The Role of Maxims in Script Incongruity in Jokes in Reader's Digest Magazines.

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i Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Di dalam skripsi ini, saya menganalisis sejumlah humor yang timbul karena adanya keganjilan skrip atau script incongruity, sesuai dengan teori Raskin. Kemudian, saya menganalisis topik ini lebih lanjut dengan menggunakan teori bidal atau maxim yang diperkenalkan oleh Paul Grice.

Untuk penerapan teori ini, saya mengambil sejumlah data dari majalah bulanan Reader’s Digest. Berdasarkan sejumlah humor yang terdapat di dalam majalah tersebut, saya mendapati bahwa humor tersebut muncul oleh karena adanya skrip baru dan implikatur yang menyertai skrip baru tersebut.

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ii Maranatha Christian University

CHAPTER THREE: THE ROLE OF MAXIMS IN SCRIPT INCONGRUITY IN JOKES IN READER’S DIGEST MAGAZINES... 11

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION... 37

BIBLIOGRAPHY... 41

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APPENDIX

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1 Maranatha Christian University

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

As social beings, people need to communicate with one another to convey their ideas, their feelings and also their needs. Conversation is one of the means which can be used to fulfill the needs. Conversation is “oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas” (“Conversation,” def. 2a (1)), in which people are able to understand one another through their utterances in addition to other communication efforts. Yet, in the process of communication, people often fail to observe the Gricean Maxims, which is the conduct of speaking introduced by Paul Grice, in their conversation.

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how a hearer is capable of catching the implication a speaker intends to generate from his failure in observing the maxims and interpret it correctly (58). Besides, pragmatics “explores how a great deal of what is unsaid is recognized as part of what is communicated” (Yule 3). This means that what a speaker implies in his utterance is not only in the literal meaning, but also in the figurative meaning, which is needed to be understood by the hearer based on various knowledge he or she has.

Furthermore, this conversational implicature is often used in creating humour. From time to time, misinterpretation within a conversation between the speaker and the hearer happens, and this misinterpretation could be funny in some cases. When a speaker utters something to the hearer, the latter might not get exactly what the speaker actually means. Yet, the hearer feels that he or she understands it and replies it with an answer that is actually unrelated to what the conversation is about. Thus, by the time the wrong answer is spoken, it creates humour. Generally speaking, humour is created from the misinterpretation between a speaker and a hearer, as each of them has a different point of view and interpretation.

The topic of this thesis is the role of maxims in script incongruity in jokes in Reader’s Digest magazines. I have chosen this topic as there are lots of

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without some necessary knowledge required to understand it, sometimes they fail to appreciate humour.

This topic is significant because the readers can be aware of how an implicature is created in a joke and how that implicature works as the core of the joke itself. Together with the understanding gained from the result of this study, it is expected that the new knowledge will help readers to interpret and appreciate humour as how it is intended in the first place. Therefore, after reading this thesis, the readers are expected to understand jokes better.

This topic belongs to the area of linguistics called pragmatics, as it is concerned with implicature in a conversation. The theories that will be specifically used are Grice’s conversational implicature in maxim (of pragmatics)

and Raskin’s theory of script incongruity to enhance the explanation of the

humours. I choose those theories because they are closely related with each other, and in a joke the relation becomes an important part in creating the joke.

The sources of the data which will be used for this analysis are jokes in Reader’s Digest magazines 2007, 2008 and 2009 editions. As for the reasons why

those sources are chosen, it is due to the relevance to the analysis, the availability of them as I own the magazines myself and the ample amount of data they contain. Moreover, it might be important to note that the jokes printed in Reader’s Digest magazines are chosen from many jokes sent by the readers of the

magazines, thus granting quality assurance for the jokes.

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Statement of the Problem

In this study the problems that will be analyzed are: 1. Which type of the maxim is unobserved in each joke? 2. What is the implicature understood by the readers?

3. In relation to Raskin’s theory of script incongruity, how does the non-observance of the maxim help the occurence of humour in the jokes?

Purpose of the Study

Based on the statement of the problem above, I propose to: 1. Specify which type of the maxim is unobserved in each joke. 2. Find out the implicature understood by the readers.

3. Explain the significance of non-observance of the maxims to Raskin’s theory of script incongruity towards the occurrence of the humour in the jokes.

Method of Research

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both the data and the theories had been collected, the third step was started the analysis of the data according to the statement of the problem. Once all the data were analyzed, the last step was writing the paper of the analysis and finalized the thesis.

Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

After analysing this topic, I arrive at some conclusions. Maxim of relation is the mostly flouted maxim, with the total of eight cases. The second most often flouted maxim is maxim of manner with the total of seven cases. The third most often flouted maxim is maxim of quantity, with the total of six cases. Lastly, maxim of quality is the least flouted maxim, with only two cases out of seventeen data. Throughout the analysis there is no case of violating a maxim, infringing a maxim, opting out a maxim or suspending a maxim. Some of the data also have more than one maxim flouted in it; data 1 and 5 have the maxim of quantity and manner flouted, data 3, 13 and 15 has the maxim of manner and relation flouted, and data 14 has the maxim of relation and quality flouted.

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what the speaker thinks, creating a bridge between two different topics that are normally not connected with each other. Because of this, a great number of topics could be mixed up together with creative thinking and create many kinds of jokes. A good example is the analysis of data 4. The friend asks about how much weight the wife has lost, but the husband says two weeks instead. The two utterances are obviously unrelated, yet in the joke they are connected with each other.

On the other hand, maxim of manner is also often flouted. When the maxim of manner is flouted, the speaker’s utterance becomes long-winded or

indirect, thus the information received by the hearer is not straight to what the situation needs. This leads the hearer to interpret the information according to his knowledge, which could delay the understanding of what the speaker really means with his utterance. The analysis of data 1 shows this phenomenon, as the trucker will not consider that the couple shares everything literally, until the wife mentions it to the trucker directly. It could be noticed that the implicature from the flouting of maxim of manner is still about the topic at hand, thus makes it limited and not quite suitable for creating a joke.

Maxim of quantity is flouted in some of the data as well, and it is quite understandable to be used for a joke because the speaker gives either more or less information to the hearer than what the situation requires. The lack or excess of information requires the hearer to add his own assumption on the meaning of the speaker’s utterance which can cause a misunderstanding, depending on what the

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analysis of data 9, as the husband wrongly assumes that the ‘ten’ the wife

mentions refers to her age, while what she refers to is actually her dress size. Maxim of quality is the least flouted, and it is because the flouting of maxim of quality has very limited outcome compared to the flouting of other maxims. The flouting of maxim of quality is basically the opposite of what really happens in the current situation, thus making an implicature predictable. The analysis of data 16 shows this clearly, as the man is definitely not dead, yet he claims that he is. The minimal possibilities affect on what topics can be used, and because of this the flouting of maxim of quality is rarely used for a joke.

Aside from flouting the maxim, no other kinds of unobserved maxim is found in the analysis. Unlike flouting the maxim, in violating the maxim the speaker has the intention to mislead the hearer, and thus not the whole truth will be spoken in the speaker’s utterance. Because of the violation, any implicature is also avoided, and no joke will be created. As for infringing the maxim, the non-observance of the maxim is not done intentionally, since the speaker has imperfect linguistic performance. Since it is unintentional, there is no implicature intended in the speaker’s utterance, which means there will not be any jokes. Meanwhile, in

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A script incongruity occurs when two or more scripts exist at the same time in a conversation, triggered by the same word. The flouting of a maxim helps to achieve this condition, since it may easily cause a misunderstanding between the speaker and the hearer, creating another script on top of the current one already followed. This new script brings an out of expectation element to the conversation, and the element is what makes a joke become funny.

In analysing humours, I use the theory of script incongruity along with conversational implicature of non-observance of the maxims. Not all data are selected for the analysis, since some of them cannot be analysed with either of these theories. This leads to a difficulty in finding jokes containing maxim, especially when some ambiguity in jokes can be without any implicature in it. By using other theories, such as theories from linguistic aspects, I hope that those data that are not selected can be analysed properly. With further studies in the future, there might be possibilities that this analysis will be beneficial for the readers or researchers.

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41 Maranatha Christian University

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Texts

Bunderson, Fae. “Life - It’s Really Like That.” Reader’s Digest July 2009: 150. Print.

Carpenter, Amanda. “@Work - All In a Day’s Work.”Reader’s Digest June 2009: 34. Print.

E., Sebastian. “Life!” Reader’s Digest December 2009: 149. Print.

Evans, Rory. “The World’s Funniest Jokes.” Reader’s Digest September 2009: 92-98. Print.

Higbee, Susane. “Life - It’s Really Like That.” Reader’s Digest February 2009: 150. Print.

Isaacs, Natalie. “Life!” Reader’s Digest December 2009: 148. Print.

Lappas, Tom. “Life’s Like That.” Reader’s Digest August 2007: 143. Print.

McVie, Elspeth. “Laughter, the Best Medicine.” Reader’s Digest January 2008:

43. Print.

Richards, D. “Laughter, the Best Medicine.” Reader’s Digest April 2007: 44. Print.

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42 Maranatha Christian University

Starks-Case, Betty. “Life - It’s Really Like That.” Reader’s Digest July 2009: 151. Print.

Warth, Ralph. “Life!”Reader’s Digest November 2009: 150. Print.

References

Cole, Peter, et al. Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Arts. New York: Academic Press, 1975. Print.

“Conversation.” Def. 2a (1). Webster’s New Explorer Encyclopedic Dictionary.

2006. Print.

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

Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1995. Print.