AN ANALYSIS ON BREAKING MAXIMS IN VERBAL HUMOR OF SITCOM FRIENDS AND THE ACCEPTABILITY OF ITS INDONESIAN SUBTITLES

AN ANALYSIS ON BREAKING MAXIMS

  

IN VERBAL HUMOR OF SITCOM FRIENDS AND

THE ACCEPTABILITY OF ITS INDONESIAN SUBTITLES

A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

  By Agnes Sherly Rosasenja

  Student Number: 081214110 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

  2012

AN ANALYSIS ON BREAKING MAXIMS

  IN VERBAL HUMOR OF SITCOM FRIENDS AND THE ACCEPTABILITY OF ITS INDONESIAN SUBTITLES A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

  By Agnes Sherly Rosasenja

  Student Number: 081214110 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

  2012

  

ABSTRACT

  Rosasenja, Agnes Sherly. 2012. An Analysis on Breaking Maxims in Verbal .

  

Humor of Sitcom Friends and the Acceptability of its Indonesian Subtitles

  Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

  The functions of humor in daily life are varied. In conversation, people use humor to build relationships with others. While in entertainment industries, the function of humor is to attract audiences. One of successful entertainment products which use humor is TV-sitcom. This study focused on how breaking maxims were applied in the creation of verbal humor in sitcom Friends and on the acceptability of Indonesian subtitles in verbal humor.

  This study discussed two main problems. The first one was how breaking maxims were applied in verbal humor on TV-sitcom Friends. The second one was how the acceptability of the translation of the verbal humor on TV-sitcom Friends in which the maxims were broken? The researcher as human instrument functioned as the primary agent to collect the data. Document instruments in this study were transcripts and Indonesian subtitles of three episodes of sitcom

  Friends season 2.

  This research was a descriptive-qualitative research. To answer the first problem, the transcripts were classified according to the existence of breaking maxims on the verbal humor. After that, the data were analyzed according to the types of breaking maxims. Breaking maxims in the verbal humor were flouting,

  

violating, opting out, infringing , and suspending. To answer the second problem,

  the Indonesian subtitles were retyped and were chosen which ones were the translations of verbal humor in which the maxims were broken. The chosen subtitles were examined whether or not they were acceptable translations in three characteristics of an ideal translation. According to the theory of testing translation (Larson, 1984), there are three characteristics of an ideal translation: Accurate (A), Natural (N), and Clear (C).

  Based on the result of the study, some conclusions were drawn. From the discussion on the first problem, the researcher inferred that the five breaking maxims were applied in the creation of verbal humor in sitcom Friends. In this sitcom, violating was mostly used for creating verbal humor. Surprisingly, flouting, which according to the theory has a function to create humor, was not applied as many as violating. The other three breaking maxims were rarely applied. Based on the second problem, the researcher found that more than 80% of the translations were acceptable and most of them were considered as ideal translations. The weaknesses of the translations were on the exclamations and idioms. This finding could be an interesting topic to further studies.

  

Keywords: Pragmatics, Grice’s Maxims, Verbal Humor, Translation, TV-Sitcom,

Friends.

  

ABSTRAK

  Rosasenja, Agnes Sherly. 2012. An Analysis on Breaking Maxims in Verbal

Humor of Sitcom Friends and the Acceptability of its Indonesian Subtitles .

Yogyakarta: Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

  Fungsi humor dalam kehidupan sehari-hari bisa bermacam-macam. Dalam percakapan, orang menggunakan humor untuk membangun relasi dengan lawan bicaranya. Sedangkan dalam industri hiburan, humor dimanfaatkan untuk menarik minat penonton. Salah satu produk hiburan yang sukses menggunakan humor adalah komedi situasi (sitcom) di televisi. Studi ini fokus pada bagaimana

breaking maxims diterapkan dalam pembuatan humor verbal di sicom Friends.

Selain itu, studi ini juga fokus pada nilai berterima subtitle di Bahasa Indonesia dari humor verbal.

  Studi ini terdiri dari dua rumusan masalah. Yang pertama adalah bagaimana breaking maxims diterapkan dalam pembuatan humor verbal di sitcom

  

Friends ? Kedua adalah bagaimana nilai berterima dari translation humor verbal

  yang terdapat dalam subtitle Bahasa Indonesia di sitcom Friends? Peneliti bertindak sebagai instrumen utama dalam pengumpulan data. Sedangkan dokumen yang digunakan adalah transkrip asli dan subtitle Bahasa Indonesia dari tiga episode sitcom Friends sesi 2.

  Penelitian ini merupakan riset kualitatif-deskriptif. Untuk menjawab rumusan masalah yang pertama, transkrip diklasifikasi berdasarkan humor verbal yang mengikuti aturan maxim. Kemudian, data tersebut dianalisis berdasarkan macam-macam jenis breaking maxims (Thomas, 1995). Breaking maxims yang ada dalam humor verbal antara lain flouting, violating, opting out, infringing, and

  

suspending . Untuk menjawab rumusan masalah kedua, subtitle Bahasa Indonesia

  ditulis ulang dan dipilih mana yang tidak mengikuti aturan maxim. Subtitle yang sudah dipilih kemudian dianalisis menurut nilai berterima menurut teori testing

  

translation (Larson, 1984). Terjemahan yang ideal memiliki tiga karakteristik,

yaitu: Akurat (A), Natural (N), and Jelas (C).

  Menurut hasil diskusi, beberapa kesimpulan telah dibuat. Pada diskusi yang menjawab rumusan masalah pertama, peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa kelima

  

breaking maxims diterapkan dalam pembuatan humor verbal khususnya di sitcom

Friends . Dari diskusi tersebut, diketahui bahwa violating lebih sering digunakan

  dibanding yang lain. Bahkan, flouting yang notabene menurut teori digunakan untuk membuat humor, justru berada diurutan kedua. Sedangkan tiga breaking

  

maxims yang lain jarang digunakan. Dalam menjawab rumusan masalah yang

  kedua, peneliti menemukan bahwa lebih dari 80% terjemahan sudah memenuhi syarat berterima, dan mayoritas terjemahan tersebut ideal. Kesalahan yang ditemukan dalam terjemahan justru terletak pada ekspresi dan idiom. Hal ini dapat dijadikan topik yang menarik untuk penelitian lanjut yang berhubungan dengan penerjemahan.

  

Keywords: Pragmatik, Grice’s Maxims, Humor Verbal, Terjemahan, TV-Sitcom,

Friends.

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The completion of this thesis has been made possible by the support and courage of my advisor, lecturers, family, and friends. Firstly, I would like to send my genuine gratitude to my advisor, Carla Sih Prabandari, S.Pd., M.Hum. for her guidance, constructive feedbacks, helpful suggestions, encouragement, and support in my difficult time.

  I also would like to thank my lecturers at Sanata Dharma University whose teachings have enrich my mind and thus have facilitated me to complete this study. I am sincerely indebted to Adesti Komalasari, S.Pd., M.A. for giving me the whole series of Friends.

  My special gratitude also goes to my uncle, Doddy Purwadianto, S.T,

  

M.T., and my aunt, Catharina Kisworini, for their great love, attention, and

  financial support since I was a child until I finish my study at Sanata Dharma University. My gratitude and appreciation are also addressed to my beloved mother, father, and sister for their encouragement and support.

  I owe a great debt to Rina Astuti Purnamaningwulan, S.Pd. for her willingness to read my thesis and correcting my grammar. I also would like to thank Leo Kusuma, Ryo ‘Pakdhe’ Surbakti, and Kang Yoko for sharing their ideas, suggestions, and giving their time to have valuable discussions with me.

  My special thanks go to Adam Semitha for his willingness to accompany me in the process of finishing my thesis with his great patience and love. I appreciated him for making me believe that I could do when it seemed impossible. I also thank my best friend, ‘kaki mejaku’ Ida Kusuma for giving me endless spirit and supports.

  Finally, I deliver my best thanks to all my friends of English Language Education Study Program, the Last Leaf-ers, EGG-ers and my classmates for years, Seto, Grace, Jeni, Riska, Leo, Yoko, Ajeng, and especially to ‘the power

  

rangers’: Beni ‘Tongtong’, Yosua ‘Oon’, Adam ‘Smith’, Adi ‘Frater’, and

Yustian ‘Limbad’, for the friendship, sharing, and laughter I experienced during

  my study.

  Agnes Sherly Rosasenja

  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Page TITLE PAGE ……………………………………………………………………. i PAGE OF APPROVAL …………………………………………………………. ii PAGE OF ACCEPTANCE ………………………………………………………iii STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ……………………………….…. iv .

  

PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ……………………….………….. v

  ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………….. vi

  

ABSTRAK ……………………………………………………………………..… vii

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ……………………………………………………. viii .. TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………….…. x .... LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………....………………….. xii LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………....………………….... xiii .......................................................................................... LIST OF APPENDICES xiv .

  CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION …………………………….…………………..1 A. Research Background …….……………………………...………….………....1 B. Research Problems …….……………………………..………………..………7 C. Problem Limitation ..………...…………………………………..…….……….7 D. Research Objectives …………….……………………………………………..7 E. Research Benefits ………………...……………………………………..……..8 F. Definition of Terms ………………………………….………………….……...9 .. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ……………….……...12 ... A. Theoretical Description ..……………………………..……………….…….12

  1. Theory of Pragmatics ………………...……………..…………..…….…..…..12

  a. Grice’s Cooperative Principle ……………………………………….………..13 .....

  b. Maxims of Conversation……………………………………………….….

  13 .......

  c. Breaking Maxims (Non-observance Maxims)…. …………………..…....

  14 ....

  d. Conversational Implicature …………………………….……….………....

  20

  3. Audio Visual Translation (AVT) …………………………………………....

  29 C. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique ……………………………… ....

  66 APPENDICES ……………………………………...……….….……………… .

  64 REFERENCES ……………………………………...……….………………… .

  63 C. Implications……………………………….........……………….…….…..… .

  62 B. Recommendations ………………………………………………….....……..

  IMPLICATIONS……………………………………………………….…….…..62 A. Conclusions…………..………………………………………………..……..

  54 CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND

  .....

  38 B. The Acceptability of Indonesian Subtitles of Breaking Maxims in Verbal Humor on Sitcom Friends …….…………………….…...

  .........

  38 A. How Breaking Maxims are Applied in Verbal Humor on TV-Sitcom Friends ……………………………….……………………

  33 CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ……..….…….

  ....

  31 E. Research Procedures ………………………………………………….…...

  30 D. Data Analysis Technique ……………………………………………………

  ...

  .

  28 B. Research Subject ………………………………..………………………….

  28 A. Research Method …………………………………………………………… .

  ..

  26 CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ….…………………………..

  ...

  25 B. Theoretical Framework ……………………..……………………………...

  ....

  24 5. Sitcom …………………………………………………..………………….

  ....

  23 4. Translation of Verbal Humor …………………………….………………..

  b. Dubbing ……………………………………………….………………… .......

  22

  ........

  22 a. Subtitling …………………………………………….…………………..

  69

  

LIST OF FIGURES

  Figures Page

  2.1 An Advertisement in a Department Store ………………………….…….….17

  3.1 An Excerpt from the Transcript to Identify the Verbal Humor ………..……34

  3.2 An Excerpt from the Transcript to Identify the Breaking Maxims …….…....35

  

LIST OF TABLES

  Tables Page

  3.1 Excerpt and Table of Breaking Maxims in Verbal Humor ……………….....36

  3.2 Table of Acceptability of the Indonesian Subtitles ……..……...…….……...37

  4.1 Category of Breaking Maxims in Verbal Humor ……………………………40

  4.2 Acceptability of Indonesian Subtitles …………………………………….…56

  

LIST OF APPENDICES

  APPENDIX A Classifying Breaking Maxims in Verbal Humor of Friends Season 2 Eps 1...….70

  APPENDIX B Classifying Breaking Maxims in Verbal Humor of Friends Season 2 Eps 3…...78

  APPENDIX C Classifying Breaking Maxims in Verbal Humor of Friends Season 2 Eps 7……86

  APPENDIX D Translations of Breaking Maxims in Verbal Humor of Friends Season 2 Eps1...93

  APPENDIX E Translations of Breaking Maxims in Verbal Humor of Friends Season 2 Eps 3..97

  APPENDIX F Translations of Breaking Maxims in Verbal Humor of Friends Season 2 Eps7.101

  APPENDIX G The Script Friends Season 2 Episode 1………………………...……...….……105

  APPENDIX H The Script Friends Season 2 Episode 3…………………………...……………111

  APPENDIX I The Script Friends Season 2 Episode 7……………………………...…....……117

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In this chapter the researcher discusses the background of the research. Background of the research contains the reason why the researcher chose this

  topic and a brief introduction of Verbal Humor, Grice’s Cooperative Principle, translation and situational comedy, Friends. The next parts of this chapter are research problems, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits, and definition of terms.

A. Research Background

  Humor is a part of conversational activities that usually has functions to amuse and to make people laugh, but there is also humor created to tease someone in amusing ways. Civikly (1986) says that humor is the key of both making a friendship and entertaining someone (as cited in Lynch, 2002). Humor can be found in any kinds of conversation because many people like to use humor especially to build relationship with others. Since people are addicted to humor, some corporations such as radios and televisions take advantage of this situation to promote their products using humor. One of the products that use humor is sitcoms. Initiated by Radio-sitcom, the use of humor in sitcoms extends into situational comedy on TV or TV-sitcom.

  One of the employments of humor in daily conversation can be seen in a sitcom. Sitcom is not the same as drama comedy although both are selling humor.

  2 in its conversation. Sitcom does not focus on the setting, but it focuses on the humor in conversations. Kalliomaki (2005) points out that “situation comedy or sitcom is usually a narrative-based comedy series containing short, 25-30 minutes long episodes with regular characters and settings” (p. 10).

  Linguistic humor is an interesting topic for many linguists. There are some linguists who studied humor in linguistics’ fields, some of them were: Attardo (1994), Olsson (2004), Dorneus (2005), Quaglio (2009), and Dynel (2009, 2011). Though humor has been studied by linguists for years, but they admit that it is still difficult to categorize humor (Janko, 1984; Attardo, 1994). One of the humor categories is verbal humor. Verbal humor is included in a conversation or in a script of play, and it is expressed verbally (Attardo, 1994; Chiaro, 2006; Dynel, 2009; Schwarz, 2010). Dynel (2009) tries to divide the types of verbal humor into some categories; they are lexemes and phrasemes, witticisms, retorts, teasing, banter, putdowns, self-denigrating humor, and anecdotes. Despite those categories or other types of humor, the researcher discusses the verbal humor of sitcom in general based on the theory of pragmatics, Grice’s Cooperative Principles.

  Creating humor for a purpose is not simple. There are theories to constitute humor. Pragmatics theories are important to researchers who are conducting studies related to conversation. In this study, the researcher focuses on the non- observance maxims in the conversations of a sitcom. There are four basic maxims, namely maxim of quality, maxim of relevance, maxim of quantity, and maxim of manner.

  3 Attardo (1994) and Lynch (2002) state that the number of conversations in a sitcom involves violations of one or more maxims which create the verbal humor. Recent studies conducted by Dornerus (2005) and Alvaro (2011) point out that it is not only a violation of maxims that creates verbal humor. In their studies, they mention that there are five ways of failing to observe the maxims. Grice (1989) distinguishes four of them that are violating a maxim, flouting a maxim, and opting out a maxim, and infringing a maxim. Then, Thomas (1995) adds the fifth category of non- observance maxim called suspending a maxim (Thomas, 1995). The researcher used those five categories to analyze verbal humor in the sitcom, and those five categories are called non-observance maxims or “breaking maxims” (Dornerus, 2005).

  Another field that is discussed in this research is Indonesian subtitles of verbal humor in sitcom Friends. Linguistic problems in the translation are myriad.

  According to Chiaro (1996), there are a lot of aspects that have to be considered such as cultural references, social realities which are different from one country to another, for examples: slangs, idioms, jargons, and many other aspects. Those factors affect the acceptability if the translator cannot transfer the source language (SL) into the target language (TL). According to Larson (1984), the acceptability can be valued by three characteristics of an ideal translation; they are accurate, natural, and clear. No matter how well the translator knows the target language, translating humor is still considered as an uneasy task, moreover, putting them in a form of subtitles can be even harder for who do not know the rules of subtitling.

  4 Subtitling is one method of translation which is commonly used in a movie or other visual shows (Hatim and Munday, 2004; Orero, 2004). There is another challenge in subtitling that is translating the words effectively without changing the meaning of the conversation. Since translating verbal humor requires many aspects to maintain the meaning and to deliver the message, the researcher would test the acceptability of Indonesian subtitles of a sitcom using three characteristics of an ideal translation from Larson (1984). The three characteristics which a translation should have are accurate (A), natural (N), and clear (C).

  The researcher analyzed the broken maxims in verbal humor and its Indonesian subtitles from an American TV-sitcom, Friends. For the samples, the researcher used three from twenty-four episodes of season 2 (1995). She chose the second season because in that season the traits of the sixth characters are more clearly seen than in season 1 and the problems are not too complicated compared to the following seasons. By watching the VCDs with Indonesian subtitles and reading the original scripts taken from www.livesinabox.com/friends/, the research was conducted.

  In this chapter, there are also reasons why the researcher chose a TV- sitcom and why she chose Friends. Since one of the problems that are discussed in this research is verbal humor, the researcher chose sitcom as the most appropriate subject to use. It is because sitcom focuses on conversations that are full of humors. Friends is a famous TV-sitcom not only in America but also over the world. This sitcom aired in 1994 up to 2004 and there are 10 sessions and at least 24 episodes in every session. This fact makes Friends provides many data to

  5 study. The language used in their conversations is casual since the characters are young adults. Besides that, the conflicts in Friends are simple and easy to follow. Here is one example of the conflicts in Friends Season 2 Episode 2, The One with

  the Breast Milk : EXCERPT Friends season 2 episode 2[08:55]

  [Scene: Ben is Ross’ son with his ex-wife. He was just months years old, so

  he could only drink the breast milk. That day, Ross was responsible to take care of him while his mother was gone. The mother left her breast milk for Ben’s dinner. Here, in Monica and Rachel's apartment, Chandler, Rachel, and Joey are eating, and Phoebe is preparing Ben's milk.]

  Phoebe : Ben, dinner! Ross : Thanks Aunt Pheebs. Hey, you didn't microwave that, did you, because it's breast milk, and you're not supposed to do that.

  Phoebe : Duh, I think I know how to heat breast milk. Ok. (Squirts some

  on her wrist and tastes it .)

  Chandler : What did you just do?! Phoebe : I licked my arm, what? Ross : It's breast milk.

  Phoebe : So? Rachel : Phoebe, that is juice, squeezed from a person. Joey : What is the big deal? (Tastes the breast milk.) Chandler : What did you just do?! Ross : Ok, would people stop drinking the breast milk?!! (freaks out) The excerpt above is the example of a simple problem faced by the characters in Friends. In this episode, the breast milk became the topic on their conversations. Phoebe, who tasted the breast milk made Chandler and Ross freaked out and so did Rachel. They thought the breast milk was so gross to taste.

  Joey, who thought that the breast milk was not a problem, tasted the breast milk to prove. The funniest parts of this excerpt were when Chandler repeated his tone of freaking out What did you just do?! loudly at the first time and louder at the second time and when Ross, who could not see more the breast milk drinking

  6 situation, freaked out by yelling Ok, would people stop drinking the breast

  milk?!! .

  There are six main characters playing in Friends. They are all young adults between 23-26 years old and they are living in New York. The six characters are Monica, Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe. Monica and Rachel are roommates and they have been friends since high school. In the same building, living across the hall, there are Joey and Chandler. Ross, Monica’s elder brother, is more settled than others are and he lives in a different apartment. Chandler is Ross’ best friend since high school. Phoebe used to be Monica’s roommate, but now she lives with her grandma because she cannot stand Monica’s obsessions with neatness and tidiness. Although they live separately, they usually hang out together at Central Perk, their favorite coffee house, and at Monica and Rachel’s apartment.

  The six characters of Friends are funny, and they have their own styles of humor, which make Friends more interesting to study. Monica (Courteney Cox), the one who loves cooking, is a perfectionist and an extremely organized person. Ross (David Schwimmer), a paleontologist who obsessed with dinosaurs, married to a lesbian and divorced. He always talks like he is lecturing someone and he emphasizes most of the words he says. Chandler (Matthew Perry), he always makes fun of his friends and uses humor as a defense. He feels insecure near women and the weird fact is that nobody knows what he does in his work. Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) is a spoiled girl who easily gets panics and is always talking mincing matters. Joey (Matt le Blanc), who has always been in relationships with

  7 women a lot, has less brain intellect of all and he is obsessed by becoming a big actor and getting famous. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), the one who has the most complicated family problems, is bad at singing. She believes that she has the sixth sense, which is not, and she sometimes gives unexpected funny comments and reactions.

B. Research Problems

  Based on the background above, the research problems on are:

1. How are breaking maxims applied in verbal humor on TV-sitcom Friends?

  2. How is the acceptability of Indonesian subtitles of breaking maxims in verbal humor on TV-sitcom Friends?

C. Problem Limitation

  This research focused on the breaking maxims, which includes violating a maxim, flouting a maxim, opting out a maxim, infringing a maxim, and suspending a maxim in verbal humor of sitcom Friends. Two things were discussed in this research. The first one was a discussion on verbal humor in general. The second was a discussion on the acceptability of Indonesian subtitles. The subtitles were examined using three characteristics of ideal translations from Larson (1984). The data were taken from three episodes of Friends session 2.

  8 D. Research Objectives The objectives of this research are:

  1. To see how breaking maxim are applied in verbal humor on TV-sitcom Friends .

  2. To see how the acceptability of Indonesian subtitles of breaking maxims in verbal humor on TV-sitcom Friends.

E. Research Benefits

  The writer expects this research to contribute academic and practical field:

1. Academic Benefit:

  a. This research will contribute to pragmatics study, especially related to Grice’s Cooperative Principle, verbal humor, and humor translation.

  b. The research finding will enrich the theories of pragmatics related to Grice’s Cooperative Principle, verbal humor, and humor translation.

  c. This research can be used as an academic reference by other researchers to conduct further studies dealing with maxims, verbal humor, and humor translation.

2. Practical Benefit:

  a. The students would be able to learn how pragmatics theories take part in the creation of verbal humor in TV-Sitcoms.

  b. The teachers would know better about the use of breaking maxims in creating verbal humor on purpose.

  9 F. Definition of Terms The following explanations might help readers to comprehend the contents of this study:

1. Grice’s Cooperative Principles

  Grice (1989) believes that there is a set of rules with the aim of guiding the conduct of conversation. These rules have functions as guidelines for efficient and effective use of language and they are namely as maxims of conversation. There are four basic maxims of conversation, which express a general cooperative

  principle (CP ) altogether. The maxims are:

  a. The maxim of Quality: try to make your contribution one that is true, specifically: 1) do not say what you believe to be false 2) do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

  b. The maxim of Quantity: 1) make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purpose of the exchange 2) do not make your contribution more informative than is required

c. The maxim of Relevance: make your contribution relevant

  d. The maxim of Manner: be perspicuous, and specifically, 1) avoid obscurity, 2) avoid ambiguity, 3) be brief, 4) be orderly. (Grice 1989:26-27)

2. Breaking Maxims

  In this study, any failing to obey maxims is called ‘breaking maxims’ (Dornerus, 2005; Alvaro, 2011). The five categories of breaking maxims are

  

Flouting, Violating, Opting Out, Infringing, and Suspending. Usually, when

  10 someone is breaking a maxim, she or he wants to avoid discomforts or to create humorous situations.

  3. Verbal Humor Verbal humor in this study refers to humor that exists in a conversation or in a script of play, and it is expressed verbally (Attardo, 1994; Chiaro, 2006;

  Dynel, 2009; Schwarz, 2010).

  4. Ideal Translation Larson (1984) shows the way to test translations by using three characteristics of an ideal translation. They are:

• Accurate (A) : reproducing the same meaning and maintaining the message of conversation from SL to TL.
• Natural (N) : using natural expressions with appropriate kind of texts occurs in TL.
• Clear (C) : expressing all aspects in acceptable forms and clear meanings, so that it is understandable for TL audiences.

  5. Sitcom Friends According to Berger (1992:71-72), sitcoms usually focus on the dialogue, different topic in every episode, and there are only few setting movements and mostly taking place indoors.

  11 Friends is a well-known sitcom in America. There are six main characters in this sitcom; Monica Geller and Ross Geller, Rachel Green, Chandler Bing, Phoebe Buffay, and Joey Tribbiani. They live in New York and face chaotic problems, which are interesting to follow. This sitcom aired in 1994 until 2004.

6. Subtitle

  A clear definition of translation is stated by Newmark (1987). He says that “translation is an activity of replacing a written text in one language, source language (SL), without changing the message into another language, target language (TL)”.

  Hatim and Munday (2004) explain that there are two processes of translating audiovisual materials, namely dubbing and subtitling. In this study, the researcher wanted to see the translation of the conversations through the result of subtitling called subtitles. According to Orero (2004), “subtitles are spotted to coincide with the precise frame where a speaker begins and finishes talking, with the occasional adjustment of a few frames to respect a film’s takes or allow more reading time, take change permitting.” (p.13).

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE This chapter explores the theoretical description, and the theoretical

  framework of the study. The theories, which constitute the research, include the theory of pragmatics, linguistic theory of verbal humor, Audio-Visual Translation (AVT), and sitcom are discussed in the theoretical description. The theoretical framework discusses the theories used to answer the research problems.

A. Theoretical Description

  In this part, the researcher discusses the theories of Pragmatics includes Grice’s theory of Cooperative Principles, implicature, and breaking (non- observance) maxims: violating maxims, flouting maxims, opting out maxims, infringing maxims, and suspending maxims. The second theory is verbal Humor. Meanwhile, the third one is theory of translations, especially audio-visual translation.

1. Theory of Pragmatics

  Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics study of meaning which focuses on the use of language in communication. According to Dynel (2011), “Pragmatics is a field of linguistics that is addressing communicative processes as deployed by its users and its relation to language form, related to the cognitive and socio- cultural study of language use” (p.2). Because this research is dealing with conversations of a sitcom, the researcher used pragmatics as the prime theory to support her study.

  a. Grice’s Cooperative Principle

  In a conversation, it is important for speakers to deliver the accurate information to the hearers so the conversation can run well. Grice (1989) has stated in Logic and Conversation about Cooperative Principle, “Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” (p.26). From the definition, the researcher infers that there is a set of rules guiding the conduct of conversation to use language in conversations efficiently and effectively.

  b. Maxims of Conversation Four categories of general principle are known as maxims of conversation.

  Grice (1989) names the four maxims of conversations are Quantity, Quality, Relevance, and Manner. He creates these maxims to measure how effective our conversation to others.

  The first maxim is maxim of Quantity. This maxim deals with amount of information given by the speaker. Under this supermaxim, there are two specific maxims: (1) the information given should be as informative as needed; (2) the information given should not be more informative as needed.

  The second one is maxim of Quality. The function of this maxim is to make sure that the speaker has given the correct information to the hearer. To make conversations effective, there are two specific maxims under this super maxim: 1) the speaker should not tell a lie 2) the speaker should not tell something without enough knowledge or lack of evidence.

  The third one is maxim of Relevance. The same as its name, maxim of Relevance expects the speaker to be relevant. It is important because when the hearer gets irrelevant answers the conversation would be failed.

  The last one is maxim of Manner. The general understanding of this maxim is “being perspicuous”. Grice mentions clearly the various maxims include in the maxim of Manner: (1) avoid obscurity of expression, 2) avoid ambiguity, 3) be brief, and 4) be orderly.

c. Breaking Maxims (Non-observance maxims)

  In daily conversations, there are times when speakers do not always follow the rules or fail to observe the maxims. According to Dornerus (2005), breaking maxims is the process of failing to observe the maxims (p.6). Breaking maxims is commonly known as non-observance maxims.

  Grice (1989) firstly mentions that there are four categories of non- observance maxims; they are Flouting, Violating, Opting Out, and Infringing.

  Different from Grice, according to Thomas (1995) there are five categories of breaking maxims. The first four of the categories are the same as Grice’s, but Thomas adds a non-full observance a maxim called Suspending.

1) Flouting Maxims

  When someone is flouting a maxim, she/he does not intend to mislead the hearer but wants the hearer to see another meaning of the words uttered. The meaning of the utterance is indirectly stated and the purpose is to communicate a message effectively (Thomas 1995:65). In a dialogue, verbal humor is the example of flouting the maxims. See the example below:

  A: Chicago is in Kansas, isn't it?

  B: Yeah, and L.A. is in Idaho! In the example, B flouted maxim of Quantity by giving an unsatisfied answer. B let A to interpret by himself that the statement Chicago is in Kansas as false as L.A is in Idaho. From the situation, the researcher inferred that B was going to say that it was an idiotic question, so that B did not need to answer. B’s answer expressed verbal humor which implied that the statement spoken by A was totally wrong.

2) Violating Maxims

  According to Dornerus (2005), when the speaker intends to mislead the hearer, he or she violates the maxims. The result of violating maxims might not be effective communication. The cases of violating maxims can be found in the advertisements, parliamentary speeches, and arguments (Dornerus, 2005; Alvaro, 2011). As an example, look at an advertisement found in a department store:

Figure 2.1 An advertisement in a department store

  Discount every purchase of red, white,

• 20%

  

50%

  and purple shoes and get discount for purple

• +30% shoes on the second purchase.

  The note written in the ad was long and it would possibly mislead the customers. Moreover, the note, which was written in smaller fonts compared to the digits of the discounts, would be very tricky. Considering the length of the note and the confusion results after reading the note, prove that the ad violated the maxim of Manner. If the customers did not read the note carefully and understand about the agreement, they would be screwed.