51 2
Initiating new topic to hint the hearer Also, the research discovered the character flouted maxim of relevance on
account of giving hint, as appeared from the following excerpt:
S02E04RLFL4 Carl wished lily trade sex for beer.
Robin: Hey, Carl, is Ted still here? Carl: No. – Hey, Lily. You still single?
Lily: Yes. Carl: You know... I’ve poured a lot of free drinks for you over the years. A lot.
The conversation chanced when Robin and Lily swung by at the Mac’ Laren bar to find Ted. Structurally, at the beginning, everybody involved in the
conversation were cooperative. It was indicated by the adjacency pair which patterned well. Until Carl uttered “You know... I’ve poured a lot of free drinks for
you over the years. A lot.” Carl refused to make his utterance relevant to chance of a new topic Thomas 1995, p.70. Through his utterance, he implied a sex invitation
for Lily.
d. Flouting Maxim of Manner
The maxim of manner was flouted when a speaker deliberately failed to observe the maxim by not being brief, not being orderly, using obscure language or
ambiguous language. In humorous-expressive contexts, what the speaker really intended to point was implicitly expressed in a changing manner Langacker, 1993,
p. 30. This created an implicature which made the participants look for an additional set of meaning Thomas, 1995, p. 71. Its implicature occured when the
utterances were not brief, ambiguous, and obscure.
52 1
Using slang The following excerpts would suffice to represent how the characters
flouted maxim of relevance by using slang.
S02E12MN11
In the station Robin and Lily pick up Katie. They miss how cute Katie was but surprisingly, Katie grow up “fast”, she got her boyfriend and kissing in the station.
1 Katie: Hey, Robin. How are you?
2 Robin: Oh, good. Good.
3
Robin: So, who is this….tongue person?
4
Katie: Oh, Robin. This is my boyfriend Kyle
.
The excerpt above showed the situation when Katie touched down in New York by a train in order to visit her sister, Robin. Structurally, the opening sequence
was uttered by Katie which was followed up by Robin. The play of Katie kissing her boyfriend in the station drew her attention which led her to jump to another
question-answer sequence about who the boyfriend of Katie was. Robin uttered “So, who is this….tongue person?” to call for Katie’s clarification about the guy.
Robin failed to mention the guy. Regardless, she did not intend to mislead Katie with the faced-value sentence. The implicature was expected to be drawn through
the noun phrase “tongue person” which in this case was Kyle. According to Levinson 1983, if the speaker uses slang, the speaker flouts maxim of manner p.
104. Robin’s utterance was obscure to mention Kyle as “tongue person”, which in terms of CP, constituted the flouting of maxim of manner.
2 Uttering ambiguous sentences
Flouting the maxim of manner occurred when the speaker said ambiguous language or used another language which made the utterance incomprehensible for
the hearer. Moreover, if the speaker used slang or his voice was not loud enough,
53 the speaker flouted this maxim Levinson, 1983, p. 104. The following excerpt
explained the account of using other language, described as follows:
S02E22MNFL19 Barney: No es possible. – Nobody moves to Argentina. The Argentinean peso has dropped
two-thirds in five years, the government is opposed to free market reforms, and the railroad has been a mess since the breakup of Ferrocarriles Argentinos.
By the sign of the laughter track, uttering other languages by no mean to mislead the hearer was potential to create humorous effects as appeared in the above
excerpt. In the situation, Barney flouted maxim of manner because he used Argentinean by no mean to make the hearer misunderstood his utterance Levinson,
1983, p. 104. However, in terms of CP, the fashion of his utterance constituted flouting maxim of manner.
3 Being not brief
Flouting maxim of manner in this research was done by proceeding the fashion of constructing the utterances, as transpired from the following utterance:
S02E06MNFL4 Druthers: Now, as most of you know, my Pete Rose, Pete Rose, Pete Rose baseball has
been stolen.
The above utterance presented how the character, Druthers, uttered that his
baseball which was signed by the athlete Pete Rose three times. He fashioned his utterance by mentioning “Pete Rose” three times to emphasize how valuable the
baseball for him was. However, in terms of CP, the fashion of Druthers’ utterance was unnecessary which constituted the flouting maxim of manner Thomas, 1995.
