The Occurance of Conflicts Due to the Non-Observance of Gricean Maxims in Pretty Little Liars TV Series, Seasons 1-2.

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ABSTRACT

Dalam skripsi ini saya menganalisis konflik-konflik yang terjadi dalam

sebuah seri drama yang berjudul Pretty Little Liars. Konflik-konflik tersebut

dapat terjadi dikarenakan adanya pelanggaran yang dilakukan oleh penutur

terhadap bidal.

Dalam skripsi ini, saya menggunakan teori dari H.P Grice. Dalam teori

yang disebutkan oleh Grice ini disebutkan bahwa dalam komunikasi, penutur

diharapkan untuk menaati Prinsip Kerja Sama Grice agar pesan dapat

tersampaikan secara baik dan benar terhadap mitra tutur. Prinsip Kerja Sama

Grice ini mencakup empat bidal yaitu bidal kuantitas, kualitas, relevansi, dan

perilaku.

Setelah saya menganalisis konflik-konflik yang terjadi di seri drama ini

berdasarkan teori Grice, saya menemukan bahwa tokoh-tokoh utama dalam seri

drama ini yaitu Aria, Spencer, Hanna, dan Emily acap kali melanggar bidal

tertentu pada saat berkomunikasi dengan tokoh lain yang menyebabkan konflik

terjadi di antara tokoh-tokoh tersebut. Mereka melanggar bidal karena mereka

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Maranatha Christian University

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Salah satu konflik yang paling sering saya temukan di dalam drama seri Pretty

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Communication is one of the most important things in life. Everybody

communicates to give and receive information, to understand each other, and also

to get on well with other people. Most people think that communication is a very

simple thing that happens in daily life all the time and therefore they think there

will be no problems in communicating with people. However, sometimes when

people communicate, they say something that actually has a hidden meaning that

can cause conflict between the speakers.

Sometimes in our daily life a speaker does not seem to follow the rule in

communication, which can cause conflict in a conversation. Based on this reality,

I am interested in analyzing some problems which occur in communication. By

analyzing the problems that can cause conflict in communication, I hope that we

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The study of learning about communicative meaning is termed as

pragmatics. Pragmatics is a study about meaning in sentences (Thomas 2). One of

The sub-studies in pragmatics is implicature, which was introduced by Grice.

Grice introduced four conversational maxims and the cooperative principle

needed to make a conversation run smoothly. The Cooperative Principle suggests

that a speaker should give informative information in a conversation, which

means giving enough information in the right context (Grice 45). There are four

kinds of maxims that he introduced; they are Maxims of Quantity, Quality,

Relation and Manner. Quantity means that we have to give an information in

which we do not give more or less information than is required in a conversation.

Quality means we have to give the real information, not the wrong one. Relation

means the question has to be relevant with the answer. Manner means the answer

that we give have to be clear to avoid ambiguity.

Based on Grice’s theory there are five ways in which people fail to

observe the maxims; they are flouting a maxim, violating a maxim, infringing the

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

I will use Pretty Little Liars TV series, which was released in 2010, as my

source of data. This TV series is about five girls who live in Rosewood named

Alison, Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily. One summer, one of their friends,

Alison, is missing. The disappearance of Alison makes the group separated; they

only come back together after the police discover Allison’s body. They are still

trying to find closure because they cannot believe the fact that Alison is murdered.

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“A”, who threatens to reveal their darkest secrets. They are trying to figure out the

mystery of the murder of their best friend, Alison, and who “A” is. (IMDb)

The reason why I choose this TV series is because we can find lots of

conflicts between the main characters and other characters. The conflicts happen

because the characters do not seem to say things directly to their conversation

partners. In this TV series we can find that the characters often fail to observe the

maxims.

I would like to analyze the main characters: Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and

Emily as well as some other characters: Toby, Peter, Spencer’s father; Lucas,

Kate, Ashley, Hanna’s mother; and Ella, Aria’s mother. I choose to analyze all the

characters mentioned above because they are the ones who are mostly involved in

the conversation and their utterances, which do not follow the rules introduced by

Grice, lead them to conflicts.

The topic of my thesis is “The Occurrence of Conflicts Due to The

Non-Observance of The Gricean Maxims in Pretty Little Liars TV series, seasons 1-2.”

To analyze the data, the theory that I would like to use is the non-observance of

the Gricean maxims theory from Pragmatics, which discusses about hidden

meaning in a conversation. I believe with this theory I can analyze the reason a

conflict occurs in communication.

This study is done to prove that conflict can happen due to failure in

observing the maxims between the speakers, which happens lot in Pretty Little

Liars TV series. Conflicts happen all the time in our daily life conversation. We

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Therefore, the significance of my study is so that people are able to know that

sometimes in conversations people have hidden meaning behind what they say.

This analysis is also important for people so that they know Gricean maxims are

important in communication. With this analysis, people can also know that failure

in observing the maxims may lead to conflicts.

(Words: 764)

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The problems that I am going to analyze are:

1. What types of non-observance of Gricean maxims are found in Pretty

Little Liars?

2. What is the implicature of the utterances?

3. How does the non-observance of Gricean maxims give rise to conflict?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

1. To know what types of non-observance of Gricean maxims are found in

Pretty Little Liars.

2. To know the implicature of the utterances.

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Maranatha Christian University 1.4 Method of Research

Before writing my thesis, I watch Pretty Little Liar TV series and choose

the data where the speaker fails to observe the maxim. After that I consulted

books for references to make the analysis. Finally, after finding the references, I

apply it to the problem to finalize my analysis and I draw a conclusion about my

findings.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

This thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter One is Introduction. It

consists of Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the

Study, Method of Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two is

Theoretical Framework, consisting of the theory which is used to analyze the

observance of the maxims. Chapter Three is the analysis. The discussion of

non-observance of the Gricean Maxims in the Pretty Little Liars TV series is

elaborated in this chapter. Chapter Four is Conclusion. It consists of my personal

opinion about the discussion. This last chapter is followed by Bibliography and

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I would like to present the conclusion based on the analysis

from Chapter Three. After analyzing the data, it is concluded that the characters

which I choose in Pretty Little Liars seasons one and two do not observe the

maxims, which leads them to conflicts. I have collected thirty-six data, which

come from twelve scenes, for my thesis. From all of the data, I find four data that

flout the maxim of quantity, one data that flouts the maxim of quality, seventeen

data that flout the maxim of manner, nine data that flout the maxim of relation, ten

data that opt out of a maxim, and three data that violate the maxim.

From all the data I have analyzed, the most frequently occurring maxim

flouted by the characters in Pretty Little Liars TV series seasons one and two is

the maxim of manner. The characters in this TV series flout the maxim of manner

by giving long-winded responses or answers in their utterances. In my opinion the

first reason why the characters mostly flout the maxim of manner is because when

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after hearing what the other characters have said. They also do not want to hurt

other people, therefore, they decide to give long-winded responses instead of

saying something directly. Another reason is because the characters do not want

other characters to intervene with their problems, and this leads them to flout the

maxim of manner. The characters’ not agreeing with what other characters have

said to them is the fourth reason. One of the examples is when Spencer does not

agree with Hanna’s utterance, which leads her to flout the maxim of manner.

Aside from the given example, there are still various situations or reasons which

lead to someone flouting the maxim of manner.

Opting out of a maxim is the second type of non-observance which mostly

occurred in the conversation between the characters. Opting out of a maxim can

be found in certain situations. The characters opt out of a maxim because they

want to hide the truth from other characters. In other situations, they opt out of a

maxim because they feel scared to tell the truth. In one situation, the character

opts out of a maxim because of an ethical reason, which is related to a legal

situation.

Flouting the maxim of quantity is found in several situations in this TV

series as the characters seem to give more or less information than required. The

first reason why the characters flout the maxim of quantity is because they feel

angry or offended by other characters. It makes them give either more or less

information than necessary to other characters. The second reason is because the

characters want to hide the truth from other characters; in this case, they usually

give less information. The last reason is because the characters feel scared, which

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the examples is when Aria asks her mother if she plans to send her off from

Rosewood. Aria’s utterance gives more information than required when what she

really wants to is if her mother will send her off from Rosewood.

Flouting the maxim of relation can be found in certain situations. In these

situations, the characters sometimes give irrelevant answers or responses to other

characters. What often happens is the characters flout the maxim of relation

because they do not want to tell the truth to other characters, which make them

give irrelevant answers or responses. The next reason is because the character is

angry with other characters and finally lead the character to flout the maxim of

relation. The other reason that can also lead the character to flout the maxim of

manner is because the character does not believe the other character after hearing

their utterance. One of the examples is when Hanna refuses to tell her mother the

truth about what she has told Dr. Sullivan and she gives an irrelevant answer to

her mother.

Violating the maxim is also found in certain situations. In some cases, the

characters violate the maxim because they want to hide the truth from the other

characters, and because of that they mislead other characters to believe certain

things. In another case, the character violates the maxim because she/he does not

want other characters to know her/his plan.

The flouting of the maxim of quality can only be found in once in this TV

series. The character deliberately tells lies to another character. By giving false

information, the speaker wants the hearer to know that the speaker does not want

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In the chosen data from the TV series, infringing the maxim is not found. I

think it is because in this TV series there are no character who is a child or a

foreign learner. Furthermore there is no character who is drunk, nervous, or

excited to make them say something that is unclear, which may lead them to

conflict.

From all the data which are analyzed, suspending the maxim is also not

found. I think it is because the era in this TV series is already modern era and the

setting of the TV series is at the present time. It makes the characters rarely use

words considered as taboo in their utterances.

It can be concluded that conflicts can arise due to the non-observance of

Gricean Maxims. Conflicts can happen because of the characters’ feeling angry or

offended, not wanting to hurt other people, not wanting other people to intervene

with their problem, disagreeing with other people and refusing to be cooperative

with other people. Therefore, the Cooperative Principle is needed to make a

conversation run smoothly and to avoid conflicts.

In the end, I hope that this thesis can help everyone to understand more

about the use of maxims to avoid conflicts in a conversation in their daily lives.

For those who have the same topic or want to discuss the same topic, I suggest

that they choose a TV series which has a lot of seasons so they can find enough

data to be analyzed. Hopefully, this thesis can be useful as a reference for those

who want to discuss the same field.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Source

Pretty Little Liars. Lisa Cochran-Neilan. ABC Studios, 2010. DVD

References

Grice, Paul. Logic and Conversation. Berkeley: University of California, 2004.

Print.

Pretty Little Liars. IMDb. n.d. Web. 20 March 2014.

Shaw, Harry. Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Mcgraw-Hill, 1976. Print.

Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction Pragmatics. Longman,