The Role of Non-Observance of The Gricean Maxims that Leads to Humor in Couple Jokes in Jokes-Best.Com and Laughfactory.Com.
ABSTRACT
Dalam tugas akhir ini, saya mengambil topik tentang The Role of Nonobservance of the Gricean Maxims That Leads to Humor. Saya menganalisis
sebelas cerita lucu tentang pasangan suami istri menggunakan teori bidal atau
maxim dari Herbert Paul Grice. Kemudian analisis tersebut diperjelas dengan
menggunakan teori Script Incongruity dari Victor Raskin.
Data yang saya gunakan dalam tugas akhir ini bersumber dari Internet,
yaitu jokes-best.com dan laughfactory.com. Berdasarkan analisis dari sebelas data
tersebut, saya mencermati bahwa humor terjadi karena adanya pelanggaran
terhadap bidal yang menyebabkan terbentuknya implikatur, dan memicu
terbentuknya dua skenario yang berbeda dalam sebuah data. Teori Script
Incongruity digunakan untuk meneliti perubahan skenario dalam suatu data yang
akan berujung pada terciptanya sebuah humor.
Berdasarkan data-data yang telah saya analisis, saya menyimpulkan bahwa
pelanggaran prinsip-prinsip bidal yang paling banyak terjadi adalah maxim of
manner. Hal ini sering terjadi di kehidupan nyata karena banyaknya pernyataan
yang dilontarkan secara ambigu, atau tidak jelas sehingga pendengar harus
menemukan makna tersembunyi dari pernyataan tersebut. Hal ini menimbulkan
efek humor.
iii
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................. i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... iii
CHAPTER ONE : INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ......................................................................... 1
Statement of the Problem ......................................................................... 4
Purpose of the Study ................................................................................. 4
Methods of Research ................................................................................ 4
Organization of the Thesis ....................................................................... 5
CHAPTER TWO : THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................. 6
CHAPTER THREE : THE ROLE OF NON-OBSERVANCE
OF THE GRICEAN MAXIMS THAT LEADS TO HUMOR
IN COUPLE JOKES IN JOKES-BEST.COM
AND LAUGHFACTORY.COM .......................................................... 14
CHAPTER FOUR : CONCLUSION .............................................................. 29
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................. 34
APPENDICES ................................................................................................... 35
ii
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
In daily life, people always communicate with one another in order to say
something. One of the ways to communicate is by doing a conversation. Through
conversation, people may share their ideas, opinions, or utter anything on their
mind. However, in the way of communicating, sometimes it does not work
perfectly.
Within people’s conversation, there are some cases in which people say
more or less than they actually mean; they may give an ambiguous statement; they
may utter something that is totally irrelevant to the topic discussed; or they even
fail to observe the maxim because of several problems. We might get many
examples in daily life within a conversation between the speaker and the hearer.
When those situations occur, there is a possibility that the hearer(s) will
get misunderstanding by the message sent by the speaker because the speaker’s
utterance is not explicit. For example, while having a long conversation, the
speaker says “My husband is here to pick me up.” to her friend in which she
1
Maranatha Christian University
implies that she has to go and they have to end the conversation. In this example,
the hearer will have to infer what the speaker means in saying the utterance.
“Grice’s theory is designed to explain how hearers get from what is said to
what is implied” (Thomas, 1995, p. 60). To avoid the hearer’s misunderstanding
from the speaker’s implicature, “Grice also introduced four conversational
maxims and the Cooperative Principle (CP). The four conversational maxims are
used in order to make your contribution as informative as is required, do not say
what you believe to be false, be relevant with the topic, and avoid ambiguity” (p.
63). However, there is a big possibility that the speakers will fail to obey the
conversational maxim, either the speaker deliberately does it or not. The failure to
the conversational maxim is called the non-observance of the maxim. These
maxims will be discussed further in the Chapter Two in this thesis.
People’s utterances which show the non-observance of the maxims may
lead to different results, such as puzzlement, annoyance, misunderstanding, or
humor. In the jokes that I have got from jokes-best.com and laughfactory.com, I
decided to focus on the conversation between husbands and wives because I find
so many implicit statements that create misunderstanding between husbands and
wives. To me, it is really interesting to be discussed and analyzed. Not all of
speakers, hearers, or even the readers will realize the misunderstanding easily.
Over all, humor is sometimes important in the conversation to produce the
reader’s laughter.
The title of my thesis is “The Role of Non-Observance of the Gricean
Maxim that Leads to Humor of Couple Jokes in Jokes-best.com and
Laughfactory.com”. This topic belongs to the area of linguistics called pragmatics,
2
Maranatha Christian University
which contains an implicature in almost every conversation. Grice’s Theory of
Maxim and Raskin’s theory of Script Incongruity are the most relevant theories to
be used in my analysis. These theories are needed in order to give a clear
explanation of the humor in implicit conversation. These theories are also
important to reveal the humor within the joke itself and it will make people
consider and believe that the joke is funny and interesting.
I chose this topic for my thesis because in daily life, people’s utterances
are often different from what they actually mean. They use implicit statements or
implicatures and sometimes the hearer(s) is/are not aware of it. Another thing is,
sometimes their utterances may create humor. Those things make me interested to
analyze people’s utterances, their implicature, and how the conversations create a
humorous atmosphere by using two relevant theories.
I chose jokes from the Website jokes-best.com and laughfactory.com
because those Websites contain so many jokes either in a long conversation or
short conversation and are classified into several categories.
The analysis of non-observance of the Maxim and Script Incongruity that
leads to humor in couple jokes from the Websites jokes-best.com and
laughfactory.com hopefully will make people more aware that in daily life, there
are so many people creating an implicature from their utterance because of several
reasons. Besides, this analysis will make the readers more critical in producing
and perceiving an utterance. So, it will decrease the possibility of
misunderstanding in the speaker’s implicature. I also hope people, including me,
can be more open and familiar with many kinds of joke from around the world.
Words count: 725 words
3
Maranatha Christian University
Statement of the Problem
Based on my analysis about the topic that I chose, there are several
questions that I would like to answer:
1.
What types of non-observance of the maxim can be found in the jokes?
2.
What is the implicature?
3.
How does the non-observance of the maxim together with Raskin’s theory
of script incongruity reveal the humor?
Purpose of the Study
Based on the statement of the problem above, I would like to accomplish
these purposes:
1.
To classify the type of the non-observance of the maxims occur in the
joke.
2.
To find the implicature from the utterances.
3.
To reveal the humor from the non-observance of the maxim using
Raskin’s theory of script incongruity.
Method of Research
The first step was chose the specific topic that I want to analyze and made
a research in order to find out what kind of theories I have to use to support my
analysis. The second step, I tried to find the relevant data from the Internet and
here I used five jokes from jokes-best.com and six jokes from laughfactory.com.
The next step, I analyzed the jokes using H.P. Grice’s theory and Raskin’s Theory
4
Maranatha Christian University
of Script Incongruity based on the statement of the problem. Finally, I wrote the
research report.
Organization of the Thesis
The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One consists of the
Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study,
Method of Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two consists of the
Theoretical Framework, presenting the theories used to analyze the data. Chapter
Three consists of the analysis of the non-observance of the Gricean maxims in the
jokes. Chapter Four consists of the conclusion and the results of the analysis. The
last is Bibliography and Appendices, which are presented at the end of this thesis.
5
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I will draw a conclusion of the analysis I have done in the
previous chapter, which is analysis about the role of non-observance of the
Gricean maxim that leads to humor in couple jokes in jokes-best.com and
laughfactory.com.
First of all, there are eleven jokes that I have got from the two websites.
There are several types of non-observance of the maxim that I found. There are
three jokes in which I found flouting of the maxim of quantity, three jokes where
there is flouting of the maxim of relation, and ten jokes which involve flouting of
the maxim of manner. Those three types maxim are the most maxims which are
commonly flouted in the data that I have analyzed in this thesis. In addition, there
are two jokes which involve another type of non-observance of the maxim, which
is violating the maxim.
There is a huge possibility that one data involves more than one maxim
that is non observed. There are also seven data in my thesis which have more than
one maxim that is non observed.
29
Maranatha Christian University
Based on my analysis in Chapter Three, the type of non-observance of the maxim
that appears the most is flouting the maxim of manner. I get ten data in which I
found flouting the maxim of manner. Flouting this type of maxim happens a lot in
daily life because of many reasons. Mostly the speaker gives an ambiguous
statement, unclear statement, or not being brief in their conversation. Those cases
may lead the hearer to think of an unexpected meaning instead of the intended
one. But once the intended meaning known, the non-observance of the maxim will
create a funny effect. For example, the speaker says ‘How was the teacher in the
class? Did she explain everything clearly?’, then the hearer replies ‘Oh the
teacher is so pretty and sexy. She creates a good atmosphere in class, so all of the
students could understand the material faster way.’ By looking at the hearer’s
utterance, he answers the question in a long winded and not brief while he actually
could simply say ‘yes’.
Flouting the maxim of quantity and flouting the maxim of relation are
found in some data as well. Through my analysis about flouting the maxim of
quantity, this is easily found in daily life when the speaker has an intention to
create an implicature by not giving a clear enough statement to be understood
directly in the beginning. The statement can be too long or too short that will
make the hearer think about the meaning before coming up with a surprising
moment when the speaker meaning trying out to be different from what they
thought. This case will also create humor. Meanwhile, flouting the maxim of
relation also gives a significant impact because of the unrelated statement given
by the speaker may become a surprise to the hearer and trigger laughter.
30
Maranatha Christian University
Flouting the maxim of quality is not found in any of the data. I conclude
that this happens because this kind of maxim does not give a big impact in
creating a humor, compared to the other types of flouting the maxim. This type of
maxim often happens in a serious situation when the speaker believes that lying is
the best way to survive and avoid them from an inappropriate condition. For
example, when the speaker wants to hide the truth, feels jealous, wants to satisfy
the hearer, builds his or her belief or convince other, or does not want to hurt the
hearer by blatantly rejecting them.
I also find two data in which the maxim is violated. In this case, the
speaker hides some information because the speaker does not want the hearer to
know the whole truth. Therefore, the speaker only reveals some parts of the story
and keeps some other details to mislead the hearer. For example, a child asks his
father ‘Dad, why does Mom never appear in my life?’, the father answers ‘because
your mom passed away right after giving birth to you’. Later we know that the
child’s mother did not pass away but she does not want to have a child, so she
decided to leave her family.
I also do not find infringing a maxim, opting out of a maxim, and
suspending a maxim in the Websites I choose because of several reasons. First,
the speakers in the data are not foreigners and language learners, in a nervous
condition, or in extreme excitement. Second, the speaker in the data does not have
a reason for being not cooperative while engaging in a conversation, so it makes
the opting out of a maxim not found. Third, I do not find any circumstances,
events, or cultural differences in the data that makes the speaker fail to observe the
maxim. In my opinion, these types of non-observance are more rarely found
31
Maranatha Christian University
because it needs more expertise to create jokes involving this type of nonobservance and it is not as easy as using the other types of non-observance of the
maxim. But overall, these types of non-observance still have a huge possibility to
be used to create.
Script incongruity appears when there are at least two different scripts that
can be found. The script names help us to catch the main topic in the story. This
topic must be triggered by the words that are used in the joke. Here, the nonobservance of the maxims helps us to find a change of script in the jokes. When
the misunderstanding between the speaker and the hearer happens, a change of
script will create a surprise in the story and it makes the joke funny.
Through my analysis, I can conclude that the type of non-observance of a
maxim that is most commonly found and trigger humor in jokes-best.com and
laughfactory.com websites is flouting the maxim of manner. Yet, the other types
of flouting a maxim and violating of a maxim still appear in the jokes. In addition,
I conclude that flouting a maxim is the type of non-observance of the maxim that
mostly causes the occurrence of humor in the jokes.
As the writer of this thesis, I hope my analysis can help whoever reads this
thesis to get a better understanding about the role of non-observance of the
Gricean maxim in jokes. Based on my experiences in searching for data, I suggest
that those who wish to do a similar analysis to make a deeper research and have a
clear understanding about the theory as the first step. So, they can get various data
easier and faster in one internet website only. I did not do that at first and it makes
me waste my time by searching hundreds of data from several websites and I
found it hard to collect the data. Besides, I would also suggest to other researchers
32
Maranatha Christian University
to find other linguistic approaches because I strongly believe that there are other
theories that can support the analysis of jokes. I hope my thesis can further be
developed into a beneficial research and become useful for other people who need
it.
Words count: 1183 words
33
Maranatha Christian University
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Texts
Jokes-best. (2015, February 28). Retrieved
from jokes-best website:
http://www.jokes-best.com/family-jokes.php
Laughfactory. (2015, September 11). Retrieved from laughfactory website:
http://www.laughfactory.com/jokes/relationship-jokes
References
Cook, Guy. (2000). Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford
University.
Thomas, Jenny. (1995). Meaning in Interaction: an introduction to Pragmatics.
London and New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc.
34
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
Dalam tugas akhir ini, saya mengambil topik tentang The Role of Nonobservance of the Gricean Maxims That Leads to Humor. Saya menganalisis
sebelas cerita lucu tentang pasangan suami istri menggunakan teori bidal atau
maxim dari Herbert Paul Grice. Kemudian analisis tersebut diperjelas dengan
menggunakan teori Script Incongruity dari Victor Raskin.
Data yang saya gunakan dalam tugas akhir ini bersumber dari Internet,
yaitu jokes-best.com dan laughfactory.com. Berdasarkan analisis dari sebelas data
tersebut, saya mencermati bahwa humor terjadi karena adanya pelanggaran
terhadap bidal yang menyebabkan terbentuknya implikatur, dan memicu
terbentuknya dua skenario yang berbeda dalam sebuah data. Teori Script
Incongruity digunakan untuk meneliti perubahan skenario dalam suatu data yang
akan berujung pada terciptanya sebuah humor.
Berdasarkan data-data yang telah saya analisis, saya menyimpulkan bahwa
pelanggaran prinsip-prinsip bidal yang paling banyak terjadi adalah maxim of
manner. Hal ini sering terjadi di kehidupan nyata karena banyaknya pernyataan
yang dilontarkan secara ambigu, atau tidak jelas sehingga pendengar harus
menemukan makna tersembunyi dari pernyataan tersebut. Hal ini menimbulkan
efek humor.
iii
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................. i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... iii
CHAPTER ONE : INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ......................................................................... 1
Statement of the Problem ......................................................................... 4
Purpose of the Study ................................................................................. 4
Methods of Research ................................................................................ 4
Organization of the Thesis ....................................................................... 5
CHAPTER TWO : THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................. 6
CHAPTER THREE : THE ROLE OF NON-OBSERVANCE
OF THE GRICEAN MAXIMS THAT LEADS TO HUMOR
IN COUPLE JOKES IN JOKES-BEST.COM
AND LAUGHFACTORY.COM .......................................................... 14
CHAPTER FOUR : CONCLUSION .............................................................. 29
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................. 34
APPENDICES ................................................................................................... 35
ii
Universitas Kristen Maranatha
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
In daily life, people always communicate with one another in order to say
something. One of the ways to communicate is by doing a conversation. Through
conversation, people may share their ideas, opinions, or utter anything on their
mind. However, in the way of communicating, sometimes it does not work
perfectly.
Within people’s conversation, there are some cases in which people say
more or less than they actually mean; they may give an ambiguous statement; they
may utter something that is totally irrelevant to the topic discussed; or they even
fail to observe the maxim because of several problems. We might get many
examples in daily life within a conversation between the speaker and the hearer.
When those situations occur, there is a possibility that the hearer(s) will
get misunderstanding by the message sent by the speaker because the speaker’s
utterance is not explicit. For example, while having a long conversation, the
speaker says “My husband is here to pick me up.” to her friend in which she
1
Maranatha Christian University
implies that she has to go and they have to end the conversation. In this example,
the hearer will have to infer what the speaker means in saying the utterance.
“Grice’s theory is designed to explain how hearers get from what is said to
what is implied” (Thomas, 1995, p. 60). To avoid the hearer’s misunderstanding
from the speaker’s implicature, “Grice also introduced four conversational
maxims and the Cooperative Principle (CP). The four conversational maxims are
used in order to make your contribution as informative as is required, do not say
what you believe to be false, be relevant with the topic, and avoid ambiguity” (p.
63). However, there is a big possibility that the speakers will fail to obey the
conversational maxim, either the speaker deliberately does it or not. The failure to
the conversational maxim is called the non-observance of the maxim. These
maxims will be discussed further in the Chapter Two in this thesis.
People’s utterances which show the non-observance of the maxims may
lead to different results, such as puzzlement, annoyance, misunderstanding, or
humor. In the jokes that I have got from jokes-best.com and laughfactory.com, I
decided to focus on the conversation between husbands and wives because I find
so many implicit statements that create misunderstanding between husbands and
wives. To me, it is really interesting to be discussed and analyzed. Not all of
speakers, hearers, or even the readers will realize the misunderstanding easily.
Over all, humor is sometimes important in the conversation to produce the
reader’s laughter.
The title of my thesis is “The Role of Non-Observance of the Gricean
Maxim that Leads to Humor of Couple Jokes in Jokes-best.com and
Laughfactory.com”. This topic belongs to the area of linguistics called pragmatics,
2
Maranatha Christian University
which contains an implicature in almost every conversation. Grice’s Theory of
Maxim and Raskin’s theory of Script Incongruity are the most relevant theories to
be used in my analysis. These theories are needed in order to give a clear
explanation of the humor in implicit conversation. These theories are also
important to reveal the humor within the joke itself and it will make people
consider and believe that the joke is funny and interesting.
I chose this topic for my thesis because in daily life, people’s utterances
are often different from what they actually mean. They use implicit statements or
implicatures and sometimes the hearer(s) is/are not aware of it. Another thing is,
sometimes their utterances may create humor. Those things make me interested to
analyze people’s utterances, their implicature, and how the conversations create a
humorous atmosphere by using two relevant theories.
I chose jokes from the Website jokes-best.com and laughfactory.com
because those Websites contain so many jokes either in a long conversation or
short conversation and are classified into several categories.
The analysis of non-observance of the Maxim and Script Incongruity that
leads to humor in couple jokes from the Websites jokes-best.com and
laughfactory.com hopefully will make people more aware that in daily life, there
are so many people creating an implicature from their utterance because of several
reasons. Besides, this analysis will make the readers more critical in producing
and perceiving an utterance. So, it will decrease the possibility of
misunderstanding in the speaker’s implicature. I also hope people, including me,
can be more open and familiar with many kinds of joke from around the world.
Words count: 725 words
3
Maranatha Christian University
Statement of the Problem
Based on my analysis about the topic that I chose, there are several
questions that I would like to answer:
1.
What types of non-observance of the maxim can be found in the jokes?
2.
What is the implicature?
3.
How does the non-observance of the maxim together with Raskin’s theory
of script incongruity reveal the humor?
Purpose of the Study
Based on the statement of the problem above, I would like to accomplish
these purposes:
1.
To classify the type of the non-observance of the maxims occur in the
joke.
2.
To find the implicature from the utterances.
3.
To reveal the humor from the non-observance of the maxim using
Raskin’s theory of script incongruity.
Method of Research
The first step was chose the specific topic that I want to analyze and made
a research in order to find out what kind of theories I have to use to support my
analysis. The second step, I tried to find the relevant data from the Internet and
here I used five jokes from jokes-best.com and six jokes from laughfactory.com.
The next step, I analyzed the jokes using H.P. Grice’s theory and Raskin’s Theory
4
Maranatha Christian University
of Script Incongruity based on the statement of the problem. Finally, I wrote the
research report.
Organization of the Thesis
The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One consists of the
Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study,
Method of Research, and Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two consists of the
Theoretical Framework, presenting the theories used to analyze the data. Chapter
Three consists of the analysis of the non-observance of the Gricean maxims in the
jokes. Chapter Four consists of the conclusion and the results of the analysis. The
last is Bibliography and Appendices, which are presented at the end of this thesis.
5
Maranatha Christian University
CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I will draw a conclusion of the analysis I have done in the
previous chapter, which is analysis about the role of non-observance of the
Gricean maxim that leads to humor in couple jokes in jokes-best.com and
laughfactory.com.
First of all, there are eleven jokes that I have got from the two websites.
There are several types of non-observance of the maxim that I found. There are
three jokes in which I found flouting of the maxim of quantity, three jokes where
there is flouting of the maxim of relation, and ten jokes which involve flouting of
the maxim of manner. Those three types maxim are the most maxims which are
commonly flouted in the data that I have analyzed in this thesis. In addition, there
are two jokes which involve another type of non-observance of the maxim, which
is violating the maxim.
There is a huge possibility that one data involves more than one maxim
that is non observed. There are also seven data in my thesis which have more than
one maxim that is non observed.
29
Maranatha Christian University
Based on my analysis in Chapter Three, the type of non-observance of the maxim
that appears the most is flouting the maxim of manner. I get ten data in which I
found flouting the maxim of manner. Flouting this type of maxim happens a lot in
daily life because of many reasons. Mostly the speaker gives an ambiguous
statement, unclear statement, or not being brief in their conversation. Those cases
may lead the hearer to think of an unexpected meaning instead of the intended
one. But once the intended meaning known, the non-observance of the maxim will
create a funny effect. For example, the speaker says ‘How was the teacher in the
class? Did she explain everything clearly?’, then the hearer replies ‘Oh the
teacher is so pretty and sexy. She creates a good atmosphere in class, so all of the
students could understand the material faster way.’ By looking at the hearer’s
utterance, he answers the question in a long winded and not brief while he actually
could simply say ‘yes’.
Flouting the maxim of quantity and flouting the maxim of relation are
found in some data as well. Through my analysis about flouting the maxim of
quantity, this is easily found in daily life when the speaker has an intention to
create an implicature by not giving a clear enough statement to be understood
directly in the beginning. The statement can be too long or too short that will
make the hearer think about the meaning before coming up with a surprising
moment when the speaker meaning trying out to be different from what they
thought. This case will also create humor. Meanwhile, flouting the maxim of
relation also gives a significant impact because of the unrelated statement given
by the speaker may become a surprise to the hearer and trigger laughter.
30
Maranatha Christian University
Flouting the maxim of quality is not found in any of the data. I conclude
that this happens because this kind of maxim does not give a big impact in
creating a humor, compared to the other types of flouting the maxim. This type of
maxim often happens in a serious situation when the speaker believes that lying is
the best way to survive and avoid them from an inappropriate condition. For
example, when the speaker wants to hide the truth, feels jealous, wants to satisfy
the hearer, builds his or her belief or convince other, or does not want to hurt the
hearer by blatantly rejecting them.
I also find two data in which the maxim is violated. In this case, the
speaker hides some information because the speaker does not want the hearer to
know the whole truth. Therefore, the speaker only reveals some parts of the story
and keeps some other details to mislead the hearer. For example, a child asks his
father ‘Dad, why does Mom never appear in my life?’, the father answers ‘because
your mom passed away right after giving birth to you’. Later we know that the
child’s mother did not pass away but she does not want to have a child, so she
decided to leave her family.
I also do not find infringing a maxim, opting out of a maxim, and
suspending a maxim in the Websites I choose because of several reasons. First,
the speakers in the data are not foreigners and language learners, in a nervous
condition, or in extreme excitement. Second, the speaker in the data does not have
a reason for being not cooperative while engaging in a conversation, so it makes
the opting out of a maxim not found. Third, I do not find any circumstances,
events, or cultural differences in the data that makes the speaker fail to observe the
maxim. In my opinion, these types of non-observance are more rarely found
31
Maranatha Christian University
because it needs more expertise to create jokes involving this type of nonobservance and it is not as easy as using the other types of non-observance of the
maxim. But overall, these types of non-observance still have a huge possibility to
be used to create.
Script incongruity appears when there are at least two different scripts that
can be found. The script names help us to catch the main topic in the story. This
topic must be triggered by the words that are used in the joke. Here, the nonobservance of the maxims helps us to find a change of script in the jokes. When
the misunderstanding between the speaker and the hearer happens, a change of
script will create a surprise in the story and it makes the joke funny.
Through my analysis, I can conclude that the type of non-observance of a
maxim that is most commonly found and trigger humor in jokes-best.com and
laughfactory.com websites is flouting the maxim of manner. Yet, the other types
of flouting a maxim and violating of a maxim still appear in the jokes. In addition,
I conclude that flouting a maxim is the type of non-observance of the maxim that
mostly causes the occurrence of humor in the jokes.
As the writer of this thesis, I hope my analysis can help whoever reads this
thesis to get a better understanding about the role of non-observance of the
Gricean maxim in jokes. Based on my experiences in searching for data, I suggest
that those who wish to do a similar analysis to make a deeper research and have a
clear understanding about the theory as the first step. So, they can get various data
easier and faster in one internet website only. I did not do that at first and it makes
me waste my time by searching hundreds of data from several websites and I
found it hard to collect the data. Besides, I would also suggest to other researchers
32
Maranatha Christian University
to find other linguistic approaches because I strongly believe that there are other
theories that can support the analysis of jokes. I hope my thesis can further be
developed into a beneficial research and become useful for other people who need
it.
Words count: 1183 words
33
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Texts
Jokes-best. (2015, February 28). Retrieved
from jokes-best website:
http://www.jokes-best.com/family-jokes.php
Laughfactory. (2015, September 11). Retrieved from laughfactory website:
http://www.laughfactory.com/jokes/relationship-jokes
References
Cook, Guy. (2000). Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford
University.
Thomas, Jenny. (1995). Meaning in Interaction: an introduction to Pragmatics.
London and New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc.
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