The dialogue takes place in a car when Nick is kidnapped by a group of people. Nick is being interrogated. One of the men reads a pack of cigarettes. He
reads the reactions caused by cigarettes. Previously, he says to Nick that they want Nick to stop killing people. It is related to Nick’s job as a spokesperson of
Academy of Tobacco Studies, since he convinces people to smoke. However, in response the man, Nick says something irrelevant. He says
that they could start asking a huge ransom. It obviously does not relate to what man said, which is about the reactions that are brought by cigarettes. In this case,
Nick flouts the maxim of relation by giving an irrelevant statement.
f. Being Obscure
To observe maxim of manner, someone should be perspicuous. Hisher utterance should be easy to understand. Thus, when someone says something
obscurely, she flouts the maxim of manner. An example of this strategy can be seen in the following dialogue. This is
when Nick becomes the guest in Joan Lunden’s talk show. Joan: This is obviously a heated issue and we do have a lot that we want to
cover today. Nick, do you have a question?
Nick: Joan, how on earth would Big Tobacco profit off of the loss of this young man? Now, I hate to think in such callous terms, but, if
anything, we’d be losing a customer. It’s not only our hope, it’s in our best interest to keep Robin alive and smoking.
MNOB00:05:21 When Joan opens her talk show, Nick suddenly raises his hand which
means he wants to ask Joan. Nick asks the profit of Big Tobacco in losing its customers. Actually it is a rhetoric question. Nick just wants to show that Big
Tobacco does not make any profit from it.
In delivering his question, Nick flouts the maxim of manner. He uses obscure word ‘this young man’ to refer Robin Williger, a cancer survivor who
also becomes the guest in Joan Lunden talk show. In short, Nick flouts the maxim of manner by being obscure.
The next example of this strategy shows in the following dialogue between Nick and one of the students in Joey’s class.
The student : What’s that?
Nick : It’s kind of like being a movie star. It’s what I do. I
talk for a living.
MNOB00:08:27 The dialogue happens in the class when Nick tells about his job to the
students. In front of the class, Nick asks to the students how many of them want to be lawyers when they grow up, later he asks who want to be movie stars. In the
end, he asks who want to be a lobbyist. Then, one of the students asks Nick what a lobbyist is because it does not sound familiar to her.
However, Nick does not give a clear answer to the student. He answers that a lobbyist is a kind of like being a movie star, it is what he does, and he talks
for living. In this case, Nick’s answer is hard to understand by the hearer because it is obscure. Further, the obscurity of the sentence is marked by the word ‘kind
of’ which shows that the speaker cannot be exact. In other words, Nick flouts the maxim of manner by being obscure.
In other words, six strategies are used by the main character to flout the maxims and the most dominant strategy is being obscure. It is because the most
dominant type of maxim flouting is maxim of manner flouting so being obscure subsequently becomes the most dominant strategy. Meanwhile, using metaphor
and using banter are not used by the main character. In the first case, it is because when the main character expresses his idea, he prefers not to compare his idea
with something because not all people have background knowledge about metaphor. In the case of using banter, it is because the situation when the main
character has a conversation is serious most of the time and he feels uncomfortable to use this strategy.
3. The Context Bounded in the Conversations in which the Maxim Flouting Exist in Thank You for Smoking
In flouting the maxim, the main character is affected by the context because when he speaks to each other, he considers the situation and the
condition. Moreover, sometimes the main character has to deliver the message of his utterance indirectly. Thus, to interpret the implied meaning behind the main
character’s utterances, the hearers have to pay attention to the context.
a. The Context in the Maxim of Quantity Flouting
