Analysis of the Rise of Conflicts Due to the Non-Observance of Gricean Maxims in Revenge TV Series Season 1 & 2.
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Maranatha Christian University
ABSTRACT
Dalam penulisan tugas akhir ini, saya melakukan analisis terhadap satu drama serial yang berjudul Revenge. Saya menganalisis pelanggaran-pelanggaran aturan dalam percakapan-percakapan antar tokoh-tokohnya, yang kemudian berakhir dengan adanya konflik di antara mereka. Analisis ini saya lakukan dengan menggunakan teori bidal dari H. P Grice (1975) yang mengkategorikan pelanggaran-pelanggaran dalam percakapan tersebut ke dalam beberapa jenis.
Beberapa tokoh dalam film serial ini seringkali menyelipkan arti tersembunyi yang ingin ia sampaikan kepada lawan bicaranya dengan tujuan tertentu. Makna tersembunyi tersebut kemudian menimbulkan konflik. Selain menyelipkan makna tersembunyi, beberapa tokoh dalam film ini juga berbohong untuk sekedar membela diri atau menyembunyikan rahasia yang mereka miliki.
Dalam analisis ini saya menemukan bahwa pelanggaran jenis flouting a maxim of manner adalah jenis yang paling banyak dilakukan. Selain itu, semua pelanggaran ini dipicu oleh dendam yang dimiliki oleh tokoh utama, yang merupakan inti dari drama serial ini.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... i
ABSTRACT ... ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study ... 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem ... 4
1.3 Purpose of the Study ... 4
1.4 Method of the Research ... 4
1.5 Organization of the Thesis ... 4
CHAPTER TWO : THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 Flouting a maxim ... 8
2.2 Violating a maxim ... 11
2.3 Infringing a maxim ... 11
2.4 Opting out of a maxim ... 11
2.5 Suspending a maxim ... 12
CHAPTER THREE : ANALYSIS OF THE RISE OF CONFLICTS DUE TO THE NON-OBSERVANCE OF GRICEAN MAXIMS IN REVENGE TV SERIES SEASONS 1 & 2 ... 14
CHAPTER FOUR : CONCLUSION ... 29
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 33
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Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Human beings are social creatures who cannot live only by themselves. In everyday life, we as human beings have to communicate with one another to share our thoughts, to tell our needs, and to live. That is why communication is inevitable for us. Thus, to fulfil the needs of communication, language is created.
According to Oxford Advanced Dictionary, ‘language is the use by human of a system of sounds and words to communicate’ (“Language”, def. 2). Yet, for some reasons, people cannot simply say what they want to say, accordingly; Pragmatics exists.
It is not rare that people utter something opposite to what they actually want to convey, or they say ambiguous things, or saying something that lacks evidence, with or without any intention to mislead the hearer. All of those issues are studied in Pragmatics. “Pragmatics is the study of the speaker’s meaning dealing with utterances. It is the study of the contextual meaning.” (Thomas 1)
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In a conversation, there is a rule. This rule of conversation is made so that the conversation can run smoothly. A philosopher from England who is a linguist, H.P. Grice, introduced the four conversational maxims and the cooperative principle. These four conversational maxims and the cooperative principle will be explained in details in Chapter Two. Basically, this rule becomes an identifier to categorize the utterances that fail to observe the principle into several categories of the types of non-observance. There are flouting the maxim, violating the maxim, infringing the maxim, opting out of the maxim, and suspending the maxim. (Thomas 65)
As I have mentioned earlier, people often say something which is different from what they really want to say. In Pragmatics, that speaker meaning is called implicature. Accoding to H.P. Grice, “To imply is to hint, suggest or convey some meaning indirectly by means of language” (Thomas 1). The implicature could be understood by a lot of expectations and assumptions, and it all depends on the situation and condition at that time.
In Revenge TV Series, I find some utterances which fail to observe the maxims. In this thesis, I would like to analyze the conversation uttered by the major characters: Emily Thorne (the protagonist), Victoria (the antagonist) and the members of Victoria’s family, such as her husband, Conrad, and her children, Daniel and Charlotte.
Because this TV series is about revenge, the characters have many secrets and lies. Thus, I can tell that the non-observance of maxims often happens because of those two things, secrets and lies.
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Maranatha Christian University The main character, Emily Thorne, is on the mission for revenge. Everything about her is a fake. Because of that, she often fails to observe the maxims.
Victoria often fails to observe the maxims because she does not want people around her to know about her past, especially her children. As a result, lying is not something rare in Victoria’s life.
Conrad, who is Victoria’s husband, apparently has an affair with Victoria’s best friend. Hence, the same as Victoria, he has a tendency to lie or mislead people around him. In other words, he often fails to observe the maxim.
Victoria’s daughter has family issues which make her use drugs and have a lot of problems. She lies to hide the truth of her using drugs and it makes her often fail to observe the maxims.
Victoria’s son, who is also Emily’s boyfriend, Daniel, knows nothing about the situation that happens in his family. He usually becomes the one who is misled by people around him because he trusts people easily.” (IMDb)
I hope my thesis can be beneficial to the readers. Misinterpretation between the speaker and the hearer usually triggers a conflict. Through my thesis about the rise of the conflict due to the non-observances of Gricean maxims, the readers will become more aware of the implicature within one’s utterances, the way they interpret what they hear or read, so that conflicts can be avoided. Moreover, they can become more cautions of those utterances which intends to mislead.
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1.2 Statement of the Problem
In my thesis, there are three problems to be analyzed: 1. Which utterance does not observe the Gricean maxim?
2. What type of non-observance of the Gricean Maxim does it belong to? 3. How do the conflicts arise due to the non-observances of Gricean
Maxims?
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purposes of this study are:
1. To find out which utterance does not observe the Gricean maxim. 2. To classify the type of maxim it belongs to.
3. To analyze how these non-observance of maxims arise the conflict.
1.4 Method of Research
The first step I did for this research is I read the theory of maxims until I really understood it. Second, I looked for a TV series which has so many conflicts because of the failure of observing the Gricean Maxims. I watched it and collected the data. Third, after I had sufficient data, I started to analyze the type of the maxims which the character fails to observe and relate it to the conflicts.
1.5 Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One is Introduction, which contains Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two
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Maranatha Christian University contains Theoretical Framework. Chapter Three contains the analysis of the data. Chapter Four contains the conclusion of the discussion in Chapter Three. At the end of this thesis, there is Bibliography, consisting of the sources and the references which are used to support this analysis, and Appendix.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I would like to give my personal opinion about my findings concerning the non-observances in Revenge TV Series that cause conflicts. In order to make a conversation run smoothly, one should observe the rule of conversation. The failure to observe it will cause a conflict between the speaker and the hearer. In Revenge TV Series, there are a lot of conflicts which are caused by the failure to observe the maxims. From analyzing 26 data in total, I find 22 data of flouting the maxim and 4 data of violating the maxim. However, I find none of suspending, opting out of, and infringing the maxim.
Based on the findings, the biggest number of data is the flouting of the maxim; thus, there are a lot of implicatures which the speakers wish the hearers to look for. Yet, the speakers all have different reasons to imply their meaning in their utterances. In my opinion, besides the characteristics of the characters, I can say that a certain situation causes someone to flout a certain maxim.
This biggest number data of flouting the maxim also gives an effect to the audience. Since the speaker often flouts the maxim, the audience has to really pay attention to the dialogues from the beginning until the end besides the context of this TV series. If they miss some important parts of the stories, they may not catch the implicature of the speaker’s utterance. Hence, the audience
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Maranatha Christian University will not understand the causes of the conflict to occurs, which then makes this TV series boring.
The characteristics of the character can also become one of the factors of the failure of observing the maxims. For instance, the main character, Emily, is smart and she does not trust other people easily. It makes her more aware of people who try to manipulate her. With her knowledge, she can corner people who try to deceive her, but not directly. Another example is Charlotte, who is a little childish and careless. She cannot be responsible for anything she does; consequently, she tends to look for excuses so as not be blamed. Hence, she often fails to observe the maxim by lying or changing the topic.
The other type of the non-observance is violating the maxim. There are 4 out of 26 data found or 15 %, so I conclude that in this TV series the characters only have a slight intention to mislead. Frank and Charlotte are the characters who violate the maxim. I believe it to happen because the situation forces them to do it. They are being cornered by the other party and both of them want to protect themselves from being blamed on something that they have actually done. Frank pretends that he does not understand the reason why Conrad is mad with him, while Charlotte lies about having taken drugs. As I have mentioned earlier, the audience cannot afford to miss the episodes; or else they may not know if the speaker lies or tells the truth.
In my analysis, I find some utterances of suspending, opting out of, and infringing the maxim but they do not end up with conflicts. Therefore, they do not become the data of my research. In this television series, there are indeed some scenes in which the speaker is drunk, but I do not find anything from their utterances which lead to conflicts. I do not find any conflicts caused by taboo
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words or the ethical reasons which cause them to fail in cooperating the maxims. There are four types of maxim that are flouted, namely flouting the maxim of quality, quantity, relation, and manner. In my analysis, from those four types, the most data found is flouting the maxim of manner, namely thirteen data. The second most data is flouting the maxim of relation, which is five, and followed by two data of flouting the maxim of quality, and one data of flouting the maxim of quantity.
According to the number of data found above, it can be concluded that the characters in this TV series are likely to talk indirectly or unclearly. It all depends on the situation at that time. For instance, Conrad wants to fire his confidant, Frank. Yet, the fact is Frank has been working for Conrad for quite a long time, and he should be grateful to Frank. Because of that, Conrad does not want to say his intention directly. The other example is Marion, who wants to ask for Victoria’s help. However, she was very mean to Victoria in the past; moreover, they have not been talking for 35 years. Therefore, she conveys her intention indirectly.
The second most data found is flouting the maxim of relation. The main reason for this is because they want to avoid a topic. Referring to Charlotte and Emily as examples, both of them want to avoid the question and change the topic. Charlotte is afraid of her mother when her mother asks her about her taking drugs, while Emily is also afraid that Daniel will find out her secret.
I only find two data which flout the maxim of quality uttered by Conrad and Emily. Conrad says, ‘no’ when Frank asks him if he fires him, when both Conrad and Frank know that the truth is the opposite. Emily says, ‘Oh I believe that’ with a sarcastic tone and she roles her eyes. From her body language, we can see that Emily actually does not believe Tyler’s story. In this case, Tyler catches
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Maranatha Christian University Emily’s implicature which makes him really mad because he feels insulted. From those cases, I conclude that when someone flouts the maxim of quality, they expect the hearer to catch their implied meaning. Usually, when the hearer can catch the implicature, a conflict arises.
Since the genre of this TV series is drama, conflicts are indeed the main issue. I find verbal conflicts rather than physical conflicts because this series revolves around revenge. The verbal conflicts caused by the non-observances of the maxims make this TV series really interesting.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Data Source
“Revenge.” By Mike Kelley. IMDb, United States. 2012. Television. References
About Conflict. Academic Leadership Support, 2015. Web. 16 March 2015.
“Languange.” Def. 2. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2010. Print.
Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics. London & New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1995. Print Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Print
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contains Theoretical Framework. Chapter Three contains the analysis of the data. Chapter Four contains the conclusion of the discussion in Chapter Three. At the end of this thesis, there is Bibliography, consisting of the sources and the references which are used to support this analysis, and Appendix.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I would like to give my personal opinion about my findings concerning the non-observances in Revenge TV Series that cause conflicts. In order to make a conversation run smoothly, one should observe the rule of conversation. The failure to observe it will cause a conflict between the speaker and the hearer. In Revenge TV Series, there are a lot of conflicts which are caused by the failure to observe the maxims. From analyzing 26 data in total, I find 22 data of flouting the maxim and 4 data of violating the maxim. However, I find none of suspending, opting out of, and infringing the maxim.
Based on the findings, the biggest number of data is the flouting of the maxim; thus, there are a lot of implicatures which the speakers wish the hearers to look for. Yet, the speakers all have different reasons to imply their meaning in their utterances. In my opinion, besides the characteristics of the characters, I can say that a certain situation causes someone to flout a certain maxim.
This biggest number data of flouting the maxim also gives an effect to the audience. Since the speaker often flouts the maxim, the audience has to really pay attention to the dialogues from the beginning until the end besides the context of this TV series. If they miss some important parts of the stories, they may not catch the implicature of the speaker’s utte
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will not understand the causes of the conflict to occurs, which then makes this TV series boring.
The characteristics of the character can also become one of the factors of the failure of observing the maxims. For instance, the main character, Emily, is smart and she does not trust other people easily. It makes her more aware of people who try to manipulate her. With her knowledge, she can corner people who try to deceive her, but not directly. Another example is Charlotte, who is a little childish and careless. She cannot be responsible for anything she does; consequently, she tends to look for excuses so as not be blamed. Hence, she often fails to observe the maxim by lying or changing the topic.
The other type of the non-observance is violating the maxim. There are 4 out of 26 data found or 15 %, so I conclude that in this TV series the characters only have a slight intention to mislead. Frank and Charlotte are the characters who violate the maxim. I believe it to happen because the situation forces them to do it. They are being cornered by the other party and both of them want to protect themselves from being blamed on something that they have actually done. Frank pretends that he does not understand the reason why Conrad is mad with him, while Charlotte lies about having taken drugs. As I have mentioned earlier, the audience cannot afford to miss the episodes; or else they may not know if the speaker lies or tells the truth.
In my analysis, I find some utterances of suspending, opting out of, and infringing the maxim but they do not end up with conflicts. Therefore, they do not become the data of my research. In this television series, there are indeed some scenes in which the speaker is drunk, but I do not find anything from their utterances which lead to conflicts. I do not find any conflicts caused by taboo
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words or the ethical reasons which cause them to fail in cooperating the maxims. There are four types of maxim that are flouted, namely flouting the maxim of quality, quantity, relation, and manner. In my analysis, from those four types, the most data found is flouting the maxim of manner, namely thirteen data. The second most data is flouting the maxim of relation, which is five, and followed by two data of flouting the maxim of quality, and one data of flouting the maxim of quantity.
According to the number of data found above, it can be concluded that the characters in this TV series are likely to talk indirectly or unclearly. It all depends on the situation at that time. For instance, Conrad wants to fire his confidant, Frank. Yet, the fact is Frank has been working for Conrad for quite a long time, and he should be grateful to Frank. Because of that, Conrad does not want to say his intention directly. The other example is Marion, who wants to ask for Victoria’s help. However, she was very mean to Victoria in the past; moreover, they have not been talking for 35 years. Therefore, she conveys her intention indirectly.
The second most data found is flouting the maxim of relation. The main reason for this is because they want to avoid a topic. Referring to Charlotte and Emily as examples, both of them want to avoid the question and change the topic. Charlotte is afraid of her mother when her mother asks her about her taking drugs, while Emily is also afraid that Daniel will find out her secret.
I only find two data which flout the maxim of quality uttered by Conrad and Emily. Conrad says, ‘no’ when Frank asks him if he fires him, when both Conrad and Frank know that the truth is the opposite. Emily says, ‘Oh I believe that’ with a sarcastic tone and she roles her eyes. From her body language, we can see that Emily actually does not believe Tyler’s story. In this case, Tyler catches
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Emily’s implicature which makes him really mad because he feels insulted. From those cases, I conclude that when someone flouts the maxim of quality, they expect the hearer to catch their implied meaning. Usually, when the hearer can catch the implicature, a conflict arises.
Since the genre of this TV series is drama, conflicts are indeed the main issue. I find verbal conflicts rather than physical conflicts because this series revolves around revenge. The verbal conflicts caused by the non-observances of the maxims make this TV series really interesting.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Data Source
“Revenge.” By Mike Kelley. IMDb, United States. 2012. Television.
References
About Conflict. Academic Leadership Support, 2015. Web. 16 March 2015. “Languange.” Def. 2. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 7th ed. 2010. Print.
Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics. London & New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1995. Print Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Print