Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

The main function of language is to communicate ideas between humans.Edward Sapir stated that language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by meansof a system of voluntarily produced symbols Poole, 1999: 4. From this definition, Sapir explains that language is a speech tool or sign language. As the sign or tool, language refers to certain objects or concepts or ideas or emotions which are accepted by humans. This thing shows that there is an association between words and objects or concepts made by the community who uses the word or language. The speakers of the language can understand the communication because they utter the same word and language. To have a good conversation, speakers have to understand the language that they useto convey their concept or idea. To understand the language, speakers need to know the meanings of language used; how the meanings of words used in phrase and sentence meanings to show their thought. As it is said in An Introduction to Language: 7 th edition : To understand language we need to know the meaning of words and of the morphemes that compose them. We also must know how the meanings of words combine into phrase and sentence meanings Fromkin and Rodman, 2003: 173. The study of what the words means by themselves, out of context, as they are in a dictionary is called Semantics Cutting, 2002: 1. In Semantics, the domains of word meanings are based on the ‘dictionary meaning’. It means that the speakers of language share the same meanings of words based on the dictionary agreed by all the speakers of language. This dictionary is in speakers’s mind and helps them to express their th ought and understand the other’s utterance in communication. In certain conditions, it is difficult to understand the speakers’ meaning based on the dictionary meaning. Sometimes, the meanings of their utteranceonly can be understood by knowing the context or situation when they utter. For example, when someone says “It’s cold in here”, this sentence can be seen as the statement. However, if this utterance is said in the situation when the speaker is in the room and it is in the winter now, his utterance can mean a complaint and perhaps more indirectly a request to turn up the heating Verschueren, 1998: 5- 6.From this example above, it is impossible to understand the second meaning based on semantics level, since semantics only see how the words literally connect to things without considering how they are used in certain condition or situation. The study of language use, or to employ a somewhat more complicated phrasing, the study of linguistic phenomena from the point of view of their usage properties and processes is called pragmatics Verschueren, 1998: 1. Here, pragmaticsis allowed to analyzethe language through people’s intended meanings, their assumptions, their goals, and the kinds of action that they are performing when they speak. In pragmatics, when speakers utter, they are hoped giving the required utterance in the conversation for cooperating with each other. According to Grice, there are some requirements needed in the speakers’ utterance to make the conversation runs well. These requirements are called maxims of cooperative principle. There are four maxims: quantity, quality, relation, and manner. In the application of these maxims, not all people follow the maxims in their utterance. When some people talk unrelated with the topic which is discussing in the conversation intentionally or unintentionally, it is called violating the maxims. It is supported by J. Thomas in Meaning in Interaction in Cutting, 2002: 40 that the maxim violation occurs when the speaker delivers insincere, irrelevant or ambiguous, and the hearer wrongly assumes that they are cooperating.It can be concluded that violation always breaks the four rules of maxims of cooperative principle in the conversation. In the example above, when the listener is not able to understand the speaker’s implied meaning a request to close the window, and gives response like “yes, it is”, it shows the listener violates the maxim maxim of relation. Violation often can be seen in every conversation, especially for the reason of humour. InThe New Encyclopedia Britannica, the form of humour happens when the perceiving of a situation in two self-consistent but mutually incompatible frames of reference or associative contexts Benton ed., 1983: 6. In The Language of Jokes, humour occurs when there are two-faced meanings applied in the conversation. It causes the ambiguity, misunderstanding, contradiction, amusement, and laughter. These two-faced meanings can occur because the speakers do not respect Grice ’s cooperative principle well in the conversation. In other words, the speakers are playing with the rules of conversation Grice’s cooperative principle to create the ambiguity and misunderstanding, and finally elicit the laughter from the audiences Chiaro, 1992: 43-44. In this thesis, the writer analyses the violations of conversational maxims through TV-seriesThe Thin Blue Line Season 1 Episode 3: Honey Trap. The maxims of cooperative principle will be used to explain the kinds of violations happen in this film. The Thin Blue line Season 1 is a TV-series made in England in 1995. This film is about the life of police officers in Glasforth. In this film, the main actor “Rowan Atkinson” as an arrogance Inspector Fowler, has to face his weird and clumsy officers in his daily life. This film is divided in 6 series and each series takes an hour. The writer chooses this TV-series because most of humouroccurred by violatio n of Grice’s cooperative principles during the conversation Chiaro, 1992: 44. Here, the writer tries to reveal how the manipulation of Grice’s cooperative principles can create the humorous situation and finally provoke people’s laughter. In this TV-series, the characters utilize maxims in their conversation in oder to make the film funny and the people laugh. This thesis is interesting to be analysed because it can help the readers to understand deeper humorous situation occured in this TV-series. Besides, the readers can understand how the violations of conversational maxims can create the humour in this TV-series.

A. Problem Formulation