Analysis of The Occurrence of Humor Due To The Non-Observance of The Gricean Maxims in Disney's 'Suite Life of Zack and Cody' Season 1-3.

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Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Dalam skripsi ini, saya menganalisis bagaimana pelanggaran prinsip-prinsip bidal Herbert Paul Grice yang ditemukan dalam komedi seri Disney yang berjudul Suite Life of Zack and Cody dapat memunculkan efek humor. Sebagai refleksi atas apa yang

terjadi dalam kehidupan nyata, komedi seri tersebut dapat menggambarkan situasi di mana pelanggaran bidal-bidal Grice terjadi.

Grice mengemukakan bahwa pada umumnya ada lima jenis pelanggaran prinsip-prinsip bidal, yaitu: flouting the maxim, violating the maxim, infringing a maxim, opting out of the maxim, dan suspending a maxim. Selanjutnya, untuk

menganalisis efek humor yang ditimbulkan, saya mengaplikasikan teori humor gagasan Jerry Suls dan Thomas Shultz. Dalam teorinya, Jerry Suls dan Thomas Shultz berpendapat bahwa humor dapat muncul apabila ada perbedaan antara persepsi penonton dengan akhir suatu skema.

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APPENDIX

No. Data Utterance Type of Non-Observance

1. (1) [Quickly] Ooo… I’m late for rehearsal. I’m sure they’re great, love you, bye… Flouting the maxim of quality

2. (2) I picked the bad day to be Zack Flouting the maxim of manner

3. (3) Oww that’s easy. That’s where Mrs. President keeps all the cleaning supplies Infringing the maxim

4. (4)

I had been given a terrible task. I had been ordered to rid the premises of children by Mr. Moseby. Now I could disobey him, but Mr. Moseby reminds me of my father who’s also strict, demanding, ruthless and mean. Ohhh… I miss my papa so much [begins to cry]

Flouting the maxim of quantity

5. (5) Oh…I know all about Genealogy. It’s when you rub the lamp and get three wishes Infringing the maxim

6. (6)

We started riding and talking, and sitting and talking, drinking soda and talking. Man, girls can talk

Flouting the maxim of quantity and manner

7. (7) There’s not enough dough in the world Flouting the maxim of relation

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9. (9) I was going to but this outfit just wrinkled so easily so I thought… Infringing the maxim

10. (10) You mean the prindle? Infringing the maxim

11. (11) The prindle Infringing the maxim

12. (12) Would you like em or fem? Flouting the maxim of manner

13. (13)

Uh-uh. I’m not putting too much pressure on me. Harvard’s putting too much pressure on me, Princeton, MIT, Stanford. Do you think they’re all looking for underachievers? If I don’t ace woodshop, I would be one of those guys who sells hotdogs and sleeps in a taxi

Flouting the maxim of quantity and manner

14. (14) Hey, how much does that pay? Flouting the maxim of relation

15. (15) You get to be our alternate Violating the maxim

16. (16) Good? It’s great! It means that if somebody can’t bowl, you get to be our secret weapon Violating the maxim

17. (17) Lose Flouting the maxim of relation

18. (18) How can you never want us to feel at home? Flouting the maxim of relation

19. (19) Boku no pansu no naka ni hachi no su ga (I have a hornets nest in my pants) Infringing the maxim

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21. (21) But nobody else’s in here Infringing the maxim

22. (22) It’s going to be faby. I’m gonna put purses over here and matching belts over there. Infringing the maxim 23. (23) Weren’t you listening? I’m gonna put purses over here and matching belts over there Infringing the maxim 24. (24) I said I’m gonna put purses over here and matching belts over there Infringing the maxim

25. (25)

And then a storm hit it and the waves were huge and my mom in a wheel chair rolled aside. I scream MOTHER! THROW ME THE HOUSE KEYS!

Flouting the maxim of quantity

26. (26) About that blonde, good choice bad timing Flouting the maxim of relation

27. (27)

who happens to have five bathrooms. We can go all at once and still have one bathroom left over

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

It is undeniably true that language is one of many essential aspects of human life and civilization. Language is not only a method of human communication, but also a process to convey someone’s feeling, and a way to establish a relation among human beings. Occasionally, whenever people want to express their feeling to someone, they tend to express it indirectly in order to imply something else. This indirect expression is called implicature, which is “a distinction between what speakers say and what they mean, a theory which attempts at explaining how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant . . .” (Thomas 56).

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Maranatha Christian University the maxims” and he called the failure of observing the maxims the non-observance of the maxims (Thomas 64).

There are many possibilities why people, in their conversations with others, fail to observe the maxims. In a conversation, two sides are involved in the process, namely the speaker and the hearer. If the speaker tries so hard to build a good conversation but the hearer does not, or the other way around, it will result in the failure of observing the maxims. The failure can result in several possible outcomes, namely the occurrence of humor, suspense, conflicts or tense atmosphere. There are many factors that will affect the conversation, for example, ambiguous meaning, lack of information, or irrelevant answers. Therefore, both the speaker and the hearer must work together to build a good conversation.

This particular topic has been chosen to be discussed because people commonly do not apply the maxims in their daily conversations, so that misinterpretations may occur. As previously mentioned, misinterpretations may result in conflicts, humor or other possible outcomes. For this reason, observance of maxims is very fascinating to analyze. Conversations showing non-observance of maxims can also be seen in television series, as a reflection of what happens in real life.

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Maranatha Christian University Disney’s Suite Life of Zack and Cody is an American sitcom created by Danny Kallis and Jim Geoghan. The series is set in Tipton Hotel in Boston and centers on Zachary and Cody Martin, 11-year-old troublemaker twins who live at Tipton Hotel. The other main characters include Tipton Hotel heiress, London Tipton; the hotel candy counter girl, Madeline Fitzpatrick; the hotel room boy, Esteban Ramirez; the hotel manager, Marrion Moseby; and the boys' single mother and one of the hotel's nightclub performers, Carey Martin (“Imdb-Internet Movie Database”).

This study belongs to Pragmatics, one of the areas in Linguistics. Pragmatics is “the study of speaker’s meaning, a study of how more gets communicated than is said” (Yule 3). This comedy series has been chosen as the data source for the reason that this comedy series has won many awards from 2006 to 2009 for Outstanding Children’s Program and Best TV Series, also has been nominated in Primetime Emmy Award (“Imdb-Internet Movie Database”). Moreover, in this comedy, there are many examples of utterances that can be categorized as non-observance of maxims and so it would be interesting to find out the hidden or implied meaning of the speaker’s utterances. Furthermore, the utterances can be analyzed for the occurrence of humor itself, since Disney’s Suite Life of Zack and Cody is famous for the humor aspect that occurs in the series.

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Maranatha Christian University The research topic is significant since it will make people aware that the non-observance of maxims can result in the occurrence of humor. As humor is the main factor that makes this comedy series become so popular, it is believed that this research is worth doing and that people who read this thesis will be well-informed about non-observance of the Gricean maxims; they will realize how it can result in the occurrence of humor, and later they will be able to appreciate the value of humor in human communication.

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Statement of the Problems

In this thesis, the analysis is done to answer the following research questions:

1. What utterances in Disney’s Suite Life of Zack and Cody seasons 1-3 are categorized as non-observance of Gricean maxims?

2. What type of non-observance of Gricean maxims do the speakers in Disney’s Suite Life of Zack and Cody seasons 1-3 fail to observe?

3. How does the non-observance of maxims result in the occurrence of humor?

Purpose of the Study

Based on the statement of the problems, this study purposes

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Maranatha Christian University 2. to categorize the type of non-observance of the Gricean maxims that the

speakers fail to observe in Disney’s Suite Life of Zack and Cody seasons 1-3; 3. to explain how the non-observance of the Gricean maxims results in the

occurrence of humor.

Method of Research

This thesis has taken four steps to be accomplished. The first step was searching and downloading Disney’s Suite Life of Zack and Cody comedy series from the Internet to be used as the source of the research data. The second was preparing the theories of Pragmatics, especially those related to non-observance of the Gricean maxims and to humor. Afterwards, the theories were used to analyze the data and finally, when the analysis was done, the research report was written.

Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

After analyzing the data found in Disney’s Suite Life of Zack and Cody seasons 1-3, there are some findings regarding the occurrence of humor due to the non-observance of the Gricean maxims in the comedy series.

Out of the five types of non-observance of the Gricean maxims, there are only three types that can be found in the data, which are: flouting the maxim, infringing the maxim, and violation of the maxim. The types of suspending the maxim and opting out of the maxim are not found in the analysis.

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Maranatha Christian University There are eleven data categorized as infringing the maxim and there are two data that belong to violation of the maxim. According to the analysis, infringing of the maxim is mostly done by London. I am of the opinion that the reason behind this finding lies on the depiction of London in the comedy series. As it is presented in the analysis, London is portrayed as someone who has a cognitive deficiency. She is a person who has a difficulty in understanding the context of a situation. The character of London in the comedy series somehow makes such a strong effect to the audience that makes them believe that when it comes to infringing a maxim, London will have something to do with it. This contributes quite a lot to the humorous effect.

Apart from that, in terms of the violation of the maxims, Carey Martin, who is the mother of the twins, seems to be the character who does it the most. This result leads the audience to acquire a different effect. From the analysis of the violation of the maxim, I come to a conclusion that the type of maxim violation can also be used for good intention. It can be seen that the intention of Carey misleading another character is for a good purpose.

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Maranatha Christian University All data of the flouting of the maxims can be seen in the speech events that involve Zack and Cody. In my opinion, due to the fact that this comedy series puts Zack and Cody as the main protagonists, the data will likely tell the story of both of them. Furthermore, throughout the series, I have noticed that by analysing Zack and Cody’s utterances regarding every situation, I can see how Zack’s personality is different from Cody’s. The differences of their personalities can be seen on how they cope with every situation.

In terms of the types of flouting the maxims, the type that frequently occurs throughout the series is the type of flouting the maxim of relation, in total of six data. While there are only four data that show flouting the maxim of manner, five data that result in flouting the maxim of quantityand one data that show flouting the maxim of quality.

The theory of humor of Thomas Shultz is applied in the data analysis by comparing and resolving the incongruous aspect of the utterance and later resolving the differences between the expectation of the audience and the punch line of each speech event. In all the data, the humor occurs because of the expectation and prediction of the audience that are not always proved to be right.

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Maranatha Christian University incongruous aspects in the comedy series and making sense of it in one way, they may find the utterances to be humorous.

For further researchers who are interested in analyzing the non-observance of the Gricean maxims in comedy series, I would like to suggest in analyzing the sequel of Disney’s Suite Life of Zack and Cody entitled Suite Life on Deck. Once again, the story revolves around Zack and Cody and their surrounding as they become teenagers. Another Disney’s comedy series such as Wizards of Waverly Place that tells a story of a family who happens to possess magical powers would

also be interesting to be analyzed. In addition, Disney’s That’s So Raven tells the story of an everyday African-American family. Those comedy series would be fascinating to analyze because they may have different issues. As it is reflected in reality, those comedy series give a variety in terms of everyday issues. Thus, it would be interesting to find out the similarities between the comedy series and the reality.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Source

Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Dir. Richard Correll, Lex Passaris, Jim Drake, Danny

Kallis, and Kelly Sandefur. Perf. Dylan Sprouse, Cole Sprouse, Brenda Song, Ashley Tisdale, Phill Lewis, Kim Rhodes. Disney, 2005. DVD.

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“Full Cast and Crew for ‘The Suite Life of Zack and Cody’ (2005).” Imdb.com. Imdb.com, Inc, n.d. Web. 06 May 2013.

“GENEALOGY BASICS.” Lib.unc.edu. N.p., Dec. 2011. Web. 06 May 2013. “Genie (Also Jinn and Djinn).” Www.mythcreatures.co.uk. N.p., 2012. Web. 01

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Maranatha Christian University Goldstein, Jeffrey H. “Cognitive Processes in Humor Apreciation.” Handbook of

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“Grice's Conversational Maxims.” Cog.brown.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 May 2013. “Grice’s Cooperative Principle, Maxims and Implicatures.” Unibuc.ro. N.p., n.d.

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“Lovely.” Def. 2a. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2007. Print. “Prindle.” Def. 1a. Urbandictionary.com. N.p., 19 Mar. 29. Web. 3 May 213. "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody (2005–2008)." Imdb.com. Imdb.com, Inc, n.d.

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