Analysis of Non-Observance of the Gricean Maxims that Leads to Conflict in Ugly Betty TV Series Seasons 2-4.

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Maranatha Christian University

ABSTRACT

Dalam laporan tugas akhir ini, saya menganalisis adanya pelanggaran bidal dalam percakapan yang dilakukan oleh beberapa penutur dalam sebuah drama seri Amerika, yakni Ugly Betty musim 2 sampai dengan musim 4.

Beberapa pelanggaran yang terjadi dalam seri ini ternyata dapat mengakibatkan konflik antara para penuturnya. Pelanggaran tersebut dapat dianalisis menggunakan teori Grice, the four conversational maxims. Berikut ini adalah jenis-jenis pelanggaran berdasarkan teori Paul Grice, yaitu flouting a

maxim, violating a maxim, infringing a maxim, opting out of a maxim, dan

suspending a maxim.

Analisis dalam tugas akhir ini berkaitan dengan hal-hal yang dilanggar dan bagaimana pelanggaran tersebut dapat menimbulkan konflik antara para penutur dalam drama seri ini. Dalam data yang saya analisis, saya menemukan beberapa bidal (maxim) yang paling sering dilanggar oleh penutur untuk menutupi kesalahannya.

Bidal (maxim) yang sering dilanggar oleh penutur di TV seri ini adalah

flouting a maxim of manner, yang berjumlah tujuh data. Saya menemukan bahwa

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tetapi ia tidak menyampaikannya secara langsung kepada lawan bicaranya melainkan menunjukkannya dengan ujaran yang mengandung pelanggaran bidal.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Human beings are social creatures who always need other people in their lives. Therefore, they socialize with others, beginning from the smallest social environment like a family to some larger communities. They live together in this world and one of the ways that help them to develop their relationships is through communication. Communication makes people able to have an interaction with others.

Generally, having a good communication is mandatory for people to build a good relationship with others. However, making a good communication is not easy; sometimes people cannot cooperate when they are speaking because of some reasons. Also, the conversation may cause some conflicts when someone has different interpretations of the speaker’s meaning.

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Maranatha Christian University The conflict in communication may be difficult to solve if the speaker and the hearer misunderstand each other.

The title of my thesis is Non Observance of Maxims That Leads to Conflict in “Ugly Betty” TV series Seasons 2-4. Ugly Betty is about a girl named Betty Suarez. She is a-23-year-old woman living in New York; she is smart, sweet and hard working. However, she has a problem with her appearance. Unlike all her co-workers at MODE, the company where she works, she is neither slim nor beautiful. MODE is a high-fashion industry for a magazine in Manhattan. Unfortunately, Betty has no fashion sense. The only reason for the publisher, Bradford Meade, to hire her to be his son’s secretary is that he thinks that Betty is

someone who Daniel Meade will never sleep with. Betty’s hard work and

determination earn Daniel’s respect, as she helps to find his way through the tight

competition of fashion industry. Betty lives with her father, Ignacio Suarez, her old sister, Hilda Suarez and her nephew Justin Suarez.

I choose this topic because it provides a lesson to make people understand what the speaker of a conversation really means to say. Sometimes what people say has an implied meaning, which is not exactly the same as the meaning of their

utterances. The study of Gricean Maxims can guide us to get people’s implied

meaning. When people communicate with others, they must be aware of the real

meaning of the speaker’s utterances.

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of maxims. People understand that in an oral communication, the hearer has to get what the speakers mean to say.

The topic of my thesis belongs to Pragmatics, which is the study of

speaker’s meaning. In Pragmatics we learn about the intended meaning of the

speaker’s utterance which is interpreted by a hearer. The specific theory which I

use is non-observance of Gricean Maxims. According to Grice, many kinds of maxims can be flouted by the speaker. Without observing the maxims, participants of a conversation will not run a conversation smoothly.

The significance of this study is to make people understand the speakers’

utterances because a speaker sometimes does not directly say what they mean to the hearer. Hearers must be aware that they have to understand what the speakers say to them. This study can help them to get the meaning of the speakers’ utterance and help them to realize the situation when the speaker intentionally tries to mislead them.

The data source consists of three seasons (season two to season four) of

“Ugly Betty” TV series. Season two consists of eighteen episodes, season three has twenty four episodes, whereas season four has twenty four episodes. I take the data from season two to season four because season one has already been analyzed previously by another student. I choose this particular source because this film shows us how people should judge others not only on their appearance but also on their capacities. Moreover, the film suggests that problems should be better shared with family members than with others. I think the conflicts that occur in this film are caused by the disloyalty and greediness of the characters.

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Statement of the Problem

In my thesis, there are three problems to solve:

1. Which Gricean Maxims are flouted by each speaker in the data? 2. What is the implicature within each of the speaker’s utterances?

3. As an effect of the non-observance of the Gricean Maxims, how does each conflict happen to the participants of the conversations?

Purpose of the Study

According to the statement of the problems that are proposed, this study has the following purposes:

1. to classify which maxim is flouted by a speaker in the data. 2. to find out what the implicature of the speaker’s utterance is.

3. to understand how a conflict occurs as an effect of the non-observance of the Gricean Maxims.

Methods of Research

I did the following steps to do a study that is based on the Non-Observance of the Gricean Maxims.

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non-observance of maxims and the implicatures within each speaker’s utterance. I also read some theories from certain textbooks and searched some references from other books.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

I would like to conclude be results of my analysis of the non observance of Gricean Maxims which trigger conflict. According to my analysis of the fourteen data taken from “Ugly Betty” TV series seasons 2-4, I found four types of non

observance of the Gricean Maxims in my data: flouting a maxim of quantity, flouting a maxim of quality, flouting the maxim of manner, flouting the maxim of relation, violating a maxim, infringing a maxim, and suspending a maxim.

Of all those types, flouting the maxim has the biggest role in creating the conflicts between the characters in this TV series. The analysis results in seven data which contain flouting a maxim of manner. Flouting the maxim of manner has most frequently occurres in this TV series. The speakers do the flouting the maxim of manner by giving a long-winded response; or, sometimes they blatantly obscure of expression.

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Basically, human in general will notice when other people tease them, which may make them feel offended by that.

The second most dominant type of flouting a maxim is flouting the maxim of quantity. There are four data in which the speakers do the flouting the maxim of quantity. The speakers do it because they are given some answers with too much information or sometimes their answer is not as complete information as what the hearers need. The conflict in the data is triggered by the additional information given by the speakers. The audience cannot expect what the speakers will say to the hearers, or the speakers may have another opinion which they want to say although it is not appropriate.

Another type of the Gricean maxims that has been found is opting out of a maxim. There are three data of opting out of a maxim. This type of non observance occurs when a speaker chooses not to give response or information for a certain reason. Sometimes they know that they utterance is not true or will cause something bad. In “Ugly Betty,” the speaker who opts out of a maxim is Wilhelmina because mostly, she tries to hide something or she does not want to give sufficient information about something important for her. She knows what she did is illegal thing, and she tries to hide the truth from others.

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Maranatha Christian University For example, when Wilhelmina tries to mislead Bradford, she wants Bradford to trust her that she does not cheat with her bodyguard so that, she thinks, they can continue the wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, Wilhelmina fails to mislead Bradford because he knows the truth and this leads to the wedding cancellation.

The other type that is the least dominant in the data is flouting the maxim of quality which is shown in one datum too. This flouting happens when someone says something that is obviously untrue with a certain intention. They know what they said is totally false or different from reality. They sometimes want to emphasize their disagreement about something by saying the different thing. For example, Wilhelmina lies to her sister, saying that she does not know about the story of the restaurant where she and her sister are having lunch together.

The TV series “Ugly Betty” is a drama TV series about family and carrier of

fashion stories. The value of family is evident in the story but much of drama in this family story has triggered conflicts. In my opinion, infringing a maxim does not occur in this TV series because the speakers do not have speech impairment; they can speak well. Moreover, none of the speaker’s in this TV series is drunk.

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From the analysis above, it can also be concluded that to avoid confrontation in a conversation people need to be brief when stating the intention, give only true information and say only what is necessary. Basically, people need to understand how to manage a conversation; therefore, their partner in a conversation will not misunderstand them. When people understand the speaker’s meaning well, a good communication with others will occur.

However, it cannot be denied that there are times when people cannot obey these rules. For example, when they have to criticize someone, not all of them have the ability to speak assertively to others. Some of us may choose to say it in a satirical form or probably find a more polite way to say it. When doing this, they obviously will violate Grice’s rules. From the series, I conclude that the conflicts in this TV series have happened mostly because the speakers do not follow Grice’s rules of conversation. However, the conflicts have made the story

more interesting and enjoyable for the viewers.

As a matter of fact, there is another research tool namely, Politeness Strategy, a branch of Pragmatics which can be used to analyse Ugly Betty series. I hope this tool can be employed later in another study as the continuation of this research. Also, regardless of my findings here, I hope that there will be another study that could show that other types of non-observance of Grice’s maxims could also lead to conflict.

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ANALYSIS OF NON-OBSERVANCE

OF THE GRICEAN MAXIMS

THAT LEADS TO CONFLICTS

IN UGLY BETTY TV SERIES

SEASONS 2-4

A thesis

submitted to the English Department of the Faculty of Letters

in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the “Sarjana” degree

MONICA 1041007

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LETTERS

MARANATHA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY BANDUNG

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On this opportunity, first of all I would like to give a praise wholeheartedly to Almighty God, who has given me His power and kindness so that I am able to finish my thesis. I realize that this thesis is far from a perfect work. Therefore, all suggestions and critics can be accepted in order to give additional knowledge for me to make improvement in the future.

I would also like to thank my supervisor, Bernadette Santosa, S.S., M.A who have given me a lot of help, suggestions, advice and attention during the period of thesis writing. Besides, I would like to thank:

1. Rizki Theodorus Johan, S.S., M.A, as the Head of the English Department of Maranatha Christian University.

2. Hendra Liem, S.S., M.A, and Dr. Yugianingrum, M.s as my academic counselors.

3. All lecturers, who have given knowledge during my studies.

4. My family, who always give me their prayers, support and love so that I always have high spirit in finishing my thesis.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Texts

Horta, S. (Writer), & Victor Neili, J. (Director). (2008). Jump. Walt Disney Pictures.

Myers, H. A. (Writer), & Shakman, M. (Director). (2008). Burning Questions. Walt Disney Pictures.

Tanen, B. (Writer), & Stanzler, W. (Director). (2008). The Kids Are Alright. Walt Disney Pictures.

Tanen, B. (Writer), & Victor Neili, J. (Director). (2008). When Betty Met Yetti. Walt Disney Pictures.

Pratt Charles, J. (Writer), & Winick, G. (Director). (2007). Giving Up The Ghost. Walt Disney Pictures.

Wrubel, B. (Writer), & Flender, R. (Director). (2007). I See Me, I.C.U. Ugly

Betty seasons 2-4. Walt Disney Pictures.

References

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Leech, G. (1983). Principles of Pragmatics. London and New York: Longman. Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. New York: Oxford UP.

Internet Website

“Conflict.” Cambridge Online Dictionary. Cambridge Online Dictionary.

Retrieved 25 September 2016 from