Review on the TV Series

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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

This chapter will discuss the methodology of this study and will be separated into three parts. The first part of this chapter will discuss the object of the study, the episode “Occam’s Razor” from the American television drama House, M.D. . This part will be separated into three sections: 1 Review on House, M.D. the television series, 2 Short summary of the episode “Occam’s Razor”, and 3 Review of the characters of House, M.D., episode “Occam’s Razor”. The second part of the chapter will discuss the approach of the study, the Pragmatics Approach, and how that approach would contribute to the study. The third part of the chapter will discuss the research method of the study used, Content Analysis, and the steps taken in the process of the analysis from which the conclusion of the study will be drawn. This part consists of: 1 The content analysis method, 2 Research instrument, 3 The gathering of maxim-flouting utterances, and 4 The implicature analysis.

A. Object of the Study: House, M.D., episode “Occam’s Razor”

1. Review on the TV Series

House, M.D. and on the Episode “Occam’s Razor” House, M.D. is an American TV series created by David Shore and Paul Attanasio and produced by Bryan Singer, premiering on FOX Networks on November 16, 2004. It deals with the on-goings of a Princeton Plainsboro PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 27 Teaching Hospital PPTH in New Jersey, focusing on the Department of Diagnostics Medicine headed by one Dr Gregory House. The episodes generally start with a patient experiencing some sort of dangerous symptoms before getting admitted to PPTH, where House’s diagnostics team would then attempt to investigate the patient’s mysterious illness and treat it. The TV series is wildly popular in America, and have received numerous awards, including 9 Peoples Choice Awards, a Peabody Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Primetime Emmy Awards. Judge David Johnson, a reviewer at dvdverdict.com http:www.dvdverdict.comreviewshousemdseason1.php mentioned that despite the fact that he seldom has any clue what the doctors were talking about when performing their jargon-filled medical analysis, the series “is one of the few shows I religiously tune in to”. This is often the case for many avid viewers tuning in to the show who are not medically knowledgeable, that they would let the medical terms and treatments fly over them and derive their viewing pleasure from the brilliant performance and interaction of the actors. The medicine of the series itself, though not the main point of interest for the show, has generated a following by doctors or other medical professionals due to its near-accurate depiction of the symptoms and treatments. It has, in fact, sparked a series of websites dedicated to reviewing both the drama and the medicine of the show, sometimes by doctors or other medical professionals. Two websites of this nature are Politedissent.com http:politedissent.comhouse_pd.html and jeffreyleow.wordpress.com, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 28 within the section of ‘House, M.D. reviews’ http:jeffreyleow.wordpress.comhouse-md-reviews, run by a doctor and a medical student respectively. As mentioned in the introduction, it was the television series House, M.D. that triggered the original inspiration for the study into applied English pragmatics. The television series has also proven to be eligible for study since it contains a consistently ample amount of maxim-flouting utterances sarcasm, irony, etc which are very suitable for this study. The popularity of the show in America also guarantees that the communication happening within the show that is comprehended by the audience is relevant with how Americans generally use the English language. This study will analyze the data gathered from the 3rd episode of the first season of House, M.D. in order to demonstrate how implicatures are generated and the effects that those implicatures carry. The episode is entitled “Occam’s Razor ” and it premiered on November 30th, 2004 on the Fox network.

2. Review of the Characters of