Analysis of the Non-Observance of the Gricean Maximus that Builds Conflictc in 24 TV Series Season 3-6.

(1)

ABSTRACT

Dalam skripsi yang berjudul Analysis of the Non-Observance of the Gricean Maxims that Builds Conflicts in 24 TV Series Seasons 3-6 ini, saya menganalisis beberapa pelanggaran bidal yang berakibat pada konflik, yang dilakukan oleh para penutur dalam serial TV tersebut. Teori yang saya gunakan dalam skripsi ini adalah teori H.P. Grice. Teori ini mengajarkan bagaimana sebuah percakapan dapat berlangsung dengan baik.

Saya memilih topik ini karena komunikasi adalah hal yang sangat penting dalam kehidupan manusia. Meskipun demikian, kita sering menjumpai kesalahpahaman dalam berkomunikasi yang dapat menimbulkan konflik. Kesalahpahaman tersebut dapat terjadi karena beberapa hal, misalnya penutur mengatakan hal yang tidak benar dan tidak jelas; memberikan informasi yang berlebihan atau kurang dari yang dibutuhkan dalam percakapan tersebut, dan mengatakan hal-hal yang tidak berkaitan dengan topik percakapan.

(2)

(3)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

All living creatures definitely need to communicate with each other. Animals and even plant species communicate. Yet, surely, all of them communicate in their own ways. Human’s way of communication is unique in comparison to that of non-human beings because it uses language.

(5)

When producing utterances, people often fail in observing the rules of speaking, which we call maxims. They often do not say what they actually want to say (Thomas 1). This situation may occur at any time because of various reasons, for instance, when they are not in the mood of talking, when they are in a hurry, or when they are trying to hide something.

Generally, these cases can make people give more or less information that is needed during their speaking. They give untruthful answer or irrelevant response. Or, they do not say things clearly and briefly.

The communication system has two parts: a speaker and a hearer. If the speaker does not pay attention to the rules of speaking, the hearer may get confused by the speaker’s utterance. In other words, sometimes people have the wrong perception when they are getting involved in a conversation and this will eventually result in misunderstanding, which may create a conflict.

Conflict, which includes internal and external kinds, can be experienced by everyone (Wandberg 4). The film that I use as the data source contains a lot of non-observance of maxims which causes external conflicts among the characters. External conflicts consist of disagreement between one person and another, which can lead to behavior that may harm themselves (4). Consequently, in order to avoid this harmful behavior, we have to understand and pay attention to the rules of speaking when we talk with others.

(6)

television series with the genre of political thriller and action. This series begins with the Los Angeles–based Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) agents, who focus on their efforts to protect America from terrorism. They should solve each case in 24 hours.

From this TV series, we can see that sometimes participants of a conversation intentionally disobey the maxims in order to achieve certain purposes. Therefore, the topic of my thesis is the occurrence of conflict caused by the non-observance of maxims and the title is Analysis of the Non-Observance of the Gricean Maxims that Builds Conflicts in 24 TV Series Seasons 3-6. Some conversations in this film do not run properly and this problem leads to several conflicts because the characters do not pay attention to the conversational maxims when they are saying an utterance.

In order to analyze the conversations of this TV Series, I use a pragmatic approach. Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning (Thomas 1). It teaches us to understand a speaker’s meaning when the speaker does not say a thing truthfully or clearly. Through Pragmatics, we can find out not only the speaker’s intended meaning in their conversations in a film, but also the factors that make them not say what they really want to say.

(7)

violating a maxim, infringing a maxim, opting out of a maxim, and suspending a maxim. In addition to avoiding the non-observance of the maxim, the speaker should follow certain strategies in order for the communication to succeed. The strategies belong to the so-called Cooperative Principle. This principle consists of four maxims: quantity, quality, relation and manner.

This thesis is significant as it will enable people to understand the generated implicatures that can be found in conversations. This means that they will be able to comprehend the intended meaning of a speaker, specifically in a movie.

(771 words)

1.2 Statement of the Problems

In this thesis, the problems are formulated in the following questions. 1. Which utterances in 24 TV Series do not observe the Gricean maxim? 2. What types of Gricean maxim are not observed in 24 TV Series? 3. What implicatures are generated in their utterances?

4. How does the non-observance of the maxims build a conflict?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

This study is conducted for the following purposes:

1. To find out the utterances in 24 TV Series that do not observe the Gricean maxim.

(8)

3. To find out the implicatures that are generated from their utterances. 4. To explain how the non-observance of the maxims builds conflict.

1.4 Method of Research

After studying Pragmatics in class, I found that the theory of Gricean maxim is interesting to be the topic of my thesis. Therefore, I tried to find a TV Series that can be analyzed by this theory. I found that 24 TV Series was suitable for this purpose. I watched this series several times and collected the data to be analyzed. After doing the analysis, I wrote the research report.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

(9)

CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to make some concluding points based on the result of my analysis on 24 TV series. Basically, Grice suggests that people have to observe the maxims when they are talking so as to make the conversation run smooth. Yet, in fact, normally many people do not observe the maxims in their everyday conversation. I also find the same phenomenon in this series. This TV series contains a lot of scenes where a character interrogates another character. However, in the end they fail to observe the maxim as they want to hide the evidence and some information. Thus, conflicts occur between them.

From the 29 data taken from this TV series that I have analyzed, I find that the most common type of non-observance of the maxims is flouting a maxim (19 data), followed by violating a maxim (7 data) and opting out of a maxim (4 data). The flouting of the maxim consists of four maxims: relation (10 data), manner (5 data), quality (2 data) and quantity (2 data).

(10)

attention to something else. Among all types of flouting, flouting the maxim of relation has the biggest impact on the occurrence of a conflict. When the speaker gives an unrelated answer, the hearer will be upset because basically people do not like it when his interlocutor changes the subject of the conversation. It is shown in utterance (1) when Ramon changes the topic of their conversation and it makes Annicon angry and he strangles Ramon at the end of their conversation.

Flouting the maxim of manner, quality and quantity are three types of flouting that do not appear in this TV series as often as flouting the maxim of relation. Although I only find a few data that flout the maxim of manner, quality and quantity, these three types of non-observance of maxims still have a role in building a conflict between the characters.

After analyzing all data of flouting the maxims in this TV series, I think to enjoy the movie well, the audience should have good language awareness. Most people do not really pay attention to the dialogue between the characters when watching an action movie. They are more interested in seeing the scenes of conflict just as when there are fights or punches. However, 24 TV series is different from those movies. The audience is not only forced to see the conflicts, but they also have to understand the dialogue that causes those conflicts. This is because the conflicts that occur in this TV series are mostly due to the dialogue that has flouted the maxim. Thus, they must be aware of this when watching this TV series.

(11)

Kyle tries to cover the truth to protect himself from his father. From this dialogue, I conclude that someone will do the violation in order to protect himself from danger or punishment. Furthermore, in my opinion, violation has a considerable impact in building the conflict. It can also be seen that after violating a maxim, there is a conflict between Kyle and his father. On top of that, I also come to a conclusion that violation can also be used for good intention. It can be seen in utterance (20, 21, 22 and 23) when Jack violates the maxim for good purpose, which is to thwart the terrorists’ plan to detonate a bomb in the shopping mall.

Another type of non-observance that appears in my data is opting out of a maxim. Because this is a TV series about federal agents who always try to arrest terrorists, there are some utterances that are opted out. When the suspects are interrogated by the federal agents, opting out of a maxim is often done by the suspects because they are unwilling to tell something needed by the agents. The example can be found in utterance (24) when Christopher refuses to answer Jack’s question. Christopher even says that he will not tell anything although Jack hurts him. From this, I conclude that sometimes people do the opting out because they think that the information they have is far more important than their life. They are even willing to give up their life as long as the information is not leaked.

(12)

cannot find any suspension of the maxim because this TV series does not contain any cultural situation that requires the character to suspend the maxim.

After analyzing the data, I come to the conclusion that flouting, violating and opting out a maxim are the most important aspects that build a conflict. However, flouting a maxim is still the one that most frequently occurs. The characters often fail in observing the maxim as can be seen when they provide unclear and inaccurate information, deliberately change their topic of conversation, tell lies and hide the evidence or facts. Moreover, because the genre of this TV series is action, all the conflicts shown are more physical than verbal. These non-observances of the maxims force the characters to punch, shoot or even kill each other.

Based on my findings, I conclude that it is common for people not to observe a maxim when they communicate with others. Conflict will occur when people do not pay attention to the maxim and understand the implied meaning. Thus, in my opinion, the theory of Gricean maxim is very important for us to learn in order to overcome this problem.

For the researchers who will take the same topic as mine, I recommend that they analyze the non-observance of maxim in the next seasons of this TV series, since this TV series has a lot of dialogues containing non-observance of the Gricean maxims. Finally, I hope this thesis can be useful for those who are interested in studying pragmatics.

(13)

47

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Source

24 TV Series Seasons 3-6. 2003. Imagine Entertainment, 20th Century Fox Television, Real Time Productions, Teakwood Lane Productions.

References

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

National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. Communication and Language. n.p., n.d. Web. 26 April 2014.

Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. London and New York: Longman Group Limited, 1995. Print.