Analysis on a Situation which Suspends maxims

73 EXCERPT S02E11QLFL6 SI At Lily’s apartment, Barney was smoking facing over the opened window while he was sick and it was winter. NA Conversation 1 Robin: Barney. What the hell are you doing? Get in here, it’s freezing outside. Are you insane? 2 Barney: Hey, blame Lily and her oppressive ‘no cigars in the apartment rule.’ God, it’s like Marshall’s marrying the Taliban. SO Flouting maxim of quality LM Exaggeration TA Lily’s ‘No Cigar’s rule’ LA Using word ‘Taliban’ As appeared in the excerpt S02E11QLFL6, Barney’s utterance was the punchline where the humor appeared. The humor arouse within a narrative strategy NA: conversation. The conversation was situated SI when Robin cared about Barney’s condition by asking him to get inside. As Barney threw the guilt on Lily’s ‘No cigar’ rule in return TA, his utterance constituted flouting maxim of quality in form of exaggeration by using word LA ‘Taliban’. Thus, the flouted maxim of quality, in terms of GTVH characterized as the Script Opposition SO as was explained by Attardo 1994. Barney’s utterance “God, it’s like Marshall’s marrying the Taliban.” was seen as an incongruity in that script opposition, since his utterance was fictitious that somebody literally married to an Islamic organization “Taliban”. Equipped with above resource knowledge, the humorous effects was expected to be generated within the logical mechanism LM. The logical mechanism LM started to run as the exaggeration occurred in the conversation. In other words, the exaggeration represented impossibility which in terms of incongruity theory was incongruous. The occurrence of the incongruous situation logically violated the audiences’ normal viewpoint of responses of certain kinds of statement in such situation. Thus, the violation flouting maxim of quality was contributable to create humorous effect. 74

b. Violating

The following excerpt illustrated the conversation in which humor was attributable to the violating maxim of quality. As stated in chapter 2, utterances demanded to obey the maxim of quality. One should try to be truthful, and does give information that was false or that was not supported evidence. EXCERPT S02E02QLVL1 SI In the apartment, Marshall was aggrieved because Barney twice in a row took the girl he approached at the bar. NA Conversation 1 Marshall: I hate you. 2 Barney: I am so sorry. It’s a sickness. I’m the real victim here. 3 Marshall: Twice. Twice in a row, you took my candy. That was my candy. SO Violating maxim of quality LM Exaggeration TA Barney’s concoction LA Using hyperbolic sentence In the conversation above, humor from the jab line uttered by Barney which occurred within a conversation between Barney and Marshall NA. In the situation SI, Marshall seemed so crestfallen at what Barney did to him. He was aggrieved at the unfair deal. Barney, the one who was supposed to be the wingman, handed over the deal twice. The humor sprang up from Barney’s exchange to Marshall’s utterance. In Barney’s utterance, pretended to be sorry for what he did, instead, he deliberately took the girl twice. He concocted TA a reason of what he did, that it was a sickness. His language LA was hyperbolic. He reasoned out that the sickness could not be helped, and he was the victim of which. As was known, there never such sickness exists in the world. Obviously, Barney uttered untruthful words which in terms of CP, he violated the first sub maxim of quality SO. Accordingly, the humorous effects were generated LM from Barney’s utterance for disobeying the objectivity. He attributed the cause of his behavior to the sickness. Logically, he violated the conceptual patterns held by the audiences. Barney’s performance in