HUMOROUS SITUATIONS CREATED BY VIOLATIONS AND FLOUTINGS OF CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS IN A SITUATION COMEDY ENTITLED HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By JENNA NADIA RASBI PUTRI AMIANNA Student Number: 114214027 ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2016
HUMOROUS SITUATIONS CREATED BY VIOLATIONS AND FLOUTINGS OF CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS IN A SITUATION COMEDY ENTITLED HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By JENNA NADIA RASBI PUTRI AMIANNA Student Number: 114214027 ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2016 ii
i' (E: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI A Sarj ana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis HUIVTOROUS SITUATIONS CBEATED BY YIOLATIONS AND FLOUTIN-GS OF COIT{VERSATIONAL MA}ilMS IN A SITUATION COilIEDY EI'ITITLED HOW I rt[et yoitr'ilfofher 5j *.' l: *. Adventina }\ifr@ti. S. S,. M.t{uff December 1I,2015 {u k-k Ilarrig Hprma+svah' Sethiid- S. S.. M.Hum. Co-advisor December 11,2015 111
A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis ITUMOROUS SITUATIONS CREATED BY YIOLATIONS ANI) FLOUTINGS OF COI{YERSATIONAL MAXIMS IN A SITUATION COMEDY ENTITLED HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER By JENNA NAI}IA RASBT PUTRI AMIANNA Student Number: ll42l4 27 Defended before the Board of Examiners on January 25,2016 and Declared Acceptable BOARI} OF EXAMINERS llame Chairperson : Dr. F.X. Siswadi, M.A. Secretary : Dra. A.B. Sri Mulyani, M.A., Ph.D. Member I : Dr. B. Ria Lestari, M.Sc. Member 2 : Adventina Putranti, S.S., M.Hum. Member 3 : Harris Hermansyah Setiajid, S.S., M.Hum. fs+*" p" Yogyakarta, January 29, 2A16 Faculty of Letters fft 3IBF g -s", g nue /t;, -- {*,'oko, ras sfl<ol Dr. F.X. Siswadi, M.A. 1V
Don t get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can t do anything, don t get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it s ready to come undone. You have to realize it s going to be a long process and that you ll work on things slowly, one at a time. - Haruki Murakami - vii
For People who dedicate their life to teach. viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis advisor, Adventina Putranti, S.S., M.Hum. for her guidance, encouragement and patience throughout my thesis writing so that I can finally finish my undergraduate thesis. I would also like to thank my co-advisor Harris Hermansyah Setiajid, S.S, M.Hum. for the inputs, and his total support given to me. I extend my gratitude to my family for teaching me not to easily give up on doing things, even the hardest ones. I always carry that lesson with me because it teaches me to never complain about difficult things. I would also like to send my extended gratitude to all of my friends, whose names cannot be mentioned one by one. My special love goes to my beloved friends who have been supporting me for the past view years, especially the ones who have graduated before me. Their support and successful experiences in the real world inspire me in many ways I cannot describe. The last but not the least, I would like to thank one of my seniors, Anindita Dewangga Puri, for her suggestions, sharing, and insightful ideas given to me throughout my thesis writing process. Jenna Nadia Rasbi Putri Amianna ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS TITTLE PAGE... ii APPROVAL PAGE... iii ACCEPTANCE PAGE... iv STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY... v LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH. vi MOTTO PAGE... vii DEDICATION PAGE...viii ACKNOWLADGEMENTS... ix TABLE OF CONTENTS... x LIST OF TABLES... xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS...xiii ABSTRACT...xiv ABSTRAK... xv CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION... 1 A. Background of the Study... 1 B. Problem Formulation... 5 C. Objectives of the Study... 5 D. Definition of Terms... 6 CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE... 9 A. Review of Related studies... 9 B. Review of Related Theories... 13 1. Pragmatics... 13 2. Context... 14 3. Conversational Implicature... 17 4. Cooperative Principle... 19 5. Flouting Conversational Maxims... 24 6. Violating Conversational Maxims... 26 7. Conversational Analysis... 27 8. Humor... 32 C. Theoretical Framework... 38 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY... 40 A. Object of the Study... 40 B. Approach of the Study... 41 C. Method of the Study... 41 x
1. Data Collection... 42 2. Data Analysis... 42 CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS... 46 A. Types of Violations And Floutings of Conversational Maxims... 46 1. Violations of Conversational Maxims... 47 2. Floutings of Conversational Maxims... 61 B. The Humorous Situations Created in the Situation Comedy... 74 1. By creating incongruent idea between someone s expectation and what actually happens in the conversation... 76 2. By mocking and laughing at someone s inferiority to show hostility... 84 3. By releasing emotions to experience freedom... 87 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION... 96 BIBLIOGRAPHY... 99 APPENDICES...101 xi
LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Data Findings: Violations of Conversational Maxims. 47 Table 2. Data Findings: Floutings of Conversational Maxims...61 Table 3. Data Findings: The ways of how humorous situations are created in the situation comedy.75 xii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CP Flo Hos Inc Man Qual Quan Rel Rls Vio : Cooperative Principle : Flouting of Conversational Maxims : Hostility : Incongruent idea : Maxim of Manner : Maxim of Quality : Maxim of Quantity : Maxim of Relation : Released emotions : Violations of Conversational Maxim xiii
ABSTRACT AMIANNA, JENNA NADIA RASBI PUTRI. Humorous Situations Created By Violations and Floutings Of Conversational Maxims In A Situation Comedy Entitled How I Met Your Mother. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2016. As a form of communication that evokes laughter, humor is seen as one of important aspects in building relationship with people. Linguists suggest that humor or jokes exist because there is non-cooperative interaction among the interlocutors resulting from not observing Cooperative Principle in the conversations. This study attempts to analyze the humorous situations in a situation comedy entitled How I Met Your Mother Season 2, Episodes 1 to 5 which are created from violating and flouting the conversational maxims as the forms of not observing the Cooperative Principle. There are two problems formulated in this study. The first one is to identify the types of violations and floutings of conversational maxims in a situation comedy entitled How I Met Your Mother Season 2 Episodes 1 to 5. In the analysis of the first problem, it will be shown the analysis of the types of violations and floutings of conversational maxims which are done by the characters. The second one is to analyze how the humorous situations in the situation comedy are created from the violations and floutings of conversational maxims done by the characters. In this study, documents and text analysis are applied in the analysis process. By observing the utterances from the characters in the situation comedy, the writer collected the humorous utterances which consist of violations and floutings of conversational maxims. Pragmatic approach is applied in analyzing the violations and floutings of conversational maxim in order to find out the type conversational maxims which are violated or flouted by the characters. Humor theory is applied in this study in order to explore how humorous situations are created from the violations and floutings of conversational maxims found in the situation comedy. There are two findings from the analysis of this study. First, it is found that each of the characters in the situation comedy appears to violate and flout the conversational maxims, which are, maxim of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner. Second, it is found that the strategies used by the characters in creating humorous situations in the situation comedy are creating incongruent meaning or idea in the conversations, mocking others inferiority to show hostility, and releasing emotions. xiv
ABSTRAK AMIANNA, JENNA NADIA RASBI PUTRI. Humorous Situations Created By Violations and Floutings Of Conversational Maxims In A Situation Comedy Entitled How I Met Your Mother. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2016. Sebagai bentuk komunikasi yang menimbulkan tawa, humor dipandang sebagai salah satu aspek penting dalam membangun relasi dengan masyarakat. Ahli bahasa menyatakan bahwa humor atau lelucon tercipta karena adanya interaksi yang non-kooperatif antara lawan bicara sebagai hasil dari tidak mengamati Prinsip Kerjasama (Cooperative Principle) di dalam percakapan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis situasi humor dalam komedi situasi yang berjudul How I Met Your Mother Season 2, Episode 1-5 yang timbul karena adanya violations dan floutings sebagai bentuk pelanggaran dari maksim percakapan sebagai hasil dari tidak mengamati Prinsip Kerjasama (Cooperative Principle). Dalam penelitian ini terdapat dua rumusan masalah. Yang pertama adalah untuk mengidentifikasi tipe tipe violations dan floutings maksim percakapan dalam komedi situasi How I Met Your Mother Season 2 Episode 1-5. Yang kedua adalah untuk menganalisis cara terciptanya situasi humor yang disebabkan oleh violations dan floutings maksim percakapan yang dilakukan oleh para karakter dalam komedi situasi tersebut. Dalam penelitian ini, metode analisis dokumen dan teks diaplikasikan dalam proses analisis. Dengan mengamati semua ucapan dari para karakter dalam komedi situasi tersebut, penulis mengumpulkan ungkapan - ungkapan lucu yang terdiri dari violations dan floutings maksim percakapan. Penulis menerapkan pendekatan pragmatik dalam menganalisis violations dan floutings maksim percakapan untuk mengetahui tipe dari maksim percakapan yang dilanggar oleh para karakter. Teori humor juga diaplikasikan dalam penelitian ini untuk menganalisis bagaimana situasi humor tercipta dari violations dan floutings maksim percakapan dalam komedi situasi tersebut. Terdapat dua hasil dari penelitian ini. Yang pertama, masing masing karakter dalam komedi situasi tersebut melanggar keempat maksim percakapan, yakni maksim kuantitas (quantity), kualitas (quality), hubungan (relation), dan cara (manner). Yang kedua, dapat disimpulkan bahwa cara cara yang digunakan para karakter untuk menciptakan situasi humor dalam komedi situasi tersebut adalah dengan menciptakan arti atau ide yang membingungkan dalam percakapan, mengolok olok kelemahan orang lain untuk menunjukkan sikap permusuhan, dan mengeluarkan emosi. xv
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study On everyday life, people, as social human beings, communicate. That is an inevitable activity embedded in society. One of the ways to communicate is by talking. Every time people talk with their family, friends, and other people, they use language as the means of communication. Wood and Kroger (2000: 4) explain in their book that language is not only a means of communication, but also a feature of social life. Thus, people can produce utterances through language to share information, stories, thoughts, or ideas. In order to understand the meaning of language, people have to know the meaning of the words, phrases, sentences, and also the context in which some utterances are produced (Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams, 2003:173). Utterances are produced related to a certain topic and in a certain situation. The speakers have a purpose in saying some utterances in a certain situation and it cannot be separated from the context in which the conversation takes place. According to Leech (1983: 6), the study of meaning in relation to speech situation is called pragmatics. When two or more people are engaged in a conversation, they should be able to cooperate with each other. Speakers and hearers should contribute each other and provide adequate information about what is being talked about. One should respond the other and vice versa by giving sufficient information. The 1
2 speakers should give neither too little nor too much information in order to make a conversation run smoothly (Cutting, 2002: 34). If the speakers give less or more information than what is requested, there might be misunderstanding between the interlocutors and the conversation might stop. Here is an example where the speaker is being cooperative in a conversation. Example 1: Husband : Where are the car keys? Wife : They re on the table in the hall. (Thomas, 1995: 64) In the conversation above, the husband asks his wife about where the car keys are. Knowing the location of the car keys, the wife answers the husband by telling him that the car keys are on the table which is located in the hall. In the situation above, the wife is being brief and she gives the right amount of information about the location of the car keys without giving false information to her husband. The message of the conversation is successfully delivered. Thus, the wife is said to be cooperative to her husband. In other hand, speakers are possible to give non-cooperative response in a conversation. It can be seen in the example below. Example 2: A : Where s Bill? B : There s a yellow VW outside Sue s house. (Levinson, 1983: 102) From the conversation above, literally, B fails to answer A s question. A asks B where Bill is and the answer B gives to A is: there s a yellow VW outside Sue s house. In here, B s answer is unnecessary and is not related to A s question since A does not ask anything about a yellow VW outside Sue s house. That being
3 done, B s utterance is said to be non-cooperative despite the fact that B is trying to suggest deeper meaning to A. B s non-cooperative answer in the conversation above might create misunderstanding between them. The two examples above are the conversations which show whether or not a speaker is being cooperative in a conversation. Such cooperative interaction among the interlocutors is stated as theory of Cooperative Principle (Yule, 1996: 37), which is usually abbreviated into CP. Being successful in obeying the CP and its sub-principles is the proof that a person has a communicative competence as an important aspect to use language in daily life. This study analyzes one of the social phenomena in the society dealing with language use in communication, that is, humor. Studying humor is also important, because according to Holmes & Marra (2002), humor is a means that can be used to improve communication and relationships among the speakers and the hearers. Humor, as stated in The Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus, is the condition of being amusing or comic. Hence, by having the ability to amuse, humor can create humorous situations. According to Chiaro (1992: 43-44), a humorous situation occurs when there is two-faced meaning or ambiguous meaning of linguistic features in a conversation, such as, the choice of words. This two-faced meaning exists because the participants in a conversation are not cooperative each other by not following Grice s Cooperative Principle (CP). The participants attitude of not following the rules of the CP will create ambiguity and misunderstanding which later will elicit laughter as one of the effects.
4 Besides in social interaction, humor can also be found in TV shows. The similarity between humor found in daily interaction and the one that is found in TV shows lies on the principle which creates humor itself. As suggested by Grice, jokes are non-cooperative (Attardo, 1994: 271). Taken into account, both humorous situations in daily interactions and in TV shows occur because noncooperative interactions exist between the interlocutors. The difference between the two lies on the process of the occurrence of the humorous situations. In daily interactions, humorous situations occur naturally in the conversations without being planned by the interlocutors. Meanwhile, the conversations in TV shows are designed by the writer in order to create humorous situations. Even though the conversations in TV shows are designed, they still carry the principle which creates humorous situations. This study is conducted to examine the humorous situations created by non-cooperative interactions in a situation comedy, entitled How I Met Your Mother. In this case, the non-cooperative interactions result in violating and flouting of conversational maxims as the sub principles of Grice s Cooperative Principles. The data of this study are obtained from season 2, episodes 1 to 5. The 2 nd season is chosen without any specific purpose since humorous situations are found in all of the 10 seasons. How I Met Your Mother is an American situation comedy airing from September 19, 2005 to March 31, 2014. It is known best for its eccentric humor and it receives positive reviews over the past view years. IMDB states that the situation comedy is rated 8.4 out of 10 stars for its eccentric humor.
5 To reach the aim of this study, Pragmatic approach is applied in order to analyze the violations and floutings of conversational maxims done by the characters in the situations comedy. Grice s Cooperative Principle and its four conversational maxims theories are applied to examine the types of conversational maxims which are violated and flouted by the characters in order to create humorous situations. Furthermore, humor theories are applied in order to analyze how the humorous situations are created by the violations and the floutings of conversational maxims found in this situation comedy. B. Problems Formulation In order to limit the subject of discussion, there are two problems formulated as follows: 1. What are the types of violations and floutings of conversational maxims appear in a situation comedy How I Met Your Mother season 2, episodes 1 to 5? 2. How do the violations and the floutings of conversational maxims found create humorous situations in a situation comedy entitled How I Met Your Mother season 2, episodes 1 to 5? C. Objectives of the Study In order to answer the problems formulated above, there are two objectives of this study. The first objective is to find out the types of violations and floutings of conversational maxims which appear in American situation comedy How I Met Your Mother Season 2, episodes 1 to 5. The more detailed identification of the first objective is to analyze further about the context where the violated and the
6 flouted conversational maxims appear. The second objective of this study is to examine how the violations and floutings of conversational maxims can create humorous situations in this American situation comedy. D. Definition of Terms To avoid misunderstanding, there are several terms in this study need to be explained as follows: Cooperative Principle, often abbreviated as CP, is a theory suggested by Grice as stated bellow: Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (Thomas, 2013: 61-62). By obeying the CP, people who are engaged in a conversation are supposed to respond one another by exchanging the sufficient amount of information which is required by the situation. Besides Cooperative Principle, to guide the speakers in making their contributions appropriate in a conversation, Grice proposed subprinciples of Cooperative Principle which is usually called as Conversational Maxim. Conversational Maxims are the sub-principles of Cooperative Principle. There are four Conversational Maxims proposed by Grice, which are Maxim of Quantity, Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Relation, and Maxim of Manner. When two or more people are engaged in a conversation, they should follow those four Conversational Maxims in order to produce an efficient conversation. However, the people who are engaged in a conversation may not obey the four
7 conversational maxims of Cooperative Principle. The conversational maxims which are not followed by the interlocutors are called to be violated or flouted. Besides being obeyed, a maxim is able to be violated and flouted. Cutting (2002: 40) explains that a speaker is said to violate a maxim when he delivers utterances and knows that the hearer will not understand the whole truth and will only know the surface meaning of the words or sentences related to the topic they are talking about. In violating a maxim, a speaker intentionally wants to mislead or mischief the hearer. On the other hand, a speaker is said to flout a maxim when he blatantly fails to follow the conversational maxims but expect the interlocutors to understand the implied meaning (Cutting, 2002: 37). In flouting a maxim, the speaker assumes that the hearer knows the deeper meaning of the speaker s statement and will understand the implicature generated by the speaker. The Encyclopedia of Britannica defines humor as a form of communication that evokes the reflex of laughter of people (Benton (ed), 1983: 7). It is also explained in Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary that humor is the quality in something that makes it funny or amusing. By having the quality to be funny, humor can create humorous situation and elicit laughter. According to Grice, as cited by Attardo (1994: 271-276), jokes or humor are non-cooperative. Thus, humorous situations exist because there is non-cooperative interaction among the interlocutors. This non-cooperative interaction occurs because the interlocutors do not obey the CP and its maxims by violating or flouting the rules.
8 By doing so, the humorous situation is created between the speakers and the hearers as the product of violating or flouting the maxims. Humor exists in TV shows such as in situation comedy. According to The American Heritage Dictionary as cited by Savorelli (2010), situation comedy is a humorous television series having a regular cast of characters. From that explanation, it can be concluded that a situation comedy has the quality of being funny. To get the deeper understanding about situation comedy, Savorelli (2010) presents the definition of situation comedy from the Encyclopedia Britannica which defines situation comedy as: Radio or television comedy series that involves a continuing cast of characters in a succession of episodes. Often the characters are markedly different types thrown together by circumstance and occupying a shared environment such as an apartment building or workplace. Typically half an hour in length and either taped in front of a studio audience or employing canned applause, they are marked by verbal sparring and rapidly resolved conflict. (Savorelli, 2010: 21) The definition stated above shows that a situation comedy is a TV show which is presented in series of episodes and is having a class or group of people as the characters, such as friends, co-workers, or family members. In situation comedy, the characters often occupy a shared location such as an office, an apartment, a café, or any other place.
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE This chapter presents three subchapters, which are; first, review of related studies; second, review of related theories; and, third, theoretical framework. The first subchapter, review of related studies, consists of papers and undergraduate thesis discussing the similar topic with the present study. The second subchapter, review of related theories, consists of theories which are used to analyze the problems in this study. The third subchapter, theoretical framework, explains the contribution of the theories and how they are applied in order to examine the problems in this study. A. Review of Related Studies There are several studies conducted under the same topic that have been done by some researchers. The first study is Humor Strategies in the American Sitcom Friends; An Empirical Study with Reference to Grice s Cooperative Principle, which was conducted by Yu-wen Wu and Yong Chen in 2010. In this study, Wu and Chen explore how American sitcom characters violate Grice s Cooperative Principle to create humor in their daily conversation. The American situation comedy which is chosen as the data source from which the data are taken is Friends. Friends is a situation comedy which describes the relationships and the daily lives among six close friends in New York. It is found that the humor strategies used by the 9
10 characters to create humor in the situation comedy are resulting from the violation of conversational maxims of Grice s Cooperative Principle. The results of the study show that irony, responding irrelevant statements, and making an excuse are the humor strategies mostly used by the characters in the 10 th season of the situation comedy. Different kind of humor strategies is used by the characters depends on their intention to achieve humorous situations since each humor strategy manifests different function or purpose. Pragmatics concepts such as implicature, Grice s Cooperative Principles and its four conversational maxims (maxim of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner) are applied in this study in order to analyze which conversational maxim is violated. Furthermore, humor theory is also applied to explore the humor strategies done by the characters. Related to Wu and Chen s study, the present study s aim is also to examine humorous situations in a situation comedy. It analyses how the humorous situations are created in such a way by violations and floutings of conversational maxims of Cooperative Principle which are done by the characters. The present study applies humor theory suggested by Raskin and Attardo which is the same humor theory applied by Wu and Chen in their study. Besides the similarity, there are differences between the two studies. The first difference lies on the data source from which the data are taken. The data of Wu and Chen s study are taken from a situation comedy entitled Friends-Season 10. Meanwhile, the data of the present study are taken from a situation comedy entitled How I Met Your Mother season 2, episode 1 to 5. Second, on one hand,
11 Wu and Chen aims to explore how the characters in the situation comedy create humor by violating Grice s Cooperative Principle as their humor strategies. On the other hand, the present study aims to explore how the characters in the situation comedy create humorous situations by not only violating but also flouting Grice s Cooperative Principle as their humor strategies. Thus, the present study applies humor theory on both of the violations and the floutings of conversational maxims done by the characters in order to explore how the humorous situations are built in the situation comedy. The second study is An Analysis of Humor Types and Grice s Maxim in the Situation Comedy Friends Episode of The One that Could Have Been (a Pragmatic Approach) by Sri Retno Palupi. The aims of this study are, first, to find out the types of humor which appear in this episode, and second, to define whether those humors obey or disobey Grice s conversational maxims as the standard conversational norms. This study uses pragmatic approach to analyze the problem formulations. The data are all the humor utterances which are able to create laughter found in Friends comedy series in the episode of The One with That Could Have Been. To analyze the types of the humor, the data are classified by applying humor theory by Anthony L. Audrieth s, and further, they are analyzed by Grice s conversational maxims theory. The result of this study reveals that there are eight types of humor which are found in that episode, which are, banter, blunder, chain, Freudian Slip, irony, mistaken identity, relapse, and repartee. Hence, related to the maxims theory, it is found that the humors in that
12 episode of situation comedy, which appear in every utterance, fail to obey at least one of the conversational maxims. Related to Palupi s study, the present study s aim is also to examine humorous situations in a situation comedy. The present study is conducted in order to analyze how the humorous situations are created by violations and floutings of conversational maxims done by the characters. In here, the result from humor analysis in Palupi s study contributes evidence that humorous situations which appear in every utterance in the situation comedy are the results of not obeying at least one of conversational maxims of Grice s Cooperative Principles. Besides the similarity and the contribution, differences are also found between Palupi s study and the present study. First, on one hand, Palupi s study does not stop in analyzing humor in the situation comedy. It goes further in finding out the types of humor found in the data source. On the other hand, the present study focuses on the contribution of conversational maxims of Grice s Cooperative Principle in creating humorous situations in How I Met Your Mother season 2, episode 1 to 5. This present study examines more closely how violating and flouting a conversational maxim of Cooperative Principle can create humorous situations in the situation comedy. It does not go further in analyzing the types of humor. Thus, theory of humor types is not applied in the present study like it is applied in Palupi s study in order to analyze the data. Second, the data from both of Palupi s study and the present study are not from the same data source. While Palupi s data are obtained from Friends: The One with That Could
13 Have Been, the data of the present study are obtained from How I Met Your Mother, season 2, episodes 1 to 5. B. Review of Related Theories 1. Pragmatics To this day, a number of theories of language have been developed by linguists. One of these theories is pragmatics. Thomas (1995: 22-23) defines pragmatics as meaning in interaction. It takes not only the contributions from the speakers in saying utterances, but also from the hearers in understanding the utterances from their point of view. Besides the contributions from the interlocutors, contexts of utterance, such as physical, social, and linguistic contexts, and the meaning potential of utterance are taken into account in producing meaning. Thus, pragmatics is context-dependent. An utterance cannot be understood separately from the context it is uttered. Related to pragmatics nature of context-dependent, Levinson (1983: 21) suggests that pragmatics is the study of relations between language and context that are basic to an account of language understanding. The meaning of language understanding is that understanding an utterance does not only involve knowing the meaning of the words and the grammatical relations between them, but most importantly, it involves the ability to make inferences in order to connect what is said to what is assumed in a certain context. Yule (1996: 3-4) also states another definition of pragmatics. He suggests that pragmatics is concerned with four areas explained as follow. First, pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning. It means that pragmatics is more concerned
14 with the analysis of what people mean by their utterances than the utterances mean by themselves. Second, pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning ; meaning that context has an important role in influencing what people say. Thus, it needs a consideration of how people deliver what they want to say in accordance with who they are talking to, where, when, and under what circumstances a conversation takes place. Third, pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said. From this third definition, this approach also analyze how the listeners can make inferences about what the interlocutors say in order to understand the speakers intended meaning. Fourth, pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance. Distance, in this type, means the closeness, whether it is physical, social, or conceptual, which implies shared experience between the speakers and the listeners. Thus, how close or distant the listener is, the speakers decide how much needs to be uttered. From the definitions suggested by linguists as mentioned above, it can be concluded that pragmatics is the study of utterance meaning in a particular context. Thus, by studying pragmatics, people are able to know others intended meanings, assumptions, purposes, ideas, even the action they are performing at the moment of speaking. 2. Context Related to the definition of pragmatics, understanding utterances cannot be separated from the context in which the conversation takes place. In here, context plays an important role in the interpretation meaning. Cutting (2002: 3-7) explains that there are three contexts in order to deal with meaning of words in context,
15 which are, situational context, background knowledge context, and co-textual context. a. Situational context Situational context is the situation where the interaction is taking place at the moment of speaking (Cutting, 2002: 4). This context deals with what the speakers and the hearers can see around them. Gestures are part of situational context because interlocutors are able to see each other s gestures during their conversation. Thus, gestures add meaning to the utterances when the speakers and the hearers share the situational context. b. Background knowledge context There are two types of context based on background knowledge context. The first one is cultural background context and the second one in interpersonal background context. Cultural background context is the cultural general knowledge that most people carry with them in their minds, about area of life (Cutting, 2002: 5). This type of background context is the knowledge that is mutually shared by people in the same community, people in the same country, people in the same school, or people in the same family. The example of this cultural background context are the knowledge people in the same country have about who the country s president is, or, the students in the same class who knows about each other s name of the students in that class. People who have shared knowledge of cultural context are possible to have shared attitude towards that cultural context. For example, some people in a music
16 community think that a certain singer has a very great voice. Once other people in that community find out that the singer has a great voice, then they will modify their attitude to like the singer s voice too. Thus, when speakers modify their expression to reflect their interlocutors, it can be seen as their effort to be accepted and be seen that they belong to the same group. In conclusion, it is this cultural context and shared attitude in a group of people that can make humor of one country is different and is difficult to understand for people for another country, or the humor from one generation is impossible to understand for other generation. The other type of background knowledge context is interpersonal background context. It is knowledge acquired through previous verbal interactions or joint activities and experiences, and it includes privileged personal knowledge about the interlocutor (Cutting, 2002: 6). For example, a woman and a man are best friends since they have become co-workers for five years. The man already has a wife and the woman knows his wife. In here, the man must have told the woman that he already has a wife in previous conversations. He might also have told the woman about his wife s name or the place where she works. This personal knowledge about the mas is the example of shared knowledge that is acquired through interactions or activities they experienced together. The last type of contexts suggested by cutting is co-text; which is the contextual context. Due to the fact that this type of context is related only to the context in a text, this theory of co-text will not be explained further because this
17 theory is not used to analyze the data in this study, which are not taken from a text. 3. Conversational Implicature The basic assumption in communication is that when speakers and hearers are engaged in a conversation, they are generally being cooperative with each other. At some point, the meaning of utterances is not conveyed from the expressed meaning but from the implied meaning. Something that is more than what the words mean is called an implicature; the additional conveyed meaning of utterances (Yule, 1996: 35). Implicatures are the example of more is being communicated than what is said. Implicatures which occur in conversations and depend on certain context for their interpretation is usually called conversational implicatures. The example of conversational implicature can be seen from the example bellow: Example 3: Nic: Mar: Did you do the homework? I didn t have enough time last night. Mar has to assume that Nic is being cooperative, but apparently, he does not mention whether or not he did the homework. He just mentions that he did not have enough time last night. By saying this, Nic must intend that Mar infer that the sentence I didn t have enough time last night means that he had something to do last night which made him did not have enough time to do the homework. In conclusion, from the example above, it is the speakers job to communicate meaning via implicature and the listeners job to recognize the communicated meaning via inference.
18 As stated by Yule (1996: 40-43), there are two types of conversational implicature, they are, generalized conversational implicatures and particularized conversational implicatures. The former is a type of conversational implicature which does not require certain knowledge from a particular context to understand the additional conveyed meanings. There is no special background which is required to create inferences in a conversation. One common example of generalized implicature is the use of an indefinite article of a or an, such as a house, a car, a pen, or an apple. If these phrases are put in sentences, it means that the house, the car, the pen, or the apple does not have any relation with the speaker. Example 4: Jim : I walk into a house. (Levinson, 1983: 126) From the example above, Jim says that he walks into a house. That statement contains the generalized conversational implicature, since the expression a house creates an assumption that the house is not related to Jim. However, there are also conversations which take place in a specific context in which recognized inferences are required. The inferences are needed to work out the additional conveyed meanings as the result of particularized conversational implicatures. It is the type of conversational implicature which requires special knowledge of specific context in order to work out the additional conveyed meanings (Yule, 1996: 40-43). Example 5: A : What on earth has happened to the roast beef? B : The dog is looking very happy. (Levinson, 1983: 126)
19 In order to make B s answer relevant, A has to draw on some assumed knowledge B expects him to have. It is possible that the dog has eaten the roast beef, thus, it looks very happy. The fact that particularized conversational implicatures are the most common implicatures appear in conversations, they are typically just called implicature. Levinson also explains that most of the floutings and exploitations of the maxims are particularized (1983: 126). 4. Cooperative Principle Yule (1996: 4-5) states that in a society, people become the members of certain social groups and will automatically follow the general patterns of behavior within the group. People will adopt the conversational norms in the society to communicate. When people are engaged in a conversation, they will exchange information with their interlocutors. The basic concept that there will be sufficient amount of information provided in a conversation is one of general idea that the interlocutors will cooperate with each other at the moment they are involved in a conversation. Grice suggests that in order to be cooperative with each other in a conversation, interlocutors should obey the Cooperative Principle which runs as follows: Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose of direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. (Thomas, 1995: 61-62) According to Grice s theory of Cooperative Principle, people should give contribution that is required by the situation, such as, giving sufficient amount of
20 information in a conversation. That being done, the interlocutors are said to be cooperative in making a conversation run smoothly. Grice suggests that in a conversational interaction, people work on the assumption that a certain set of rules is in operation, unless they receive the indication of the opposite. On one hand, there are times when speakers have indications that the interlocutors obey the same conversational norms as the speakers do. On the other hand, there are times when speakers assumption that others are cooperating according the same conversational norms is misplaced, since, in fact, the interlocutors turn out to blatantly mislead the speakers by not obeying the conversational norms. In that condition, the speakers are expected to search the implicature might be delivered by the interlocutors. To avoid a situation when interlocutors blatantly mislead others by not obeying Cooperative Principle, Grice develops four conversational maxims as the sub-principles of the CP. Grice s four conversational maxims are formulated as follows (Thomas, 1995: 63-64): a. Maxim of Quantity i. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange). ii. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. According to this maxim, speakers should give neither too little nor too much information to the interlocutors. When the speakers give too little information, the hearers may not be able to understand what they are talking about due to the hearers lack of information. Meanwhile, when the speakers give too
21 much information, the conversation may become not effective since the excess information given in the conversation. Moreover, when the speakers give excess information, it is possible that the hearers will get bored or will assume that the speakers are showing off or cocky. The following statements are the examples of violating the maxim of Quantity. Example 6: Rhi : Olive, did you buy the butter and milk? Olive : Yes. I bought the butter and milk? From the conversation above, Rhi asks Olive about some information; whether or not she buys the butter and milk. Then, Olive answers her by saying: Yes. I bought the butter and milk. In here, Olive is being cooperative by providing sufficient information just like what is requested by the situation. She does not give more information than what Rhi has asked her. By giving Rhi the right amount of answer, she is said to obey the maxim of Quantity. b. Maxim of Quality i. Do not say what you believe to be false. ii. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. This kind of maxim expects the speakers to say anything based on reality. The speakers are not allowed to tell lies to the hearer or to say anything which is far from the truth. Example 7: Demi Monica : Why are you late, Mon? : I needed to drive my friend home first.
22 In the conversation above, by asking that question, Demi expects to know the reason why Monica is late meeting her. Thus, to fill her in, Monica tells Demi that she has to drive her friend home beforehand. In here, if Monica s answer is based on what actually happens, she does not lie, and it means that she is being cooperative to Demi. By not giving false information to Demi, Monica is said to obey the maxim of Quality. c. Maxim of Relation Be relevant Due to this maxim, speakers are supposed to say something that is relevant to what has been talked in a conversation. They must give information related to the topic of discussion. The example can be seen in the following conversation: Example 8: Sue : Hey, how are things going on after you broke up with Ali? Bryan : It has been tough, but I am doing great. As Bryan s best friend, Sue is concerned about his condition after breaking up with Ali and she wants to cheer him up. Being asked a sensitive question, Bryan could have just distracted Sue by changing the topic of discussion. However, he appears to answer her by giving an answer that is related to the question she offers. That being done, Bryan is said to obey the maxim of Relation by providing an answer which is related to the subject Sue brings up. d. Maxim of Manner i. Avoid obscurity of expression ii. Avoid ambiguity
23 iii. iv. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) Be orderly This last maxim expects the speakers to be brief in saying something. They should avoid saying something which is difficult to understand. At last, the speakers should avoid ambiguity in their utterances. When the speaker fails to obey each rule of the maxim of Manner, it is possible that the hearers also possible to miss the implicatures drawn by the speakers. Example 9: Cindy : Hey, Max. I like your hat. Where did you buy it? Max : Thanks. I bought it at Pick and Pay next to our campus. Being thrown a question by Cindy, Max has given the right amount of information and addressed Cindy s goal in asking the question. He mentions the name of the store where he buys the hat and even tells her the location of it. Max s answer is brief and not ambiguous. Thus, Max is said to follow the maxims of Manner. The four conversational maxims above are suggested by Grice in order to build a successful conversation in which the interlocutors should be cooperative with each other. A conversation is said to be successful when the speakers and the hearers are able to understand what each other means by giving the right amount of information, being honest, brief, and relevant to the topic of discussion. The example when the speakers and the hearers are able to observe all of the conversational maxims can be seen below. Example 10: Husband Wife : Where are the car keys? : They re on the table in the hall. (Thomas, 1995: 64)
24 When the husband asks his wife about the car keys, she has answered him by giving clear and truthful answer. She has also given the right amount of information and addressed her husband s goal in asking the question. In here, the wife has obeyed all of the conversational maxims and she does not generate implicature (Thomas, 1995: 64). In conclusion, all of the conversational maxims in the example above are successfully observed. 5. Flouting Conversational Maxims According to Grice, flouting a maxim is a situation when a speaker blatantly fails to observe a maxim (Thomas, 1995: 65). The speakers do not have any intention to mislead or deceive the hearers, but they expect the hearers to look for the meaning different from, or in addition to, the expressed meaning. The speakers assume that the hearers are able to infer the implied meaning of what is said. Speakers are said to flout the maxim of Quantity when they blatantly fail to give sufficient information to the hearers in a conversation. They may give too little or too much information than the situation requires. A flout of the maxim of Quality occurs when the speakers fail to be truthful by saying something that is not based on truth or fact, or even by saying something for which they lack adequate evidence. The maxim of Relation is flouted when the speakers provide information that is irrelevant to the topic of discussion. The example of flouting the maxim of Relation is by changing the topic of discussion, or by failing to address the topic directly. The speakers appear to flout the maxim of Manner
25 when they provide long-winded and ambiguous explanation to the hearers. By not being order and clear in giving certain information, speakers are also said to flout the maxim of Manner. The example of flouting of conversational maxims can be found from the conversation bellow: Example 11: Penny Luke : Hey. How do I look? : Your skirt is so cute From the conversation above, Luke has flouted the maxim of quantity by not telling the detail information about Penny s appearance. Luke does not say anything about Penny s t-shirt or shoes, when it is clear that Penny asks for Luke s advice about her overall appearance. By only mentioning her skirt, he expects Penny to understand the implied meaning he is trying to deliver, which is, that the skirt is the only thing that looks good on her. Luke could have also flouted the maxim of relation by changing the topic of discussion into a new topic, such as: I m hungry. Let s go get lunch. By doing that, Luke tries to distract Penny s attention from the topic of discussion. It is possible that Penny s appearance is not as good as she hopes. That being done, if Penny understands the fact that Luke is trying to distract her from answering her question while she still insists in knowing Luke s opinion, she will keep asking Luke until she gets Luke s opinion. Based on the situation above, it is possible for Luke not to obey the maxim of Manner. He could have flouted the maxim of Manner when he answers Penny by saying: I guess you are confident enough to wear clothes with that kind of color combinations. From his response, Luke is not being brief in answering Penny s
26 question. He does not say briefly whether or not she looks good in those clothes. He only gives a hint and lets her decide her own appearance. In order to be cooperative in a conversation, Luke could have given a brief and non-ambiguous answer. Another example of flouting conversational maxims is the flouting of maxim of Quality that can be found in a situation when an employer is interviewing an applicant. The employer finds out that the applicant does not have the criteria the company is looking for. Thus, the employer tries to find a nice way to reject the man by saying: By having great skills and experiences in engineering like what you have now, I am sure that you will easily fit in a larger company than our company. In here, the employer actually does not say what he really thinks. It can be concluded that the employer lies to the applicant in order to let him down easy. By saying this, the employer expects that the applicant will understand the implied meaning from his utterances, which is, that he is not accepted in the company. 6. Violating Conversational Maxims Different from flouting a conversational maxim when the speakers expect the hearers to understand the implied meaning, violating a maxim is a situation when a speaker fails to obey a conversational maxim in order to intentionally generate misleading implicature in a conversation (Thomas, 1995: 73). Speakers are said to violate a conversational maxim when they know that the hearers will not know the truth and will only know the expressed meaning of what is said. In other words, the speakers intentionally mislead and deceive the hearers.