Aladeen summons all of his generals to discuss how he will address the UN council. While he explains about his plan, he wants to make a role play. Thus,
he calls one of his bodyguards. However, unintentionally, he shoots his bodyguard because someone has changed the safety catch. Both signs in the safety catch are
written as „Aladeen‟. It happens because Aladeen changes some words in Wadiyan language into „Aladeen‟.
Aladeen flouts maxim of manner because he gives an ambiguous response. This is the effect from one of his policies as a dictator in which he changes some
Wadiyan words into his name. The signs in the safety catch should be written as „on‟ and „off‟. Thus, people can know whether the gun is safe or not. In
conclusion, Aladeen flouts maxim of manner by being obscure.
2. Forms of Humor Created through Maxim Flouting in
The Dictator
Movie
From the data findings, the researcher found that Aladeen flouts all types of maxim to create humor. The discussion in this section is divided into four parts:
forms of humor created by maxim of quality flouting, maxim of quantity flouting, maxim of relation flouting, and maxim of manner flouting.
a. Forms of Humor Created through Maxim of Quality Flouting
Aladeen in
The Dictator
movie flouts maxim of quality to create two forms of humor, i.e. joke and spontaneous conversational humor. The forms of
spontaneous conversational humor that he created by employing maxim of quality flouting are irony, sarcasm, overstatement and understatement, teasing, clever
replies to serious statements and pun.
1 Joke
Joke consists of two things, they are a set up and a punch line. A set up is a particular set of expectations about how the situation should be interpreted. Yet,
the punch line is the final portion of the text, which causes surprises and humor. The following datum is an example of a joke performed by Aladeen in
The Dictator
movie. Nadal
: It‟s racist, what are you doing Aladeen
:
Do you know it’s a fact that they cannot pronounce their R’s? They pronounce them as L’s. So, instead you know
what “rabbit” is in Chinese?
Nadal : I don‟t know how to speak Chinese.
Aladeen :
It’s “labbit”.
Datum 29 This dialogue happens when Aladeen and Nadal want to scout Lancaster
Hotel by riding a helicopter. They pretend as two ordinary American tourists who are just sight-seeing. Nadal wants Aladeen to act normal, so he will not arouse any
suspicions. However, Aladeen acts like a Chinese person. He also says something untrue about how to
pronounce “rabbit” in Chinese by saying „ It‟s “labbit” „. Thus, he flouts maxim of quality.
Aladeen‟s utterance is categorized as a joke because there is a set up and a punch line. The set up is “Do you know it‟s a fact that they cannot pronounce their
R‟s? They pronounce them as L‟s. So, instead you know what “rabbit” is in Chinese?” This set up makes Nadal think that Aladeen knows how to pronounce
“rabbit” in Chinese and assumes that Aladeen can speak Chinese. However, the last utterance or usually called as a punch line, whi
ch is “It‟s “labbit”.” suddenly shifts the expectation and creates a surprising effect and humor.
The word “labbit”
