ANALYSIS OF COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES IN CLASSROOM
INTERACTION
Annisaa’ Nur Kamila
Abstract
Trying to understand the meaning of the speaker’s words in the context of communication can be included in Pragmatic scope. This study investigated on how often students and teachers violate the maxim of cooperative principles in the classroom interaction and the reason why students and teacher violate those maxims. The purpose of this study is to know how far students and the teacher violate the maxim of cooperative principles and to what extent they violate those maxims. This study is based on the Grice theory about cooperative principles (1989). For this study, the data was taken by recording the whole conversation in a class and analyzing which conversation violates the maxim of cooperative principles. After analyzing the data, the next step is identifying and classifying the data into four types of maxim violations. The result of this study showed that in the classroom interaction, violations happen to only two maxims of cooperative principles. What happens the most in the violation in classroom interaction is violation maxim of relevance. After violation maxim of quantity, violation maxim of quality comes up. Violation of maxim of quantity and maxim of manner did not occur in this study. The reasons for violating maxims are different for each violation. Reasons for violating the maxim of relevance and quality is to liven up the situation in classroom and to make a joke.
Key words: Cooperative Principles, Classroom Interaction, Maxim of Cooperative Principles.
INTRODUCTION
When we read, or hear a language, we usually try to understand the meaning of the words and what the speaker or writer intends to say in the context of communication. It means that both the speaker and the listener must be able to deliver their intended message clearly, so that both parties can understand each other. The study on intended speaker’s meaning in context is called pragmatics (Yule, 2006).
“interaction”, which comes from the root word “interact”, means “~ (with sb/sth) (of
people) act together or co-operatively, esp so as to communicate with each other.” For the word “interaction” itself, the meaning is “~ (among between sb/sth); ~ (with
sb/sth) interacting; co-operation.” From this meaning, we can conclude that anything which has an action and reaction can be considered as an interaction.
In terms of communication, generally can be recognized by the speaker’s utterances. It includes ‘requesting’, ‘commanding’, ‘questioning’, and ‘informing’. When we want to understand the speaker’s utterance, usually we look at the function
of those requesting, commanding, questioning and informing (Yule, 2006). In the classroom, there are many types of interaction between “students and teacher” or “students and students”. This interaction can be a conversation, discussion,
explanation, or question – answer session.
Interaction can happen when both the speaker and the listener hold a cooperative principle in doing conversations. Grice’s theory (1989) on cooperative
principles provides how to have a cooperative conversation by designating conversational maxims, which will be discuss in the next section. A violation of a maxim may lead to an uncooperative conversation. However, this violation of maxim is often done deliberately with a specific reason or purpose.
principles in the classroom interaction should be done to know how often teacher and students violate the maxims. The reason why should find this is because in a classroom interaction, it is important to deliver the message clearly in order to transfer the knowledge.
There are some previous studies for this field. However, almost all of them are on the conversations of films and talk shows. One of these studies, which was done by Dornerus (2005), addressed the violations of maxims in in Desperate Housewives and That 70’s Show”. In this study, Dornerus compared and contrasted how maxims
are violated in drama and comedy situations. The result of this study was the violation of maxim of relevance was the one that most frequently appeared in these two dramas, with percentage 31,8% for That 70’s Show and 36,8% for Desperate Housewives. Following this were violations of the maxims of manner, quantity, and then quality. She said that the violation of relevance was most often done because the characters avoid the other characters that would embarrass them or put them in unpleasant situations. The other reason was they do not want to be straight out when they talk to other characters.
Another study was also done in Indonesia; this study was about a pragmatic analysis in one of talk shows in Indonesia. This study analyzed the implicature that appear in this conversation script pragmatically. The result showed that the violation maxim of relevance appeared most frequently. The next most occurring violations were those of quantity, manner, and quality. The percentage for each violation were 80,95% for relevance violation, 76,19% for violations of quantity, 47,61% for manner, and 9,52% violations of quality. Sukrianto (2011) said in their paper that although people sometimes abandoned maxims, they were not really abandoned the maxims, they leads that violation into implicatures.
There were some similarities when we look at those studies above, although they had different context. The first similarity is the result of each studies show that the violation of the maxim of relevance appeared most frequently. Secondly, they argued that when people violate Cooperative Principles, there are some reasons behind it. The last is the methodology that they used. They used the same methodology; they used transcription, classification data and the result of analyzing data.
Implicature is not stated clearly in a conversation. By doing this implicature, speaker has meaning but he does not want it stated clearly. The speaker wants the hearer to know the meaning of his utterances or his conversation without make it state clearly. The hearer has to catch the meaning correctly.
The most important thing in this study is how the students and teacher do cooperative principles in the classroom interaction. In order to find out about this, this study will see in several cases; the most violated maxims happened in the classroom interaction, the way students and teacher violate the maxims, and the purpose of doing the violations. The purpose of this study is to know how far students and teacher violate the maxim of cooperative principles and to what extent they violate those maxims. Uncooperative conversation can make some misunderstanding in a class. In order to avoid this misunderstanding, the finding of this study can make students aware about the cooperativeness conversation in a classroom interaction and know how to create a cooperative conversation during the teaching and learning activities in a classroom.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The theory foundation that underlies this research is Grice’s theory about
Cooperative Principles.
“Make your contribution such as required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged”
sense of the utterances they exchange in spite of some missing elements, is that such elements are often implicated and such implicatures are made possible by cooperation between speaker and listener (Grice, 1989).
The concept of “implicature”, based on the Grice’s theory, implies that the hearer of the message is able to hypothesise about the speaker’s meaning, based on
the meaning of the sentence uttered, on background or contextual assumptions and on general communicative principles which speakers are expected to understand. What is implied by the speaker should be able to be understood by the hearers.
Based on Cooperative Principles by Grice (1989), there are four maxims that make conversation work:
1. Maxim of Quality
“Try to make your contribution one that is true.”
Do not say what you believe to be false
Do not say for which you lack adequate
2. Maxim of Quantity
“Maxim of quantity related to the quantity of information to be provided.”
Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current
purposes for the exchange)
Do not make your contribution more informative that is required
3. Maxim of Relevance Be relevant
4. Maxim of Manner
Avoid obscurity of expression Avoid ambiguity
Be brief
Be orderly
What has been explained about cooperative principles are the “rules” in order
to create a flow conversation. Grice also said that there is a violation of maxims. Violation is defined as the unpretentious or “quiet” non-observance of a maxim. A speaker who violates a maxim “will be liable to mislead” (Grice 1989:30).
Even though Grice (1989) presents the cooperative principles in a communication, in a certain situation with a certain condition, people tend to violate it deliberately. When people violate these cooperatives principles, they seemed to have their own reason for doing it. There are many reasons why people tend to violate maxims. Christoffersen (2005) in Tupan and Natalia’s thesis (2008) said that when people violate maxim of quality, there are some reasons for it. They may hide the truth from the hearer, save face, feel jealous about something, satisfy the hearer, cheer the hearer, avoid to hurt the hearer, build one’s belief, or convince the hearer.
Violating can happen to the four maxims; violation of the maxim of quality, violation of the maxim of quantity, violation of the maxim of relevance, and violation of the maxim of manner.
The first is Violation of the Maxim of Quality. Based on the explanation about that
maxim, a speaker violates this maxim because the speaker does not tell the truth. For
Anna had a bad score in her last exam. She got 20 points out of 100 points. At home, her mother asked her about her score.
Mom : How is your mark for this last exam, Anna? Anna : Well, not really bad, Mom.
From the excerpt above, we can say that Anna violates maxim of quality, because Anna does not say the truth of her point in her last exam. Instead of said “I got 20 points, Mom”, she says, “not really bad”. In this example, a possibility reason why
Anna violates maxim is she is afraid that her Mom will be angry to her because her bad mark on her last exam.
The second type of violation is violation in maxim of quantity. Grice has explained that violation in maxim quantity may happen if the speaker gives information more or less than the listener expects. For further understanding, we can look at the example below:
A and B accidentally met in a store. They talked about where are their destinations next.
A: Where are you going after this?
B: Well, I will go to the market and buy some fruits using my dad’s new car.
From the example above, B violates maxim of quantity. B told more information than A expected. The information that A wants “I will go to the market and buy some fruits”. However, B adds some unwanted information “using my dad’s new car”. B
The next violation type is violation of the maxim of relevance. In this violation, the second speaker does not give a relevant answer toward the first speaker. An example of violating this maxim is Mr. John and Mrs. John have to present their assignment today.
Mr. John : Have you done your assignment today?
Mrs. John : I have to drive back to Los Angeles and I did not sleep.
Mrs. John violates maxim of relevance, because when Mr. John asks her whether she has done her assignment, she does not answer it with yes or no. In here, Mr. John expects that Mrs. John will answer with yes or no, because Mr. John asks her with yes or no question. Rather says with yes or no, Mrs. John answers it in irrelevance way. She says, “I have to drive back to Los Angeles and I did not take sleep.” The irrelevance of Mrs. John’s answer may because she has not done her assignment for today and she is afraid that Mr. John will angry with her. Another possibility implicature for this case is Mrs. John already done her assignment, but she does not have time to check it give it to Mr. John. In addition, Mrs. John is tired of her long journey and she may want Mr. John know that she is tired.
The last type is violation in maxim of manner. In this violation, more inclined to how the utterances said or how the word said.
Jenny walked out with her dog want to see a vet. In a way, she met with her friend, Diana.
Diana : Where are you going with your dog?
Jenny violates maxim of manner when she talks to Diana. In here, Jenny spells the word vet become V-E-T. Jenny does not speak the word VET bluntly. Implicature for this transcript is Jenny’s dog will be afraid if Jenny says “VET”briefly. Jenny’s dog
will become wilder, because the dog is afraid with vet. In order to make her dog stay calm, she uses “V-E-T” instead of saying “VET” clearly.
Based on the examples of violating of maxims that have been explained, we can say in other words that speakers make choices not only in WHAT they say, but also in HOW they say it. They perform what they say in particular time, place, and manner at the right moment, for the right duration, originating from and directed to the right locations, at the right amplitude, with the right gestures (Clark, 2004).
In my study, the conversation is taken from classroom interaction. The term “classroom interaction” refers to the interaction between teacher and learners in the
classrooms (Kalantari, 2009). From the theory above, it is very important to see cooperative principles in the classroom interaction. The reason is it should be clear about what happen in the class, what is being talked about, and what the main topic in this classroom is. A classroom is where the knowledge is transferred from the lecture to the students. If there is an ambiguity in the explanation, questions, or information the transfer of knowledge may fail.
THE STUDY
Context of the Study
or students and teacher occurred. By using the class that had many interactions in it, there was a potential occurrence maxim violation. Besides that, the language that is used in classrooms is Bahasa Indonesia, so it can reduce the bias when researcher get the data, because when the language is in English, there is a possibility of bias because of the second language use.
Participants
Participants for this study were students and teacher from FTI. The reason for choosing FTI’s students and teacher was because in FTI, students and teachers are required to use Bahasa Indonesia for conversation in a classroom that is suitable for this research. By using Bahasa Indonesia as the medium of communication, there will be no bias in analysing the data.
The teacher for this class was one of the students in FTI because this class was a tutorial class. The teacher was a senior student of 2010 (fourth year student) that taught students Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) in 2013 class. The number of students in the classroom was 40 students. These students were angkatan 2013 who were studying SPSS.
Method of Research
Instrument and Data Collection
In collecting the data, observation and recording methods were used in this study. The researcher only became the outside observer; the researcher did not take part in the conversation that happens in the teaching and learning situation in the classroom interaction. The second method of collecting the data was using recording. Recording the conversation and transcribe the recording was the second method to collect the data. All conversation that occurred in the classroom was recorded.
Because of this study was about interaction and utterances that happens in a classroom, recording the classroom interaction was used to analyse and classify the data. To support the analyzing and classifying data, transcription was also used. The detailed transcription of taped interaction was the approach that deals with the conversation or interaction that had been recorded (Crystal, 2008).
Data Analysis
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
Three times classroom observations were done in two weeks. Nine violations were found and those violations only happened in maxim of quality and maxim of relevance with different frequency. Table 1 is a table of frequency violation of cooperative principles happened during classroom observations.
Table 1. Frequency Violation of Cooperative Principles in Classroom Interaction
Type of Violation Number Percentage
Violation Maxim of Quality 2 22.2% Violation Maxim of
Quantity
0 0%
Violation Maxim of Relevance
7 77.8%
Violation Maxim of Manner
0 0%
Total 9 100.0%
Violation of the Maxim of Relevance
Violation of the maxim of relevance in classroom interaction has 7 utterances among 9 utterances, more than 50% from the data taken. The reason why this maxim happened many times is that the speakers wanted to liven up the atmosphere in the classroom.
Excerpt 1
In a classroom, teaching and learning situation. Teacher was explaining about Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS). In a classroom, teacher used projector and every student had one computer.
Teacher : Nanti kalian di rumah instal SPSS ya, SPSS nya yang versi 16. Lebih dari itu boleh sih. Tapi jangan yang 20 ya. Nanti kan tampilannya seperti ini (mengacu ke tampilan yang ada di proyektor, SPSS program). SPSS itu ada 2 tampilan, yang pertama view, tampilan datanya. yang satu tampilan output. Statistika tentang apa? (After this class, you have to install SPSS program, SPSS version 16th. If you want the latest version, it’s okay. But, don’t install the 20th version. Oke, the view will be like this. SPSS has two type of views, the first view is the data view and the other one is output view. What is statistic about?)
Student 1: Tau (I know)
Teacher : apa? (What?)
Teacher :eii, statistika tentang apa hayo? (Eiii, what is statistics about?)
Student 1: perhitungan mbak (calculation, Mbak)
In an excerpt above, that conversation violates maxim of relevance. When the teacher asked about “what is statistics?”to the students, one of the students in that classroom answered with “It is about statistic, Mbak.” The student’s answer was not relevant toward the question, because it was not the answer to the question. The appropriate answer for that question was shown by student 2, who answered with “calculations, Mbak.”
From the excerpt above, student 1 violated maxim of relevance, because his answer was not the answer that was expected. When student 1 answered it, the answer was a repetition of the question. When we looked at the teacher’s respond toward student 1’s answer, it was not the answer. There was a reason why student 1 violated the maxim of relevance in this condition. The respond from the classmates after he violated that maxim was laughter. There is the evidence that the reason for violated this maxim is to liven up the atmosphere in that classroom.
Excerpt 2
Teacher : Ini kenapa kalian belajar SPSS, tau gak gunanya buat apa? (This is why you learn about SPPS, do you know the purpose of learn this thing?)
Student 1 : Biar lulus lah, Mbak. (To be graduate from this course, Mbak)
Other students : (laughed)
Teacher : Ngawur. Ini gunanya untuk skripsi kalian. Nanti kalian skripsi kalian akan butuh yang namanya SPSS. (It is not like that. The purpose of learn this SPSS is because you need this in doing you essay).
In that excerpt, student answered the teacher’s question, but the answer was not something that teacher’s wanted. However, the student’s answer was logical, it was
true that they have to take SPSS course to be graduate from that course, because that course is a must for them. Although it was logical, the answer was not the expected one. The way student answer the teacher’s question was violating maxim of relevance, because student’s answer was not relevant with the question. The relevant answer toward the question was when the teacher said, “the purpose of learn this SPSS is because you need this in doing you essay.” Actually, that kind of answer that
expected by the teacher, but the student did not answer it in that way.
The implicature of the student’s answer was to make a joke during teaching –
with that answer. After student answered with that answer, teacher responded it with “it is not like that.” It was clear enough to show that the answer was to liven up the
classroom atmosphere.
Violation of the Maxim of Quality
This violation happened twice among nine occurrences during three times observation. The percentage is 22.2%. Based on what happened in the observation, this violation happened because students wanted to liven up the classroom, avoiding boredom in the classroom. In this point, the implicature of the students is to make a joke. It is clear that they were making joke with violated maxim of quality. From this phenomenon, violating maxim of quality can give an implicature to make a joke. Because of this observation based on the class interaction, there is only a plenty of violation in this maxim.
Excerpt 3
Teacher was explaining about how SPSS works. Teacher was explaining with projector in front of the class.
different column. If you use Java, the view will be like this, but if you use SPSS, the view only the output view. The result of the data will be shown, it is different with the Java. For example, 1 + 1, how’s the result?)
Student : 3 mbak (student laughed)(three, Mbak)
Teacher : Hey, mosok 1 + 1 = 3? (Really? Is it true that 1 + 1 = 3? )
Student : 2 mbak 2. (Two, Mbak, 2)
Teacher : jadi 1 + 1 itu masukin di sini, nanti keluarnya 2 itu di sini. (So, 1 + 1 you can input that in here, the output 2, will be here.)
Excerpt 4
Teaching and learning situation. Teacher was explaining about SPSS using projector and every student got one computer for each.
Teacher : Di kelas dosen sudah ngapain aja? (In the colleage teacher’s class, what you have been learnt?)
Student 1 : Ngitung IPK, Mbak! (class laughed)(We learnt how to count GPA, Mbak!)
Teacher : Mosok ngitung IPK? Serius ah. (Is that true that you were counting GPA? Seriously?)
In those two excerpts above, those two excerpts was violating maxim of quality. All students violated that maxim. In the first excerpt, student said that 1+1 equals to three. We all knew that 1 + 1 equals to two, not three. It was clear that student violated maxim of quality in answered the question given by the teacher. The second excerpt, excerpt 4, student 1 did violate maxim of quality. Student 1 answered with “We learnt how to count GPA”, although in the reality they did not do that thing. In
reality, they did not count GPA, but they just introduced with the course. The proof for this evidence is when student 2 answer teacher’s question with, “Have not touch SPSS, Mbak. We just introduced with the course.”
From the excerpt 3 and 4, there are two reason why student violated maxim of quality. For the excerpt 3, the implicature that we can see is to make a joke during teaching and learning situation. The proof for it is when student laughed after heard that answer. For excerpt 4, the implicature for violating that maxim is to liven up the teacher, because if student 1 did not give answer, the class will be boring. Cheering up the classroom during teaching and learning activity is needed to create a good atmosphere to study (Gregory and Chapman, 2007).
CONCLUSION
From the analysis above, it can be concluded that violation of maxim that mostly happened in the classroom interaction is violation toward maxim of relevance with 7 occurrences or 77.8%. After violation of maxim of relevance, violation of maxim of quality came up with twice occurrences, with 22.2%.
The ways speakers violate the maxim are different from others. When speakers violate maxim of relevance, speakers give irrelevant answer or statement from previous question or statement. Student answers the teacher’s question with something irrelevant and the answer has no connection with the question. In violation of maxim of quality, speakers tell a lie to the hearers, but the hearers understand and know that it is a lie.
From those phenomenons that happened during observation, there are some reasons for the violating maxims. The reason that can be seen clearly, when the speaker violates maxim of relevance is to make a joke during classroom activity and to liven up the situation in the classroom, in order not to make the classroom become boring. In contrary, the reasons from Christofersen (2005) in Tupan and Natalia (2008) did not appear in this study. He said eight reasons why people violate maxims, hide the truth, save face, feel jealous about something, satisfied the hearer, cheer the hearer, avoid to hurt the hearer, build one’s belief, and convince the hearer. In this
study, especially Indonesia context, the reason why people tend to violate maxim is to liven up the atmosphere in the classroom.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First, I would like say thank to God Almighty for his grace to let me finish this study. This study would have been impossible without the support, help and suggestion of my supervisor, friends, colleagues and family. I would like to sincerely thank to my second reader for this study who helped me to achieve this study.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to my great supervisor, Christian Rudianto, M.Appling, thank you for the advice, support, and encouragement to finish this study. Thanks also go to Dr. Elisabet Titik Murtisari, MTransStud for her advice and care to make this study possible to be done.
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