their tension, emotion or psychic energy inside. Thus, at the moment they release their emotion, laughter arouses. This theory highlights the social and behavioral
components of humor since it gives temporary freedom from restrictions in daily life.
From the violations and floutings of conversational maxims that have been analyzed in the previous subchapter, the way of releasing emotion in order to
create laughter is found in five violations of maxim of Quantity, one violation of maxim of Relation, two floutings of maxim of Quantity, one flouting of maxim of
Relation, and four floutings of maxim of manner.
a. Releasing emotion in violation of maxim of Quantity
There are five violations of the maxim of Quantity containing humorous situation created by the release of emotion of the characters. The writer chooses
one of the violations and explains it as presented below.
Data code:
03VioQuanRls Ted
Hey Marshall. Marshall Hey Ted.
Ted Are you hungry?
Marshall Whats the point? I could eat some food, its just
gonna leave me.
Ted
At least in that scenario, you get to do the dumping. Come on, its Sunday, its pancakes
day
Marshall
Lily always made the pancakes. God, I loved her pancakes. So soft. So warmed. So perfectly
shaped.
Ted Are we still talking about her pancakes?
In the situation above, Marshall is still weak since he cannot get over his breakup with Lily. The conversation above takes place in the living room.
Marshall sleeps at the sofa until Ted wakes him up and asks him whether he is hungry or not. Helplessly, M
arshall answers Ted by saying: „Whats the point? I could eat some food, its just gonna leave me‟. Even though Marshall does not
want to listen, Ted still insists him to eat pancakes since that day is pancakes day. Unfortunately, the pancakes
– topic reminds him of Lily‟s pancakes. Thus, he becomes too sentimental and says
, “Lily always made the pancakes. God, I loved her pancakes. So soft. So warmed. So perfectly shaped.
” As it is explained in the previous subchapter, Marshall has violated Quantity maxim by
giving that answer to Ted. He provides excess information that is not required in the process of exchanging information. That respond is unnecessary since Ted
does not need any information about Lily‟s pancakes from Marshall.
Marshall‟s statement above which contains violation of Quantity maxim is seen as the expression of emotional feeling after he is being left by Lily. He is
hurting so much he cannot endure the pain. It is difficult for him to accept the fact that his relationship with Lily is over. Thus, he represses the pain in his mind and
releases the emotion by repeatedly talking about Lily. He does it anywhere and anytime without considering who he is talking to.
According to release theory of humor, laughter arouses when someone releases his emotion and energy as the effect of being suppressed by
circumstances. In the conversation above, it can be seen that Marshall talks about Lily‟s pancakes emotionally. Apparently, linked to release theory of humor,
Marshall‟s desperate action of babbling about anything related to Lily is the action which elicits laughter in that situation.
b. Releasing emotion in violation of maxim of Relation
There only one violation of the maxim of Relation containing humorous situation created by the release of emotion of the characters. The analysis of how
the humorous situation occurs is presented below.
Data code: Situation:
Ted, Robin, Marshall, Lily, and Barney are having brunch with Ted
’s parents. In the middle of it, Lily and Marshall are having a quarrel about who seduces who.
Lily Just admit it. You came here trying to seduce me.
16VioRelRls Marshall
Seduce you? You seduced me.
Lily You sat down next to me and took most of your
pants off.
Marshall You went to San Francisco for three months.
Lily
How is that seducing you?
Marshall Well, its not but Im still mad about it.
Above is a situation when Marshall is having a fight with Lily. They are arguing about who is seducing who. Lily accuses Marshall for seducing her and
vice versa. In the mid
dle of the fight, Marshall says, “You went to San Francisco for three months.
” As explained in the previous subchapter, his response above is not related to the topic of discussion they are having. He does that because he
still cannot accept the fact that his wedding with Lily is canceled due to the fact that Lily flies to San Francisco in order to chase her dream. Thus, he changes the
topic of discussion intentionally and blames Lily all over again for leaving him. Marshall‟s statement above can be seen as a violation of maxim of Relation.
