Flouting of Quantity Maxim

finally introduces Lily to the family. Jay, who confronts him earlier, eventually accepts Lily’s existence among the family. Jay speaks wisely in front of the family and he asks for Manny’s support. Jay : Excuse me... Okay, I know that I said I thought this was a bad idea but what do I know? I mean, It’s not like I wrote a book on fatherhood. I’m trying whole my life to get it right, I’m still screwing up. Right, Manny? Manny : I wrote a song about it in the car. Jay : Of course you did. Anyway, I’m happy for ya And you should know that I’m not here to spit in your face, I’m here to blow at your back. It’s supposed to sound better in Spanish 28ReRp31 Manny is not cooperative by flouting relation maxim. Jay tries to be wise through his statement. He hopes that the whole family would be impressed with him. Jay asks for Manny’s agreement. Manny flouts relation maxim because he does not corrrespond Jay with an agreement, but with an irrelevant answer. Rather than giving Jay an agreement, he claims that the words are a song of him. Manny’s statement creates humor because it is incongruous. Jay tries to be sweet to his family until Manny ruines it by implying that Jay only cheates Manny’s words. Another character who flouts relation maxim is Jay. In the dialogue, Gloria and Claire are getting panic because Phil’s nose keeps bleeding. Now everyone is paying attention to Phil’s injury. Gloria asks Jay about how bad Phil’s condition is. Gloria : How bad is it? Jay : The wing is cracked, the propellers bent , but I can... Gloria : I mean Phil. 54ReFa23 In this conversation, Jay flouts relation maxim by interpreting the question ‘bad’ how bad Phil’s condition is as a question of how bad the toy plane is broken. Instead of responding relevantly, Jay intentionally misinterprets the question by answering the plane’s condition instead. To avoid the issue, Jay is being facetious because he responds to serious issues in a slight way. From the example of the data, all types of maxim are flouted by the characters. To flout the maxim is to exploit language. Thus, the characters somehow are not cooperative to give desired effect. The researcher focuses on the maxim flouting which creates amusement. Hence, when the characters flout the maxim, they also employ humorous rhetorical devices to create amusement.

2. Rhetorical Devices in Humor

From the data findings, the researcher found that maxim flouting employs rhetorical devices for humorous purposes. Flouting of quality maxim co-occurs with exaggeration, sarcasm, allusion, irony, ridicule, definition and satire. Flouting of manner maxim co-occurs with definition, bombast, insult, and punwordplay. Flouting of quantity maxim co-occur with exaggeration and bombast. Meanwhile, flouting of relation maxim can co-occur with facetiousness and repartee.

a. Rhetorical Devices in Flouting of Quality Maxim

Along the series, the characters in Modern Family flout quality maxim most of the times. Flouting the quality maxim appears 42 times out of 78. The characters create humor because mainly the characters state untrue statement to mean something. Quality maxim is flouted by using 7 types of rhetorical devices: exaggeration, sarcasm, allusion, irony, ridicule, definition, and satire. 1 Exaggeration The characters flout quality maxim by using exaggeration. Exaggeration happens when the characters blow things up far beyond the reality of the situation. Exaggeration arises to be the most frequent on the data 17 times out of 42 since there are many cases when the characters are intentionally being dramatic over everything. Thus, exaggeration is reflected through their utterances. The characters who often flout quality maxim are Cam 6 times and Manny 5 times. Cam, by his nature, is a dramatic person who tends to react in hyper way over little thing. Meanwhile, Manny is a kid who has a poetic soul so his utterance is somehow poetic. The first example is Manny’s utterances. The characters are Claire and Manny. Manny visits Claire’s house to play with Luke. Instead of playing with Luke in the backyard, he walks into the dining room to meet Claire who is pulling some cookies out of the oven. Manny : Those cookies smell like heaven.Your own recipe? Claire : No, I just throw them in the oven. Manny : And added the secret ingredient of caring? 4244QlEx17 Smelling the sweet cookies, Manny flatters that the cookies’ smell is like heaven. He then asks Claire whether the cookies are her own recipe or not. Claire responds to Manny unwillingly by saying that she just throws them. Manny asks again that there must be a secret ingredient of caring on Claire’s cookies.