An analysis of the cooperative principles in relation to the tense situation in the action comic Superman by J. Siegel - USD Repository
AN ANALYSIS OF THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES IN RELATION TO THE TENSE SITUATION IN THE ACTION COMIC SUPERMAN BY J. SIEGEL AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
CAECILIA SISKA USMANI
Student Number: 064214058
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
2011
AN ANALYSIS OF THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES IN RELATION TO THE TENSE SITUATION IN THE ACTION COMIC SUPERMAN BY J. SIEGEL AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
CAECILIA SISKA USMANI
Student Number: 064214058
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA
2011
It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
Shakespeare
Dedicated to:
My Beloved Parents LEMBAR PUBLIKASI PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata
Dharma Yogyakarta: Nama : Caecilia Siska Usmani NIM : 06 4214 058 Demi perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada
Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma Yogyakarta, karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul An Analysis of the Cooperative Principles in Relation to the Tense
Situation in the Action Comic Superman By J. Siegel beserta perangkat yang
diperlukan (jika ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan yang saya buat dengan sebenar-benarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal: 29 Juli 2011 Yang menyatakan, Caecilia Siska Usmani
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would address my greatest gratitude to Lord Jesus Christ for His blessing so that I am able to finish this undergraduate thesis. I thank Him for giving me spirit and light in my life. I realize that it will be difficult to pass this one of the important steps in my life without His mercy.
My sincere gratitude goes to my advisor Anna Fitriati S. Pd., M. Hum. for her guidance and patience in the process of writing this undergraduate thesis. I also would like to dedicate my gratitude to my co-advisor Dra. B. Ria Lestari,
M.S. who has checked and given me suggestion in finishing this undergraduate
thesis.I would like to express my grateful appreciation to all lecturers of English
Letters Department of Sanata Dharma University who have given me valuable
knowledge and meaningful lessons; to all the staff of English Letters
Department and Sanata Dharma Library , who have provided me their best
services since I studied and then started writing this undergraduate thesis.My deepest gratitude is dedicated to my beloved parents Us Joko Widodo
S.H., M.H. and Asri Nurya Ismani, S.E. for their support, understanding and
never ending love, and also my brothers and sister: Johannes Dori Suryausman
S.T. , Mikael Astrido Gusman, and Elisabeth Yuaninda Usmani for their great
love to me. I always miss them when they are not around.My special thanks go to all the members of Sastra 2006 especially Lucia
Eri
, Fabiola Sekar, Viana Rolos, Indah Hayu and Elis Wahyu who have shown their support to finish my undergraduate thesis and for four incredible years together. I thank Anggoro Aji Wibowo who has given his countless encouragement day by day. Thanks to Rewo Group, Realino Group, Seven
Community
, Smoephyska Gank, Daleman Group, and Marsud Community as my motivators to finish my study. I also thank Lina, Ste, Cesil, Rita, Alven,
Nono
and Uno who have shown their stupidity to help me laugh in my worst time during the completion of this thesis. I love you all! Caecilia Siska Usmani
TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE
26
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
..................................................... 18
A. Object of the Study ................................................................. 18
B. Approach of the Study ............................................................ 19
C. Method of the Study ............................................................... 22
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS .................................................................. 24
A. The Violation of Cooperative Principle ................................. 241. Violation in the 1
st Scene ................................................
25
2. Violation in the 2
nd Scene ...............................................
3. Violation in the 3
2. Lakoff’s Politeness Rule .................................................. 15
rd Scene ................................................
30
4. Violation in the 4
th Scene ................................................
33
5. Violation in the 5
th Scene ................................................
36
6. Violation in the 6
th Scene ................................................
37 B. How the Violation of Cooperative Principle Reveals the- Tense Situation .....................................................................
C. Theoretical Framework ......................................................... 17
1. Grice’s Cooperative Principle .......................................... 10
......................................................................................... i
................................................................. vii
APPROVAL PAGE
............................................................................... ii
ACCEPTANCE PAGE
......................................................................... iii
MOTTO PAGE
...................................................................................... iv
DEDICATION PAGE
........................................................................... v
LEMBAR PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI
.......................................... vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ........................................ 8
A. Review of Related Studies .................................................... 8 B. Review of Related Theories .................................................. 10...................................................................... ix
ABSTRACT
........................................................................................... xi
ABSTRAK
............................................................................................... xii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
......................................................... 1
A. Background of the Study ....................................................... 1
B. Problem Formulation ............................................................. 5
C. Objectives of the Study ......................................................... 5
D. Definition of Terms ............................................................... 6
40
1. The Tense Situation .........................................................
f. Tense Situation in the 6
APPENDICES
63 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................. 65
60 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ............................................................
59 f. Violation of Quality Maxim ......................................
58 e. Violation of Equality Rule ........................................
57 d. Violation of Manner Maxim .....................................
56 c. Violation of Hesitancy Rule .....................................
54 b. Violation of Formality Rule .....................................
54 a. Violation of Quantity Maxim ...................................
2. How the Violation of Cooperative Principle Reveals the- Tense Situation ...............................................................
52
th Scene ................................
52
42 a. Tense Situation in the 1st Scene ................................
th Scene ................................
e. Tense Situation in the 5
49
th Scene ................................
d. Tense Situation in the 4
Scene ................................. 46
rd
c. Tense Situation in the 3
43
nd Scene ................................
b. Tense Situation in the 2
42
........................................................................................ 67
ABSTRACT
CAECILIA SISKA USMANI. An Analysis of the Cooperative Principles in
Relation to the Tense Situation in the Action Comic Superman By J. Siegel.
Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2011.Language is used as one of the instruments to entertain people. The writer in this study focuses on analyzing spoken language in conversation that is written in the comic book Superman. The reader who reads this comic book experienced the tense situation inside the story. The writer finds that the analysis of the violation of cooperative principle becomes the aspect of the occurrence of the tense situation. In fact, people who read comic book in common usually feel the funny things that come from its conversation. Based on the study of Pragmatics, the violation of maxims in cooperative principle gives contribution to make the conversation in comic books commonly sound funny. In the comic book Superman, it gives contribution to make the tense situation.
The writer focuses on two problems in this study. First is the analysis of how the conversation in the comic book Superman violates the cooperative principle. Second is the analysis how the violation of cooperative principle reveals the tense situation in the comic book Superman.
In analyzing the first and second problem, the writer uses two theories of cooperative principle from Grice’s maxim and Lakoff’s politeness rule. The writer uses library research method. Many books and other sources from internet are used to help the writer in analyzing the topic.
The writer finds that the violation of cooperative principle that makes the tense situation only exist at the time when the reader reads the dialogue in one by one in orderly. The factors of cooperative principles’ violation are: too much or too little information, the information of the speaker is not stated briefly and orderly, there is an obscurity in the information, the speaker gives wrong information to the addressee, the speaker imposes the addressee, the addressee interrupts the speaker’s speech, the speaker embarrassed the addressee, the speaker gives an offense to the addressee, the speaker does not let the addressee decide something, the speaker does not leave the addressee free to believe or not believe something, and last the unequal treatment from the speaker to the addressee. Those factors are the causes of all occurrence of the friction in conversation, and it leads into the appearance of the tense situation in the story and last it influences the readers to experience the tense situation.
ABSTRAK
CAECILIA SISKA USMANI. An Analysis of the Cooperative Principles in
Relation to the Tense Situation in the Action Comic Superman By J. Siegel.
Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2011.Bahasa digunakan sebagai salah satu sarana untuk menghibur orang. Dalam penelitian ini penulis fokus menganalisis bahasa lisan percakapan yang tertulis di buku komik Superman. Pembaca yang membaca buku komik ini mengalami perasaan tegang di dalam cerita tersebut. Penulis menemukan bahwa analisis dalam pelanggaran prinsip kooperatif menjadi aspek kemunculan situasi tegang. Kenyataannya, orang yang membaca buku komik pada umumnya, biasanya merasakan sesuatu yang lucu yang berasal dari percakapannya.
Berdasarkan penelitian Pragmatik, pelanggaran-pelanggaran prinsip kooperatif memberikan kontribusi untuk membuat suatu percakapan di dalam buku komik menjadi terdengar lucu. Dalam buku komik Superman, hal itu memberikan kontribusi situasi yang tegang.
Penulis fokus terhadap dua permasalahan dalam penelitian ini. Pertama, analisis bagaimana percakapan dalam buku komik Superman melanggar prinsip kooperatif. Kedua adalah analisis bagaimana pelanggaran-pelanggaran prinsip kooperatif tersebut mengungkap situasi yang tegang di dalam buku komik tersebut.
Dalam menganalisis permasalahan yang pertama dan kedua, penulis menggunakan dua teori prinsip kooperatif yaitu dari maksim-maksim Grice dan prinsip-prinsip kesopanan Lakoff. Penulis menggunakan metode penelitian kepustakaan. Buku-buku dan sumber-sumber lain dari internet digunakan untuk membantu penulis dalam menganalisa permasalahan-permasalahan.
Penulis menemukan bahwa pelanggaran prinsip pragmatik hanya terjadi pada saat pembaca membaca dialog secara urut satu per satu. Faktor-faktor pelanggaran prinsip kooperatif yaitu: terlalu banyak/sedikit informasi, informasi yang tidak jelas dan urut yang diberikan oleh penutur, terdapat informasi yang kabur/samar, penutur memberikan informasi yang salah, penutur memaksa pendengar, pendengar menginterupsi penutur, penutur mempermalukan pendengar, penutur tidak memberikan pilihan kepada pendengar, penutur tidak membiarkan pendengar memutuskan sesuatu, penutur tidak membiarkan pendengar percaya/tidak percaya terhadap sesuatu, dan terakhir perlakukan tidak sejajar dari penutur terhadap pendengar. Seluruh faktor tersebut yang menyebabkan terjadinya pergesekan dalam percakapan, dan menyebabkan munculnya situasi yang tegang di dalam cerita dan pada akhirnya mempengaruhi pembaca merasakan ketegangan.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study Language is a medium needed by human beings to communicate with
people. Language is a symbolic communication system that is mostly used every day by human beings besides the other medium like picture, sign, or body language. Language has an important role in human communication because it can be used in many purposes, for example to tell one another about feeling and idea in human’s mind. Jean Aitchison in the book entitled Linguistics stated that the common purpose of using language is to communicate, besides language also has another purpose, for example: to express people’s feeling, to maintain social contact and to entertain people (Aitchison, 1978: 29).
In everyday life, language is used as one of the instruments to entertain people. Nowadays, language can be used to entertain people in many ways because of the creativity of people through literary works. People feel sad, happy, tensed, and mad at the same time when they read a novel, a comic book, or a poem. Language can be used as the instrument to release people’s emotion, and this is one of the examples that language can be used to entertain because of people’s creativity. It can be said that language is not only used to communicate. The other advantages by using language is to entertain people through the media of literary works.
In the case of using language in many purposes, there are two forms of language; they are the written language and the spoken language. There is other form of language besides the two of written and spoken languange. It is spoken language which is written, for example the language that is used in chatting in the computer, the written dialogue in the script of film or movie, and conversation between characters in the comic books. Those examples of language are physically written in a computer screen or paper, but they have spoken language form or it is called a dialogue.
In this study, the writer focuses on analyzing spoken language in a conversation that is written in the comic strips. Comic strips in Columbia Encyclopedia Online means combination of cartoon with a story line, laid out in a series of pictorial panels across a page and concerning a continuous character or set of characters, whose thoughts and dialogues are indicated by means of "balloons" containing written speech <http://www.answers.com/topic/comic- strip> (7 Maret 2010). From the word “cartoon” itself, comic strip commonly has funny or humorous as one of the characteristics in its story. The main components of comic strips are series of pictures, story, character or set of characters, and dialogues.
The Action Comic Superman is one kind of comic strips that was released in 20th-century. This is the comic-strip superhero that first appeared in 1938. The conversation in this comic has different characteristic from conversation in comic- strips in common. This is the example of conversation in The Action Comic
Superman:
(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug02/yeung/actioncomics/page2.html) The reader who reads that comic experienced different feeling, like tense situation inside the story. In fact, people who read comic strips in common usually found funny things that come from its conversation. This is the example: (http://www.riddlesbunnybarn.com/AFORD/comicstrips.html)
The dialogue in this above comic strips written by Aaron Riddle sounds funny. The funny situation appears when Turtle says too many words to Robin but he does not give an important part of the conversation’s idea at first so that Robin is too late to know that he eats mothballs, not food. Based on Yule’s statement in his book Pragmatics, one aspect of the idea that people involved in a conversation is cooperation with each other. It is called a cooperative principle of conversation (Yule, 1996: 36). The cooperative principle is elaborated in four sub-principles called maxims. The maxims are: quality maxim, quantity maxim, manner maxim, and relation maxim.
The conversation in the comic strip above violates quantity maxim. Quantity maxim is a rule in conversation where people should make a contribution with enough information. Turtle’s speech in the conversation has too much information and he takes the important part of the information that Robin is eating mothballs in the last of his speech so that Robin is too late to know the truth. In this conversation, Robin also does not give a good response to Turtle’s speech. This conversation breaks the rule of quantity maxim because Turtle gives too much information in the beginning of his speech, and Robin gives no information or answer to Turtle, it means there is no information from Robin to make a response of Turtle’s speech. Those two aspects give a contribution into a funny situation because if Turtle’s speech comes directly to the point that Robin eats mothballs, Robin will not eat those mothballs too much and the situation of the conversation between them is not as funny as if Turtle does not give the point directly like what was written in that comic strip.
The violation of maxims in cooperative principle gives contribution to make the conversation in comic strips commonly sound funny. How about the action comic Superman? Is the idea of cooperative principle in conversation also influenced the tense situation like the idea of cooperative principle influences the funny situation in comic strips?
B. Problem Formulation
There are two questions that used for guiding to analyze the topic. They are:
1. How does the conversation in the action comic Superman violate the cooperative principle?
2. How does the violation of cooperative principle reveal the tense situation in the action comic Superman?
C. Objectives of the Study
The main purpose in this study is to find out the influence of cooperative principle’s violation in revealing the tense situation in action comic Superman’s conversation. This investigates cooperative principles like maxim of quality, maxim of quantity, maxim of relation and also maxim of manner and this study will reveal the significance of Grice’s maxim in the action comic Superman and the politeness rule (formality, hesitancy, and equality rules) that are still related to the idea of conversation’s cooperative principle. This analysis later tries to find out the influence of the cooperative principle’s violation toward the tense situation occuring in The Action Comic Superman that makes this comic different from other comics in common.
D. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid the confusion of words used to express the ideas in this study, the writer wants to give the definition of the following words:
1. Pragmatics Pragmatics is the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker or writer and interpreted by a listener or reader (Yule, 1996: 3).
2. Cooperative Principles Cooperative Principles are principles to make your conversational contribution such as are required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (Grice 1975 in Yule, 1996: 63).
3. Action Comic Superman Action Comic Superman is 20th-century American comic-strip superhero that first appeared in Action Comics in June 1938 and in a newspaper strip in January of the following year (Encyclopedia Britannica Online, 2009).
4. Tense Situation Tense (of a situation, an event, a period of time, etc) means the situation in which people have strong feelings such as worry, anger, etc that often cannot be expressed openly (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2002).
5. Violation In a conversation, a speaker can be said to “violate” a maxim when they know that the hearer will not know the truth and will only understand the surface meaning of the words. (Thomas 1995 in Cutting, 2003: 32)
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies Lanoke Intan Paradita in her undergraduate thesis entitled “The Analysis
of Grice’s Non-Observance Conversational Maxims Operating in Shrek” discusses whether the Grice’s maxims are violated in Shrek’s conversation and the participants in Shrek’s conversation violate the maxims. This thesis is aiming at the analysis of Grice’s cooperative principles which are constituted in a conversation. The conclusion of this study is the writer found that the possible reasons to reveal the participants of Shrek’s conversation violate the maxims are: to control the other participants’ feeling by creating fear, to plead the other participants, to repair what has been said by the participant, to cover or keep the truth a secret, and last to persuade someone doing something. The focus in this study is the application of Grice’s maxim in Shrek’s conversation and later on this study revealed that there are certain purposes why the participants of Shrek’s conversation violate Grice’s maxims as mentioned above.
In his undergraduate thesis entitled “Analysis of Article Effectiveness through Grice’s Maxims”, Agus Y. Supriyanto wants to investigate the sample article taken from The Indonesian Quarterly in fulfilling the maxims of quantity and relation: whether the articles in Finance Development are as effective as those in The Indonesian Quarterly, and which one of the two sets of maxims is mostly violated the development of the main idea. The result of this study is both articles chosen by the writer are ineffective because they are not developed and organized according to the principles are assumed in Grice’s maxims. As a result, the ideas of both articles are difficult to gasp and the writers of both articles fail to transfer their idea to the reader. By using Grice’s maxims, the writer of this undergraduate thesis tries to reveal whether the writers of those articles (The Indonesian Quarterly and Finance Development) are to succeed in transferring her or his idea or not.
The undergraduate thesis entitled “The Role of the Obedience to Maxims of Cooperative Principles of Car Advertisements in Motor Trend, Editions August 1997, February 1998 and June 1998 in Evoking Audience-Buying-Interest” written by Dessy Natalia Djajasaputra is another undergraduate thesis that uses Grice’s maxim in order to evoke audience-buying-interest in car advertisement. This study aims to reveal whether the car advertisement which was chosen by the writer obeys Grice’s maxims and the relation whether the obedience of car advertisement toward Grice’s maxims will influence audience-buying-interest or not. The advertisement obedience to Grice’s maxims could influence the level of the audience-buying-interest (Djajasaputra, 1993: 65). In other words, Grice’s maxims will help the writer in finding the audience-buying-interest in those car advertisements, and the level of that audience-buying-interest is also influenced by the obedience of Grice’s maxims.
The three related studies above analyzed conversation in film, articles, and last is the car advertisement. The use of Grice’s maxims and its application toward many kinds of discourse become the same aspect of these studies. The difference is that writer tries to apply Grice’s maxims not in film, articles and advertisement as in previous undergraduate theses, but in the action comic Superman’s conversation to find out the influence of cooperative principle’s violation toward the tense situation in its conversation. By using Grice’s maxims in analyzing discourse in the different object of study, later on this study will discover a different result from those three undergraduate theses.
B. Review of Related Theories
Some theories related to cooperative principle are needed to answer problem formulation as mentioned in the first chapter. As this object of this study is conversation in comic, the writer uses Grice’s maxims and Lakoff’s theory of politeness to analyze the first and second problem formulation.
1. Grice’s Cooperative Principle
As mentioned in the definition of terms, Cooperative Principle means a principle to 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 (Grice 1975 in Yule, 1996: 37). Cooperative principle is needed by people in order to make or to build a good conversation and to avoid offense. If people fail to build a good conversation because of the unclearness intentions for example, it will make a conflict among people.
People have assumed that speakers and listeners involved in conversation are generally cooperating with each other. For example, for reference to be successful, it was proposed that collaboration was a necessary factor. The sense of cooperation is simply one in which people having a conversation are not normally assumed to be trying to confuse, trick, or withhold relevant information from each other (Yule, 1996: 26). The quotation above means if people intend to build a conversation; it should be in a good collaboration in order to make the same understanding in communication. The good collaboration between the speaker and the hearer in communication happens when they follow cooperative principle. Cooperative principle regulated the process of communication into a good communication. The successful or good communication happens when there are no confusion, irrelevant information, or tricky statement in conversation.
A good collaboration in a conversation should show the maxims of cooperative principle. Cooperative principle has four major maxims; they are relation, quality, quantity and manner, which Grice proposes as what is formulated below:
1. Relation Be relevant
2. Quality
a. Do not say what you believe to be false
b. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
3. Quantity
a. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange) b. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required
4. Manner
a. Avoid obscurity of expression
b. Avoid ambiguity
c. Be brief
d. Be orderly (Leech, 1985: 31)
The first maxim of Grice is Relation. Leech in his book Principles of
Pragmatics states that maxim of relation means the conversation between two people should have a relation. When the first person says something, the answer of the second person is commonly used to make a reaction in the utterance of the first person, and the reaction contains any relevant information that should be given to the first person. The second maxim of Grice is Quality. Maxim of quality means people should say only what they believe to be true. The true contribution will lead people into a good conversation. The third maxim of Grice is Quantity.
Maxim of quantity means people should make their contribution in communication with enough information. More information is not always beneficial in communication, because sometimes it will lead people into confusion. The last maxim of Grice is Manner. Maxim of manner means people should be able to make their conversation briefly and orderly in communication. When people say many words and cannot arrange those words orderly, it leads listener to be bored and confused.
The four sub-principles of cooperative principles can also be flouted and/or violated. In a conversation, a person being cooperative means a person trying to make a good communication by trying to be polite. Politeness happens when the speaker also gives her/his attention to hearer’s “face”. (Allan in Rahardi, 2005: 52). Remember that when people talk, they talk to someone. Between the speaker and the hearer, they should respect each other. The hearer should pay attention when the speaker says something, and the speaker also should say something that is not lead into the anger of the hearer’s feeling. This condition is called “face” of a speaker and a hearer.
Flouting the maxims means speakers try to make a conversation more polite. For example, people might prefer not to say to a shop assistant when they hand back a dress, “This looks awful on; I don’t want it after all”, but rather “I’ll go away and think about it and maybe come back later.” The maxims are flouted when the speakers are expecting that the listeners will understand the implied meanings. The speakers are not trying to mislead the listeners; instead they are assuming that the listeners know that their words should not be taken as a face value and that they can infer the implicit meaning (Cutting, 2002: 37).
Next, violating the maxims means the speaker deliberately supplies insufficient information, says something that is insincere, irrelevant or ambiguous and the hearer wrongly assumes that they are cooperating. A speaker can be said to violate a maxim when they know that the hearer will not know the truth and will only understand the surface meaning of the words (Yule, 1996: 32). Violating the maxims happen in certain purpose not to show cooperativeness, a speaker does not want to give direct answer to a listener.
Since this study focuses on the violation of cooperative principle, the flout of maxims are not used. This is the further explanation about violation of maxims by Grice that are used to analyze the conversation of action comic Superman. First is violating maxim of relation. Violating maxim of relation means there is no relation about information between the speaker and the hearer in the conversation. For example:
A: What is your hobby? B: I will go there by bus.
It is clear that the above conversation breaks the maxim of relation or violates relation maxim because the information of B’s answer is not related with the question of A about hobby. Hobby is an activity that people do for pleasure when people are not working, for example swimming or gardening, but B’s answer is the information about how B will go somewhere.
Second violation is violating maxim of quality. Violating maxim of quality means the speaker gives the hearer the wrong information. This is the example: A: Who is the president of Indonesia? B: Obama is the president of Indonesia.
The conversation between A and B violates quality maxim because B gives the wrong information to A’s question. The fact is that the president of Indonesia is SBY, but B said Obama is the president of Indonesia.
Third violation is violating maxim of quantity means the speaker does not give the hearer enough information or too much information given to know what is being talked about. Let see the example:
A: Do you like my orange juice?
B: Yes, I like it because this is made from the fresh orange that will be great to support our health. Orange is also one of my favorite fruit. I usually buy this kind of fruit for my children too. This conversation violates maxim of quantity because although B gives the answer to A’s question, the answer of B is too long. There is too much information given by B. The answer “Yes, I like it” is enough to answer A’s question. This condition sometimes will lead the hearer be bored to listen to the speaker’s speech because there are much information that is not really needed by the hearer.
The last violation is violating maxim of manner. Violating maxim of manner means the speaker says everything or gives information except what the addressee wants to know. This is the example:
A: How much does your car cost? B: I am sure you cannot buy it with your own money.
Based on manner maxim, the above conversation violates this kind of maxim. A wants to know the price of B’s car, but B gives statement which is different from A’s expectation. There is a relation between A’s question and B’s anwer, but B does not give the right information that is needed or wanted by A.
2. Lakoff’s Politeness Rule
Robin Lakoff in Fillmore’s Berkeley Studies in Syntax and Semantics
Volume I states that the rules of politeness have the same rules of conversation.
The rule of politeness and the rule of conversation are designed in order to avoid friction so that people will go to a good collaboration in a communication (1974: 19).
There are three rules of politeness by Lakoff that are designed to get people through cooperative conversation with minimal amount of friction, they are:
1. Formality: do not impose; remain aloof
2. Hesitancy: allow the addressee his options
3. Equality: act as though you and addressee were equal; make him feel good (Lakoff in Fillmore, 1974:19)
Politeness rule of formality is followed when in a conversation the first person maintains distance from the second person (speaker and addressee). The speaker should not impose the addressee to tell something which is related to personal affairs or some information that will lead the addressee to be embarrassed. The speaker also tries not to tell her or his own personal affairs. The aloofness is needed to keep or maintain distance between the speaker and the addressee because if someone shows too much interest in people, it will lead into an uncomfortable conversation.
This is also rule that people also should use correct table manners to make other comfortable around your presence, not interrupt, not cough or sneeze without an attempt at concealment, mark distance between speaker and addressee, and give no offense (Lakoff in Fillmore 1974: 20).
Those rules of formality politeness above are used in a conversation in order to minimize some frictions. The friction will appear and bother a conversation if the speaker or the addressee does not aware of the use of table manners, interrupts the speaker’s speech, disturbs the concentration of the speaker by coughing or sneezing, too much asks in friend’s personal affairs, and gives offense to the addresse while doing a conversation because, for example, the speaker imposes the addresse to tell his or her secret.
Politeness rule of Hesitancy is followed to give options between a speaker and addressee in order to let them decide. This rule leads a speaker and addressee not into a clumsy conversation but natural conversation. People can use the words like “suppose” and “guess” to soften a declaration in a conversation and leave the addressee free to believe or not, and use the word “please” to instruct somebody (1974: 24). All of those words are used to avoid the emotional atmosphere and remove some of embarrasing connotations in a conversation to decrease the appearance of frictions in a conversation.
The last is politeness rule of Equality. Politeness rule of equality is sometimes called camaraderie (1974: 19). Politeness rule of equality is followed to make the position between speaker and addressee equal and makes them feel good and comfortable doing a conversation. People should show a natural interest in other person’s problem and give a compliment on their taste or personal success. It is impolite when the speaker says something that placed his position superior or more powerful than the addressee because later it will lead the conversation into the uncomfortable condition of the addressee.
C. Theoretical Framework
This study intends to find out the influence of cooperative principle’s violation in revealing the tense situation in action comic Superman. In this analysis, the writer provides some theories in order to answer two problem formulations above. The theories that used in this analysis are Grice’s cooperative principle with their four maxims and Lakoff’s theory of politeness.
In answering the first and second problem formulation, Grice’s theory of cooperative principles with their four maxims and Lakoff’s theory of politeness are applied. The writer wants to analyze the violation of the conversation in the action comic Superman and how those violation influence the occurence of the tense situation. The focus of this study comes from the analysis of violation of cooperative principle, so those two theories of Grice and Lakoff are necessarily used and cannot be separated to understand the point in this research.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY A. Object of the Study Literary work that is used in this analysis is the action comic Superman. This comic tells about a superhero named Superman. He comes from Krypton
planet. He was adopted by a family in Smallville, Kansas. In the original series, he works as a newspaper reporter. Kent works as a reporter at the Daily Planet, a major newspaper in Metropolis. Lois Lane, also a reporter, is the target of Kent's/Superman's romantic affection. When Superman is needed, Kent quickly changes into Superman to help people.
This comic is written by Jerry Siegel and first published in 1938 in the first June. The special things of Action Comic Superman publication are: it becomes first super-hero comic, first issue of DC's highest numbered series, second-highest numbered comic series of all time (Dell's Four Color Comics number over 1,000), second-oldest continuously published DC comic, (Detective Comics is a year older), and the most valuable comic in the world (A copy in "Good" condition is worth at least $50,000). <http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/features/action comics1/default.asp> (11 May 2010). The popularity of Superman led to super- heroes being the most popular and most published aspect of the comic book industry. This comic is famous with its own characteristic as first super-hero comic and the main character, Superman, became the idol for many people all around the world.
The age of Action Comic Superman is very old, but the recent news from Reuters’ article Superman Comic Fetches Record $1 Million on Monday February 22, 2010 stated that the first edition Superman comic book in top condition sold on Monday for a record $1 million in a public sale held by website ComicConnect.com. Stephen Fishler, ComicConnect.com founder, said the comic is one of only around 100 in existence and that a scant two or three are in a similar unrestored, high-grade condition. The $1 million is more than three times the previous record of $317,000 that ComicConnect fetched for a lower-grade Action Comics #1 book last year. Back in 1938, the comic sold for 10 cents. <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61L55G20100222> (12 May 2010). The early edition of these comics in top condition has a high price because from the journey of the existence of the action comic Superman, this comic got many achievements from the publication, valuation and the popularity. It can be said that in the world of comic book industry, the action comic Superman becomes the super-hero comic legend.
B. Approach of the Study
In order to analyze the two-problem formulations in previous chapter about the violation of cooperative principles and how those violations reveals the tense situation in conversation, the writer uses the pragmatic approach. Pragmatics has many definitions, related with the concern or what people want to explore in a conversation. Based on the book Pragmatics written by Yule, there are four definitions of pragmatics. First, pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning.
This type of study necessarily involves the interpretation of what people mean in a
particular context and how the context influences what is said. Second, pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said. It means that pragmatics explores how a great deal of what is unsaid is recognized as part of what is communicated. Third, pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance. This perspective raises the question of what determines the choice between the said and the unsaid. On the assumption of how close or distant the listener is, speakers determine how much needs to be said. Last, pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning (1996: 3-4).
The definition of pragmatics as the study of speaker meaning is the most appropriate one to explore the topic of this thesis, related with the conversation in action comic Superman. Pragmatics as the study of speaker meaning is a study which is more to do with the analysis of what people mean by their utterances than what the words or phrases in those utterances might mean by themselves. As stated in the first chapter, Pragmatic approach is the approach that studied about meaning as communicated by a speaker or writer and interpreted by a listener or reader (Yule, 2003: 3). The interpretation from reader of the tense situation when reading the action comic Superman will be analyzed, especially from its conversation through Pragmatic approach.
Like many approaches of study, pragmatics has its own advantages and disadvantages. In language analysis, the distinction among pragmatics, syntax, and semantics is that only pragmatics allows human into the analysis.
The advantage of studying language via pragmatics is that one can talk about people’s intended meanings, their assumptions, their purposes or goals, and the kinds of actions (for example, requests) that they are performing when they speak. The big disadvantage is that all these very
human concepts are extremely difficult to analyze in a consistent and objective way. (Yule 2003: 4) The advantage of using pragmatic approach especially in this analysis is it talks about human concepts. The intended meanings, the assumptions, the purposes, and the kinds of actions of characters in the story of comic Superman through speech as the data to be analyzed are used to reveal the tense situation through violation of cooperative principle. The disadvantage of the pragmatic approach becomes the obstacle in this analysis, because the aspects of those human concepts require this analysis to make sense of people and what they have in mind. It is difficult because sense of people and what people have in mind are invisibly seen by others. This analysis’ interpretation comes from the conversation in the comic Superman through theories of cooperative principle. The theories that are used are theories of cooperative by Grice and Lakoff as the branch theories of pragmatic approach.