Analysis of The Use of Non-Observance of the Gricean Maxims by Anas Urbaningrum to Reveal the Fact That He is the Victim of Politics.

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ABSTRACT

Dalam penulisan tugas akhir ini, saya akan membahas tentang pelanggaran bidal yang dilakukan oleh salah satu politikus handal Partai Demokrat, yang bernama Anas Urbaningrum. Dalam Mata Najwa, acara bincang-bincang episode Pesan Anas, Anas banyak melakukan pelanggaran bidal. Pelanggaran bidal

sendiri merupakan salah satu kajian dalam Pragmatik yang merupakan teori dari Herbert Paul Grice.

Di dalam gagasannya, Grice menyatakan bahwa pelanggaran bidal terdiri atas lima macam, yaitu: flouting the maxims, violating the maxims, infringing the maxims, opting out of the maxims dan suspending the maxims.

Salah satu temuan yang saya dapatkan dalam tugas akhir ini ialah Anas selalu mempraktekkan flouting the maxims khususnya flouting the maxim of manner dan quantity. Hal ini dilakukan Anas dengan beberapa tujuan. Pertama,

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

In daily life, people always have conversation with others. Every time people have conversation with others, they convey their thought, feelings and desires through language. According to Sapir (1921), “Language is purely human and non-distinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols” (p. 7)

Sometimes, people do not say what they really mean in their communication; as a result, there is an implied meaning. Implied meaning or implicature happens when the speaker says “something that you can understand from what is said, but which is not stated directly” (Wehmeier, 2005).

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In Pragmatics, there is a conversational maxim. It is a term introduced by H.P. Grice, an English language philosopher. Grice proposed four maxims; the maxim of Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner. These four Conversational Maxims will help us establish what that implicature might be in a conversation (Thomas, 1995, p. 63). Although it is not hard to observe these four maxims, most people do not always follow the conversational maxims. Sometimes they deliberately disobey the rules for certain reasons. As a result, Grice also found five ways of people’s failure to observe a maxim: flouting, violating, infringing,

opting out of, and suspending a maxim (Thomas, 1995, p. 64).

In my thesis, I would like to discuss the failure of observing the conversational maxims in Mata Najwa the episode of Pesan Anas in order to show that Anas is the victim of politics. Mata Najwa is a talk show in Metro TV which discusses political issues, especially the politics in the Republic of Indonesia.

This talk show is named Mata Najwa, which is taken from the name of the presenter, Najwa Shihab. Najwa Shihab is an alumni of Faculty of Law of the University of Indonesia. Najwa invited Anas Urbaningrum in one of her shows because at that time, there was a big issue about corruption. This corruption case involved many members of Democratic Party; one of them is Anas Urbaningrum. He is still the chairman of the Democratic Party at that time; in addition, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is a Chairman of the Trustees of the Democratic Party. This Hambalang case makes Anas expelled from his party. Besides, there is an issue that Anas’s involvement is not true; it is just false evidence which has

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This case begins when The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) had found strong evidence of Anas’ involvement in bribery case. It is related to the construction of Hambalang sports center in Bogor, West Java, when Anas was a member of the House of Representatives. Furthermore, Muhammad Nazaruddin, who is a Former Democratic Party’s treasurer, also claimed that Anas had taken a bribe from PT Adhi Karya in his trial. PT Adhi Karya is one of the contractors involved in that project. (“KPK Yakin Anas Urbanigrum Korupsi”, 2014)

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) gives Anas an indictment which stated that Anas has received several bribes such as Toyota Harrier, Toyota Vellfire, 116.5 billion rupiah and 5.2 million American dollars. Some of the money went to fund his bid to chair the Democratic Party in 2010. Unfortunately, Anas did not admit it; moreover, after he had been appointed as a suspect in Hambalang case, he nodded toward Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono (Ibas) in Hambalang case. Therefore, it became a big issue in Indonesian politics. (“KPK Yakin Anas Urbanigrum Korupsi”, 2014)

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My last reason why I chose these data is because I want to show that Gricean Maxims can help us to learn and understand politics more. Most of us do not realize that there are a lot of implied meanings in talk show especially if the topic is about politics; as a result, we can be tricked and deceived by it.

After reading my thesis, I expect that people will realize that Gricean maxims have important rules in a conversation. The significance of my study is to make people, in this case the audience, realize that sometimes people hide certain messages in their unclear utterances. Moreover, people can apply this theory not only in talk shows but also in their daily life in order to interpret others’ implied

meaning.

(859 words) Statement of the Problem

In my thesis, there are three problems to be analysed:

1. What is the type of the non-observance of the Gricean maxims that Anas does?

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Purpose of the Study

In my thesis, I am going to show the following points:

1. To show the types of the non-observance of maxims that Anas does. 2. To reveal Anas’s implicature by failing to observe the Gricean maxims. 3. To find out Anas’s intention by failing to observe the Gricean maxims.

Method of Research

When I analysed this data, the first step that I did was searching for some talk shows in YouTube. While watching Mata Najwa talk shows, especially the episode of Pesan Anas, I found that Anas’ answers contain the failure of observing the maxims. The second step, I analysed those utterances and categorized them based on the theory and the type of the non-observance of the maxim. The third step, I analysed the implicature that Anas wanted to convey to the hearers. The last step, I wrote my thesis.

Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to draw my conclusion based on the result that I have got from the analysis of the use of non-observance of the Gricean maxims by Anas Urbaningrum in a talk show, Mata Najwa. I chose Mata Najwa talk show episode of Pesan Anas as my data source because there are failures of observing the conversational maxims in this talk show. We have seen in the previous chapter that Anas deliberately disobeys the conversational maxims to implicitly reveal the fact that he is a victim of politics.

Having analyzed all of these data, I conclude that Anas flouts a maxim intentionally. We can see from the above analysis, there is one type of non-observance of maxims which Anas fails to observe, which is flouting a maxim.

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In my opinion, the reasons why Anas only flouts the maxim of manner and quantity because he does not want to state his point of view about SBY and this Hambalang case straight forwardly; as a result, Anas gives the hearer a long winded-response. Besides, Anas also wants to build his self-defence by giving less information in case the information will be harmful for him and giving more information than is required every time he talks about SBY.

In my opinion, Anas does it because he wants the hearer to focus on SBY. Anas wants to say that SBY is not like what people think and know. In the public media, people know SBY as a good leader who is wise, cares about others, fatherly, and also disciplined because he was an army officer. Nevertheless, we can see from Chapter Three, Anas always tries to break this mind-set and thoughts. He actually wants to say to the hearer that SBY is unwise, lack of care, harsh, a dictatorial leader, and a heartless person. In this talk show, Anas says it to the hearer one by one subtly.

As can be seen from all seven data, Anas breaks all the good mind-set and opinions about SBY and changes it all into the opposite.

In data 1, Anas flouts the maxim of manner and quantity by not stating his point straight forwardly and giving less information. In this data, Anas uses the word “inner” to convey his disappointment with SBY indirectly. Anas describes

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Anas. By sharing his disappointment, Anas hopes the hearer to understand and get a new picture about SBY that he is a bad and heartless leader. In data 1, Anas breaks the opinions that said that SBY is a good leader who is wise, fatherly, and cares about others.

In data 2 & 3, I can conclude that Anas is never proud to have SBY in his party. Anas actually wants to say that it is true that SBY is the first man in Indonesia and has great power in politics; however, it is useless because SBY never helps his friends, especially Democratic Party members or maintains justice. SBY uses his power for his own advantage. In these data, Anas also uses the

words “politics are rude and harsh although it looks gentle and polite” in order to

describe that SBY is really heartless and unwise. Due to the fact that SBY has planned Anas’s involvement since Anas became a chairman of Democratic Party,

he believes that SBY does not like him and does not want him to become a chairman. Anas also wants to say to the hearer that every one may think that SBY leads this country in fatherly manner, wise and disciplined because he was an army; however, for Anas, SBY is just a dictator, and an unwise leader and cannot use his power wisely.

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In data 6 & 7, Anas emphasises what he has said before by giving more evidence that can support all his points of view about SBY. In these data, Anas wants to say that although he always tries to be a good politician, SBY still punishes him because he will not follow SBY’s order. SBY is a heartless leader and also a dictator; as a result, he punishes Anas cruelly. Thus, in these data, Anas wants to break the images of SBY being a fatherly, compassionate, and wise leader.

As we can see in the above analysis, Anas flouts the maxim of manner and quantity to give the evidence that can prove that SBY is not a good leader. In

addition, it is true that SBY has fabricated Anas’ involvement in this corruption

case. Anas also flouts the maxim of manner and quantity to show that he is really innocent. In other words, we can say that Anas flouts the maxim of manner and quantity as a tool to ruin SBY’s image in public in a very polite and obvious way.

In my analysis, flouting maxim of quality, flouting maxim of relation, violating a maxim, infringing a maxim, opting out of a maxim and suspending a maxim are not found. There are many reasons why those non-observance of the maxims are not found in this talk show.

First, flouting the maxim of quality is not found in Mata Najwa talk show episode Pesan Anas because we know that Anas’ opinions are based on evidences

and he does not say what he believes to be false.

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Third, there is no violating a maxim in this episode of Mata Najwa talk show because in this talk show, Anas does not have any intention to mislead nor deceive the hearer. Although Anas chooses his words very well, he does not try to mislead anyone. He wants his point to be known.

Fourth, there is not infringing a maxim in this episode of Mata Najwa talk show because Anas is a well-educated person and he is a good Indonesian and language speaker. In addition, some people say that the way Anas speaks closely

resembles SBY’s. So we can say that people believe that Anas is role-model who

has a good potency or charisma in the way Anas speaks.

Fifth, opting out of a maxim is not found in this Mata Najwa talk show episode Pesan Anas because as we can see from data 1 – 7, Anas always answers Najwa’s questions and there is no secret that Anas keep.

Last, suspending a maxim does not happen in Mata Najwa talk show episode Pesan Anas because in the whole talk show, there is not another terms or a new term that they use or there is not a convention among them. In this talk show, they use common terms which were used by politicians and people commonly. Anas and Najwa use or say SBY’s name blatantly, they also do not use an initial of something or name.

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to choose a talk show which has many twist on revealing the facts that is suitable

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Text

Rullyasrul. (2013, May 15). Mata Najwa eps. Pesan Anas 1 and 2. [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV9oOmdp0l8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeZlnh6ScKk

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Anas: Sebelum Kongres, SBY Minta Saya Mundur. (2013, February 27).

VIVAnews. Retrieved from

http://politik.news.viva.co.id/news/read/393879-anas-sebelum-kongres-sby-minta-saya-mundur

Belum Bertemu SBY, Anas Tunggu Waktu yang Tepat. (2013, February 28).

Kompas.com. Retrieved from

http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2013/02/28/18170062/Belum.Bertemu.S BY.Anas.Tunggu.Waktu.yang.Tepat

KPK Yakin Anas Urbaningrum Korupsi. (2014, June 6). Kompas.com. Retrieved

from

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Sapir, E. (1921). Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace

Thomas, J. (1995). Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. Longman.

Tri Dianto: Konflik Anas-SBY dimulai sejak Musda Sulawesi Utara. (2013, April

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http://www.merdeka.com/politik/tri-dianto-konflik-anas-sby-dimulai-sejak-musda-sulawesi-utara.html

Wehmeier, S. (Ed.). (2005). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford University Press.