To reach the aim of this study, Pragmatic approach is applied in order to analyze the violations and floutings of conversational maxims done by the
characters in the situations comedy. Grice‟s Cooperative Principle and its four
conversational maxims theories are applied to examine the types of conversational maxims which are violated and flouted by the characters in order to create
humorous situations. Furthermore, humor theories are applied in order to analyze how the humorous situations are created by the violations and the floutings of
conversational maxims found in this situation comedy.
B. Problems Formulation
In order to limit the subject of discussion, there are two problems formulated as follows:
1. What are the types of violations and floutings of conversational maxims
appear in a situation comedy How I Met Your Mother season 2, episodes 1 to 5?
2. How do the violations and the floutings of conversational maxims found
create humorous situations in a situation comedy entitled How I Met Your Mother season 2, episodes 1 to 5?
C. Objectives of the Study
In order to answer the problems formulated above, there are two objectives of this study. The first objective is to find out the types of violations and floutings
of conversational maxims which appear in American situation comedy How I Met Your Mother Season 2, episodes 1 to 5. The more detailed identification of the
first objective is to analyze further about the context where the violated and the
flouted conversational maxims appear. The second objective of this study is to examine how the violations and floutings of conversational maxims can create
humorous situations in this American situation comedy.
D. Definition of Terms
To avoid misunderstanding, there are several terms in this study need to be explained as follows:
Cooperative Principle, often abbreviated as CP, is a theory suggested by
Grice as stated bellow: Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs,
by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged Thomas, 2013: 61-62.
By obeying the CP, people who are engaged in a conversation are supposed to respond one another by exchanging the sufficient amount of information which is
required by the situation. Besides Cooperative Principle, to guide the speakers in making their contributions appropriate in a conversation, Grice proposed sub-
principles of Cooperative Principle which is usually called as Conversational Maxim.
Conversational Maxims are the sub-principles of Cooperative Principle.
There are four Conversational Maxims proposed by Grice, which are Maxim of Quantity, Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Relation, and Maxim of Manner. When
two or more people are engaged in a conversation, they should follow those four Conversational Maxims in order to produce an efficient conversation. However,
the people who are engaged in a conversation may not obey the four
conversational maxims of Cooperative Principle. The conversational maxims which are not followed by the interlocutors are called to be violated or flouted.
Besides being obeyed, a maxim is able to be violated and flouted. Cutting
2002: 40 explains that a speaker is said to violate a maxim when he delivers
utterances and knows that the hearer will not understand the whole truth and will only know the surface meaning of the words or sentences related to the topic they
are talking about. In violating a maxim, a speaker intentionally wants to mislead or mischief the hearer.
On the other hand, a speaker is said to flout a maxim when he blatantly
fails to follow the conversational maxims but expect the interlocutors to understand the implied meaning Cutting, 2002: 37. In flouting a maxim, the
speaker assumes that the hearer knows the deeper meaning of the speaker‟s statement and will understand the implicature generated by the speaker.
The Encyclopedia of Britannica defines humor as a form of communication that evokes the reflex of laughter of people Benton ed, 1983: 7. It is also
explained in Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary that humor is “the quality in
something that mak es it funny or amusing”. By having the quality to be funny,
humor can create humorous situation and elicit laughter. According to Grice, as cited by Attardo 1994: 271-
276, “jokes or humor are non-cooperative”. Thus, humorous situations exist because there is non-cooperative interaction among
the interlocutors. This non-cooperative interaction occurs because the interlocutors do not obey the CP and its maxims by violating or flouting the rules.
By doing so, the humorous situation is created between the speakers and the hearers as the product of violating or flouting the maxims.
Humor exists in TV shows such as in situation comedy. According to The
American Heritage Dictionary as cited by Savorelli 2010, situation comedy is
“a humorous television series having a regular cast of characters.” From that explanation, it can be concluded that a situation comedy has the quality of being
funny. To get the deeper understanding about situation comedy, Savorelli 2010 presents the definition of situation comedy from the Encyclopedia Britannica
which defines situation comedy as:
Radio or television comedy series that involves a continuing cast of characters in a succession of episodes.
Often the characters are markedly different types thrown together by circumstance and occupying a shared environment such as an apartment
building or workplace. Typically half an hour in length and either taped in front of a studio audience or employing canned applause, they are marked
by verbal sparring and rapidly resolved conflict. Savorelli, 2010: 21
The definition stated above shows that a situation comedy is a TV show which is presented in series of episodes and is having a class or group of people as the
characters, such as friends, co-workers, or family members. In situation comedy, the characters often occupy a shared location such as an office, an apartment, a
café, or any other place.
9
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE
This chapter presents three subchapters, which are; first, review of related studies; second, review of related theories; and, third, theoretical framework. The
first subchapter, review of related studies, consists of papers and undergraduate thesis discussing the similar topic with the present study. The second subchapter,
review of related theories, consists of theories which are used to analyze the problems in this study. The third subchapter, theoretical framework, explains the
contribution of the theories and how they are applied in order to examine the problems in this study.
A. Review of Related Studies
There are several studies conducted under the same topic that have been done by some researchers.
The first study is “Humor Strategies in the American Sitcom Friends; An Empirical Study with Reference to Grice‟s Cooperative Principle”, which was
conducted by Yu-wen Wu and Yong Chen in 2010. In this study, Wu and Chen explore how American sitcom characters violate Grice‟s Cooperative Principle to
create humor in their daily conversation. The American situation comedy which is chosen as the data source from which the data are taken is Friends. Friends is a
situation comedy which describes the relationships and the daily lives among six close friends in New York. It is found that the humor strategies used by the
