/or writing. Sometimes,

when a person verbally communicates his or her feelings, opinions, or needs to

someone, he or she tends to convey the feelings, opinions, or needs indirectly.

This indirectness may cause the hearer to have an interpretation which is different

from the speaker’s intention. As a result, neither the speaker not the hearer is

pleased. This is how a conflict happens.

A conflict is “a situation in which people, groups or countries are involved

in a serious disagreement or argument” (Hornby). I believe that belonging to

drama genre, the TV series Private Practice have plenty of conflicts which

(4)

conflicts that happen in Private Practice Season 1 which are caused or made

worse by the characters’ utterance.

According to H.P. Grice, implicature is “an attempt at explaining how a

hearer gets from what is said to what is meant, from the level of expressed

meaning to the level of implied meaning” (Thomas 56). Implicature is divided

into two types by H.P. Grice. They are conversational maxim and conventional

maxim. Grice also states that there are five ways of people’s failure to observe the

maxims. The failure of observing the maxim is called the non-observance of the

maxims. People fail to observe the maxims in conversations because there is an

ambiguous meaning, lack of information, or irrelevant answers. So, one side tries

to make a good conversation but the other does not. In the end, it can make the

occurrence of conflict, the occurrence of suspense and the occurrence of humor.

In this analysis, I choose Pragmatics as the area of linguistics that my topic

belongs to. “Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning. It is more about the

analysis of what the speaker means by their utterances rather than what the words

or phrases might mean by themselves” (Yule 3). The specific Pragmatic theory

that I use to analyze my thesis is the conversational maxims created by H.P. Grice.

H.P. Grice is a British philosopher of language. His first work is theory of

implicature published in 1967 which is a shorter version that is elaborated in a

paper entitled “Logic and conversation” published in 1975.

In this thesis, I would like to focus on the non-observance of the Gricean

maxims in creating and building up the conflict in the TV series Private

Practiceseason 1. The reason why I choose this topic is because I find there are

(5)

maxims in their conversations, which results in conflicts. The non-observance of

maxims of some of the conversations in this TV series is very interesting to

analyze. It will help people to realize that there are four conversational maxims.

These maxims should be observed to make a good conversationin our daily life.I

will analyze the utterances that will lead to the occurrence of conflict, and find out

why such utterances that are catagorized as non-observance of maxims can result

in the occurrence of conflict.

The source of data that I use for my thesis is an American medical drama

TV series entitled Private Practice created by Shonda Rhimes. The series takes

place at Oceanside Health and Wellness Group. The main characters are dr.

Addison Montgomery, dr. Peter Wilder, dr. Samuel Bennett, dr. Naomi Bennett,

dr. Violet Turner, dr. Cooper Freedman, dr. Charlotte King. The series tells about

a team of doctors who work together in a practice (small hospital). They help their

patients with treatments that are different from the other hospital. Besides talking

about their activities, this series talks about their friendship and love.

I choose this particular TV series as my data because I think there are

many conflicts among the characters that are the result of non-observance of the

maxims. In this analysis, I will focus on the significant characters that have a lot

of conflict between them which are the main characters in that series. Many of the

conflict between them happen because of the non-observance of the maxims in

their conversations.

I believe this topic is significant because after reading this thesis, the

readers will understand the conversational maxims and the differences between

(6)

know how to analyze conflict which is caused by non-observance of maxims in

their daily lives. Lastly, this thesis can help people to be more attentive to the

presence of non-observance of maxims in conversation which may result in the

occurrence of conflict.

795words

1.2 The Statement of the Problem

In this thesis, I would like to analyze the following statement:

1. Whattype of maxim is not observed in the utterance?

2. What is the implicature of the utterance?

3. How does the non-observance of the maxims lead to and build up the

conflict between the characters?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

In this thesis, I intend:

1. To show the type of the maxim that is not observed in the utterance.

2. To show the implicature of the utterance.

3. To show how the non-observance of maxims lead to and build up the

(7)

1.4 Method of Research

First, I watch Private Practice series season 1 after I searched and

downloaded it. Second, I find some theories on Pragmatics to support my analysis.

Third, I start to analyze my data using theories of non-observance of Gricean

maxims that I browse at first and last, I write a report in my thesis after analyzing.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

I divide the thesis into four chapters. The first chapter is Introduction

which contains Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of

the Study, Method of Research and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two

consists of the theoretical framework in which I elaborate some approaches that I

use to analyze the data. Chapter Three is the analysis of the article. The last

chapter, Chapter Four, is the conclusion of the analysis. At the end of the thesis, I

(8)

CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to state some concluding points based on my

analysis in the previous chapter and I would also like to count the points from the

data that I have analyzed.

Having analyzed the data, I find a number of types of non-observance of the

Gricean maxims which create and build up conflicts in Private Practice season 1. I

have collected thirteen data to be analyzed in my thesis. From all the data collected, I

find six data concerning flouting of the maxim of manner and six data which involve

flouting the maxim of quantity. Those are the most commonly flouted maxim.

Second, I find five data regarding flouting of the maxim of relation, and one data

which concerns flouting the maxim of quality. In my analysis, violating the maxim,

infringing a maxim, suspending a maxim, opting out of a maxim are not found. Some

of the data also have more than one maxim flouted in it. Data 11 involves flouting the

(9)

of relation, and flouting the maxim of manner; data 2, 7, and 9 has flouting the

maxim of manner and flouting the maxim of quantity.

From the data that I have analyzed, the maxim of manner is the most flouted

maxim in Private Practice series. In my opinion, the reason why the conflict happens

when the speaker gives a long-winded response or refuses to give brief information

because the characters in Private Practice season 1 have different characteristics,

experience and lifestyles. As a result, they have different ways of thinking and

responding to issues that happens in their lives.

Flouting the maxim of quantity is also most flouted maxim in Private Practice

series. In my opinion, the reason why conflict occurs when the speaker gives more or

less information than required because first everyone as the characters in Private

Practice season1 need brief and clear reason or statement from the person he or she

talks to. Second, we know that by giving more information, one can make the

character of the hearer offended, as well as by giving less information. Lastly, by

giving more information, it can make the hearer think of another possible meaning

behind the speaker’s utterance.

Flouting the maxim of relation is found on certain occasions in the TV series.

In my opinion, flouting the maxim of relation can make the conflict happen because

generally, when a person asks something to another, that person needs an appropriate

answer from the hearer. If the hearer does not give an appropriate answer to that

person, conflict can easily happen. An example in data 13, Naomi gets angry with

Sam because Sam does not give an appropriate answer to her.

Flouting the maxim of quality is also found in one of my data. In my opinion,

(10)

is because everyone does not like to be lied to. This is what happens with the

characters in Private Practice season 1. The characters in Private Practice season 1

get upset or angry because they have been lied to. For example in data 13, Naomi gets

angry because Sam lies to her about his condition after he has been hit by the

pregnant woman.

In my analysis, violating the maxim, infringing a maxim, suspending a

maxim, and opting out of a maxim are not found in Private Practice TV series season

1. There are many reasons why those non-observance maxims are not found in

Private Practice TV series season 1.

First, violating the maxim is not found in Private Practice TV series season 1

because all the characters in that film are not the character who like to conceal

something to their friends.

Second, the reason why there is no infringing a maxim in Private Practice TV

series season 1 because the characters in that TV series do not have lack of language

ability. They can speak English well. In addition, all the characters are doctors. They

are not drunk. They are not nervous when they talk each other about their patients.

Third, none of the conflicts happen because of suspending a maxim in Private

Practice TV series season 1. They share the same profession that is doctors. As a

result, what usually consider as taboo words in society become ordinary words

amongst doctors.

Last, opting out of a maxim is also not found in Private Practice TV series

season 1. The characters do not display unwillingness because when the characters in

Private Practice TV series season 1engage in a conflict instead of being unwilling to

(11)

After analyzing the non-observance of the Gricean maxims in creating and

building up the conflict in Private Practice TV series season 1, I come to the

conclusion that the non-observance of the Gricean maxims have an important effect

that makes Private Practice TV series season 1 become interesting. Most of the

conflicts occur because all the characters in Private Practice TV series season 1 often

use implied meaning.

In my opinion, Private Practice TV series season 1 is an amusing and

informative film because after watching it I gained some new information related to

medical case. To end my conclusion, I hope this thesis may be beneficial for

everyone who wants to make a research with same topic. In addition, this thesis also

makes reader more aware with using the maxim in order to avoid the conflict. I also

suggest to the reader that have the same topic to choose a serial film which has many

conflicts that suitable to analyze.

(12)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Texts:

Schmidt Lauren Kindberg Ann. Private Practice. NewYork: Brander Wood Films,

2008.

References:

Adrian Brasoveanu. “Conversational Implicatures: The Basic”. people.ucsc.edu.

Web. 18 September.2013.

Grice, H. Paul. Logic and Conversation. Berkeley: University of California,2004.

Print

Leech, Geoffrey.Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman Inc., 1983. Print.

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

New York: Longman Group Limited,1995. Print