Background of the Study

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

In social life, the function of language is as communication tool 1 . In communication, language is used to express the argument, request, promise, and soon. There are many ways to communicate, one of them is conversation. Conversation occurs between the speaker and the listener, where the listener understands the speaker‟s message. Conversation is one of the most popular uses of human language 2 . It can deliver the message to each other in the form of idea, feeling, thought, and emotion easily. In conversation, the speaker and listener produce utterances and exchange information, therefore both of speaker and listener should cooperative each other in order to avoid misunderstanding and make an ideal conversation. In pragmatics, the way to understand how to make a perfect conversation can be seen in Cooperative Principle theory proposed by Grice. Based on Grice in Yule 1996, “Make your conversational 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 engage 3 .” To make a good conversation, the speaker and listener should have one interpretation in order to avoid misunderstanding. Misunderstanding often occurs when the listener does not understand the meaning 1 Abdul, Chaer, Linguistik Umum. Jakarta:PT.Rineka Cipta, 2012. p.30 2 Anthony J. Liddicoat, An Introduction to Conversation Analysis. London: Continuum, 2007. p.1 3 George Yule, Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. p.37 of the speaker‟s utterance. Consequently, the listener makes a misinterpretation of the speaker utterance. Sometimes, the speaker is not just talking or communicating but the speaker delivers an implicit meaning to other person. The speaker usually put an implicit meaning in a utterance which different with the speaker says. It is an additional conveyed meaning, called an implicature 4 . Implicature is a component of speaker meaning that constitutes an aspect of what is meant in a speaker‟s utterance without being part of what is said 5 . In other hand, the speaker intends to communicate is more invisible than the speaker directly expresses. As Grice states that what people say and what people mean are often different matters. So that the listener need to understand a knowledge of four maxim that allows listener to draw inferences about the speaker‟s intention and implied meaning. The meaning conveyed by speaker and recovered as a result of the listener inferences, is known as conversational implicature 6 . There are cooperative principle of conversation and elaborated in four sub-principle called maxim which defined by Grice such as maxim of quality, maxim of quantity, maxim of relevance, and maxim of manner 7 . In the using of language every day, people often use conversational implicature to express a specific purpose 8 . Conversational implicture appears not only in every day talk but also in formal interview. Interview is a conversation between a journalist or radio or television 4 Ibid. p.35 5 Horn, Laurence R. “Implicature”. The Handbook of Pragmatics. Australia: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. p.3 6 Joan Cutting, Pragmatics and Discourse: A Source Book of Student, London: Routledge,2002. p.36 7 Ibid, p.37 8 Jaccob. L. Mey, An Introduction Pragmatics. United Kingdom: Blackwell,2001.p. 45 presenter and a person of public interest used as the basis of a broadcast or publication 9 . For this research focused on the transcript ABC interview bwtween Barbara Walters and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad interview. And this research will be analyzed with discourse analysis because it studies of the meaning of words in context, analyzing the parts of meaning that can be explained by knowledge of the physical and social world, and the socio-psychological factors influencing communication, as well as the knowledge of the time and place in which the words uttered or written 10 . Barbara Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author and television personality. She has hosted morning television show Today and The View, the television news magazine 2020, co-anchored at ABC Evening News, and was contributor to ABC News 11 . She is the only American journalist who was able to interview Syrian President since the Syrian crisis. Meanwhile, Bashar al- Assad is the president of Syrian who has an authoritarian regime. It is inherited to him since his father Hafez Assad be a president at that time. Syrian President Bashar al- Assad required to step down because Assad family has lead the country over 20 years. His people assume that Assad will make the dynasty to control Syria but he refuses to change his position as president. So that, he becomes a controversial Middle East country president and United Nation has given a warning solve the issue in his country. In his interview, Assad has a defense to stand on his position and he does not say it explicitly. This reason quite interest to 9 http:www.oxforddictionaries.comdefinitionenglishinterview 10 Joan Cutting, Op. Cit, p.2 11 http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiBarbara_Walters analyze because there are many non-observance maxim of cooperative principle on verbal interaction in these interview. For example: Walters : Do you feel now that you still have the support of your people? Assad : if you don‟t have the support of the people you cannot be in this position. The conversation above, Assad seems does non-observance maxim of cooperative principle because he does flouting maxim of relation by not answering the question relevantly. Walter‟s question needs „yes‟ or „no‟ answer but Assad replay it with a sentence which contain „yes‟ or „no‟ answer. By answering „if you don‘t have the people........be in this position‟ Assad justifies that he has people to support him as President but he does not say it directly. The example of conversation above clearly indicates that implicit meaning often found in this interview transcript. Therefore, this research quite attract to discuss because involved influential people who have a great passion to achieve their aims even though the world claim that he is a dictator. He also has good accomplishment to persuade people for some support to raise their goals.

B. Focus of the Research