51 Phoebe : Uh huh. Why is that?
Chandler : If Im gonna be an old, lonely man, Im gonna need a thing, you know, a hook, like that guy on the subway who eats his
own face. So I figure Ill be Crazy Man with a Snake, y’know. Crazy Snake Man. And Ill get more snakes, call
them my babies, kids will walk past my place, they will run.Run away from Crazy Snake Man, theyll shout
From his explanation, which was long and confusing, he violated two maxims in a row, maxim of Quantity and maxim of Manner. He said, when he
became an old man without a woman, he would need a thing. When he said he needed a snake, his statement sounded irrelevant. Woman cannot be replaced by a
snake. Here, he violated maxim of Relevance. Then, he continued telling his future, but he cannot prove that he was going to end up alone or to be an old man
with snakes. In this case, he also violated maxim of Quality, because he told something lack of evidence
3. Opting Out Maxims on Sitcom
Friends
One category of non-observance maxims that was barely found in script of sitcom
Friends is Opting out a maxim. There was only one case or 0.5 from all verbal humor that fail to fulfill the maxims. A speaker who is opting out a maxim
does not want to cooperate in giving information to the hearer because of some reasons Thomas, 1995. Dornerus 2005 states that this category is usually found
when a doctor tells the condition of his patient. In Excerpt 1.20, there is an example of opting out a maxim by one character of
Friends:
EXCERPT 1.20 Phoebe has just cut Monica’s hair and made it looks stupid. That is why
Monica does not want to get out of her room. The gang is worried about
52 Monica. Phoebe is playing her doctor. Monica is recovering from her
haircut in her room. Phoebe is coming in from the Monica’s bedroom. Rachel : How is she?
Phoebe : Its too soon to tell. Shes resting, which is a good sign.
Phoebe felt guilty about what she had done to Monica’s hair because she was responsible for the mass she made. In this excerpt, she was playing as the
doctor of Monica’s hair. Generally, a doctor speaks wisely and thoughtful, shehe can calm the situation by always giving the good-side of a bad situation, as seen in
Phoebe’s statement Its too soon to tell. Shes resting, which is a good sign. What
Phoebe told about Monica’s condition was true, but she only gave the good news. It is funny, because the hair problem was like a serious condition that needs to be
worried about.
4. Infringing Maxims on Sitcom
Friends
When someone is infringing the maxims, heshe is not deliberately breaking a maxim Thomas, 2005. The speaker does not intend to break but the
speaker unconsciously breaks a maxim because heshe does not know where the conversation is going. There was only a little verbal humor that was infringing the
maxims in sitcom Friends. Approximately 10 of all the breaking maxims in
verbal humor were infringing the maxims. Thomas 1995:74 also mentions that it happens because of several factors, such as the speaker is a child or a foreigner
who has little knowledge about the language, or it can be the speaker is drunk, and when the speaker is nervous. The example below was taken from episode 7 when
53 Rachel was drunk in her date and she was infringing a maxim:
EXCERPT 7.13 In a restaurant where Rachel and her date Michael have dinner. Rachel
drank many glasses of Champaign to get rid Ross from her mind. Michael gave her advice to over this and Rachel agreed. So she borrows a phone
call from a guy next table to call Ross to tell him that she is over him. She is obviously drunk and probably unconscious if she is doing this.
Rachel : on phone Ross, hi, its Rachel. Im just calling to say that um,
everythings fine and Im really happy for you and your cat who, by the way, I think you should name Michael. And, you
know, ya see there Im thinking of names so obviously, I am over you. I am over you and that, my friend, is what they call
closure.
The point that Rachel wanted to say to Ross was I am over you. Because
she was drunk, she talked too much and she was infringing maxim of Manner. She also talked something irrelevant such as the name of the cat. So, for the second
time Rachel was infringing a maxim. In this case she was infringing maxim of Relevance.
5. Suspending Maxims in Sitcom
