5 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
2 Quantity: Make your contribution sufficiently informative for the current purposes of the conversation. Do not make your contribution more, or less informative than is
required. 3 Relevance: Make sure that whatever you say is relevant to the conversation at hand.
4 Manner: Avoid obscurity of expression Avoid ambiguity
Be brief avoid unnecessary prolixity Be orderly
Grice pointed out that these maxims are not always observed, but he made a distinction between quietly violating a maxim and openly flouting a maxim. Violations
are quiet in the sense that it is not obvious at the time of the utterance that the speaker has deliberately lied, supplied insufficient information, or been ambiguous, irrelevant or
hard to understand. In Grice’s analysis, these violations might hamper communication but they do not lead to implicatures. What leads to implicatures is a situation where the
speaker flouts a maxim. That is, it is obvious to the hearer at the time of the utterance that the speaker has deliberately and quite openly failed to observe one or more maxims.
According to Grice, the implicature is made possible by the fact that we normally assume that speakers do not really abandon the
cooperative principle although in conversations they sometimes face a clash between maxims.
Grice viewed these rules not as arbitrary conventions, but as instances of more general rules governing rational, cooperative behavior. For example, if a woman is
helping a man build a house, she will hand him a hammer rather than a tennis racket relevance, more than one nail when several are needed quantity, straight nails rather
than bent ones quality, and she will do all this quickly and efficiently manner. Generalizing from the explanation above, Grice provided a theoretical account
of what it is to conversationally implicate something that has been widely adopted, sometimes with subtle variations.
3. Methodology
The methodology employed in this study is descriptive qualitative. A qualitative study is an inquiry process of understanding a social or human problem,
based on building a complex, holistic picture, formed with words, reporting detailed views of informants, and conducted in a natural setting. Cresswell,1994. The objective
6 of this study is to analyze pragmatically the conversational implicatures of a
conversational transcript based on Grice’s Cooperative Principle and its maxims. The data were taken from conversation transcript of Today’s Dialogue program on Metro TV
“Thoughts on The Reshuffle,” Today’s Dialogue program on Metro TV were selected since it is a formal dialogue and interesting to analyze. The process of data analysis
comprises arranging, organizing, categorizing, and interpreting or giving meaning. Glaser and Strauss expressed by Strauss claim that the focus of analysis is not merely on
collecting or ordering a mass of data, but on organizing many ideas which have emerged from analysis of the data Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987, cited in Lynch,
1996. 20 dialogues questions and answers excerpts which are taken from conversation transcript of today’s dialogue program are analyzed based on Grice’s
Cooperative Principle and its maxims.
4. Findings And Discussion
As mention earlier, based on the theoretical framework, we proceed to analyze the conversational implicatures in the questions and answers excerpts. There are 20
dialogues questions and answers excerpts which are taken from conversation transcript of today’s dialogue program on Metro TV. They were analyzed based on Grice’s
Cooperative Principle and its maxims. Before we report the findings, we want to clarify a point that implicatures are used only for the purpose of expressing intended meaning
on behalf of the speaker, which can be conveyed by flouting one maxim while prominently upholding another, and which can be worked out by the hearer. The
findings are drawn as follow: Table 1. The Maxims Flouted in Conversation
No The Maxims flouted
Dialogues Frequency
1. Maxim of Quality
17, 18 2 9, 52
2. Maxim of Quantity
1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19,
20. 16 76, 19
4. Maxim of Relation
Relevance 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,
12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20.
17 80, 95 5.
Maxim of Manner 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13,
14, 16, 10 47, 61
7 Based on the table above, in the conversation the four maxims are flouted. The
maxims of relevance are frequently flouted 80, 95 the highest score. 17 out of 20 dialogues flouted this maxim. The second frequently flouted are the maxim of quantity
76, 19, and then followed by maxim of manner 47, 61 and maxim of quality 6, 52. These maxims are considered to be flouted based on the category and the
characteristic given by Grace 1967. In accordance with the finding above, we chose some segments of the
conversation to analyze. Most of dialogues flouted the maxim of relevance and maxim of quantity. According to Thomas 1995 the maxim of relation is exploited by making a
response or observation which is very obviously irrelevant to the topic in hand. Let see the example in dialogue 4 see the appendix:
Meutia: Pak Darwin, do you also think there should be a reshuffle? Darwin: Whether we are talking about a government or a company, it is natural that
personalities are judged in line with the targets that have been reached. If we are objective, we can see that many targets have been reached by ministers.
The problem is really one of perception. If you don’t want to say any minister’s names, then at least give the portfolios they are responsible for.
In the above example, the maxim of relation Be relevant is exploited by making a response or observation which is very obviously irrelevant to the question in
hand e.g., by abruptly changing the subject, or by overtly failing to address the other person’s goal on asking a question. Examples of flouting the maxim of Relevance by
changing the subject or by failing to address the topic directly are encountered very frequently. In this example, Darwin makes a response which is truthful, clear, etc.,
however it is not relevant with Mutiah’s question. What it does not do is to address Mutiah’s goal in asking the question: she wants to know whether Pak Darwin, think
there should be a reshuffle. This dialogue also flouts maxim quantity and manner since it blatantly gives more informative response and obscurity of expression. Let see
another example in dialogue 7:
Meutia: The SBY administration is already halfway through its term. Pak Eko, why is
it so urgent to have a reshuffle now?
Eko: The public are demanding one.
In the above excerpt, Eko’s response appears to flout the maxim of Quantity. There is less information to answer Mutiah’s question. A flout of the maxim of quantity
occurs when a speaker blatantly gives more or less information than the situation
8 requires Thomas, 1995. Actually, we have no reason to believe that Eko is being
deliberately uncooperative i.e., that he is failing to observe the CP. We may conclude that his failure to observe the maxim of Quantity is due to his wish to observe the CP in
some other way. As we have seen, Grice’s explanation for the non-observance of the maxim of
Quantity in this instance is that the speaker was faced with a clash of maxims. In this instance, Eko found himself unable simultaneously to observe the maxims of Quality
and Quantity, which signaled his dilemma by flagrantly failing to give the right amount of information and prompted his interlocutor to look for an implicature.
Flouting maxim of manner can be seen in the excerpt of dialogue 17:
Meutia: As the head of the party’s executive committee, you should … Priyo: If the president decides that, then we must respect his decision, because it’s his
choice. Our internal meetings have agreed as much and this was further clarified to us by Pak Kalla. We are currently focusing on why our popularity has fallen in
the opinion polls. If Golkar gets more seats on the cabinet, that’s great. If not, then that’s the president’s decision.
In this dialogue, Prio’s answer is not perspicuous in responding the question. Prio could simply have replied: “I should… or I will …” His actual response is
extremely long-winded and convoluted and it is obviously no accident, nor through any inability to speak clearly, he is not briefly answering the question that he has flouted the
maxim of manner. In this discussion we can also identify when the maxim of quality is flouted as the following see the appendix dialogue 19:
Meutia: Just as long as you don’t get less cabinet posts than the three you have at the
moment?
Priyo: Well, that really would be too much if we got fewer seats If we got more seats,
that would be great. If we didn’t get any more, well ok, that’s ok. But I think the president has already thought long and hard about this. Because until now,
Golkar has been one of the key parties that has supported his administration.
In the above dialogue, we can observe that Prio flouted the maxims of quality. According to Thomas 1995, flouts which exploit the maxim of quality occur when the
speaker says something which is blatantly untrue or for which he or she lack adequate evidence. In the above dialogue, Prio can not decide for sure whether his explanation is
true or not. When he use the words I think.., It shows that he can not give adequate evidence for his statement.
9
5. Summary
