THE VIOLATION OF MAXIMS IN HANNAH MONTANA TV SERIES.
THE VIOLATION OF MAXIMS
IN “HANNAH MONTANA” TV SERIES
A THESIS
Submitted to Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of
Sarjana Sastra
By:
NURUL CHAIRINA
Regristration Number 209220038
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
ABSTRACT
Chairina, Nurul. 2013. The Violation of Maxims in Hannah Montana TV
Series. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan.
The study deals with the types of maxims violation in Hannah Montana TV Series.
The objectives of study are to describe the violation of maxim and to find the effect
of the violations in this series. The data is the transcript of Hannah Montana
television series and taken from the internet. This research is conducted by using
descriptive qualitative design and limited on the main characters. The data analysis
result shows there are 22 violation of maxim of quantity, 17 violation of maxim of
quality, 26 violation of maxim of relation, and 29 violation of maxim of manner.
The effects of the violations are to give the lack evidence, to lying to other speaker
in hiding the truth, to save face the embarrassment, to present the strongest
information, to represent what is in the speaker’s mind, or to trick audience or
listener for making a joke or not.
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Alhamdulillah, the writer express her best gratitude to Allah SWT, for
giving the writer blessing, endless love and mercy, especially in the process of
accomplishing this thesis. In accomplishing this thesis, the writer was helped by so
many beloved people and the writer would like to express her gratitude to:
1. Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si. as the Rector of State
University of Medan
2. Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum. as the Dean of Faculty of Languages
and Arts
3. Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd. as the Head of English and Literature
Department and Dra. Meisuri, M.A. as the Head of Applied
Linguistics Program
4. Dra. Sri Juriaty Ownie, M.A. as her thesis adviser, for the advice,
guidance, comment, and precious time in supervising the draft of
writing during the completion of this thesis, Dra. Yunita Agnes
Sianipar, M.Hum. as her academic adviser, and all her beloved
lecturers in English and Literature Department
5. Her beloved family, her father, Drs.Chairul Rahman; her mother, Ir.
Reny Rosfiarty; and her dearest sisters Nurul Musfirah and Shofi
Munifah, thank you for the understanding and the big support in
ii
prayer, love, motivation and financial while accomplished this
thesis.
6. Her beloved friends, SEMAK (Dewi, Hervina, Juniar, Putri,
Siswantia, and Vany), thanks for your love, happiness, and
friendship. Her special thanks also go to all friends in Applied
Linguistics A and B 2009 especially for her comrades; Murdianti,
Sisna, Suci, Conny, Astri, and many others that she cannot be
mentioned one by one.
7. Her best friends, Windy, Redny, and Tari, for their support
although they have separated in different university.
8. All others whose name cannot be mentioned one by one for their
help and support. Thanks for everything. May Allah bless us. Amin.
Finally, the writer admits that this thesis still far from being perfect.
Therefore, the writer would like to invite the readers to give suggestion for the
improvement of this thesis later on.
Medan,
July 2013
The writer
iii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A Identification of Violation of Maxim in the Main Characters’
Utterances of Hannah Montana in Season Three 44
Appendix B The Transcript of Hannah Montana in Season Three 60
vii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of Study
In conversation, the speaker(s) and the hearer(s) can achieved an ideal
communication when they have a good interaction and try to cooperate to each
other so that they understand and there is a correlation to the current topic
which they talk. When the speaker(s) and the hearer(s) have given a good
contribution in a conversation and use the good language, it shows that they
have fulfilled the rule of language. As Yule (1996:37) said that in most
circumstances, the assumption of cooperation is so pervasive that it can be
stated as a cooperative principle of conversation and elaborated in four
sub-principles, called maxims. This principle is the best practices in
communication in order to facilitate the process of conversation to be smoother
for the participants. But in fact, there are many people who disobey this
principle. This is called as the violation of maxim.
The violation of maxim occurs in a condition where someone fails to
fulfill a maxim in conversation. There are times when meaning deliberate
violations. It can be occurred when someone wants to create prolixity, to show
1
2
respect, to change the topic/subject and also for humor purpose (Cook,
1989:30-31).
Sometimes people express their opinion and ideas with concise,
humorous, dramatic, exaggerating and sarcastic method to achieve certain
effects, thereby people could feel content and funny, and even get
enlightenment and meditation (Pan, 2012:20). Recently, comedy cannot be
dismissed in social life. It can be occurred in daily conversation and also in
television programs to create humor. Humor is a mode of communication
which produces to entertain the hearer. A basic assumption which underlies the
following remarks is that a large number of jokes involve violations of one or
more of Grice’s maxims (Attardo, 1990: 355). It means that humor can violate
based on each type of violation of maxim, such as lying, irrelevant, or run out
from the topic.
The violation may exist not only in ordinary conversation but also in
dramatic conversation as in a television series. A television series is one of
television program which functions to entertain the audience. It is the media
instrument for human being and it is the one of the mass media orally delivered.
It used the scripts to present the story by the characters as well. In creating the
scripts that deal with social reality, the scriptwriter must be able to violate the
maxim (Rini, 2010:37)
3
Hannah Montana is one of the famous television series in America and
it is a drama comedy. Sometimes the characters do not speak clear, not relate
to each other as a usual conversation and use code or another word to replace
the word they mean, or even to make a humor/funny conversation for comedy
purpose so that there is a great chance that he/she repeatedly violates the
maxims.
The relevance studies of maxim violations inspires the writer to take a
study about violation of maxim, named Tarihoran (2010) entitled The Study in
the Violation of Maxim in the Play “The Boy Comes Home” by A.A Milne and
Hasibuan (2010) entitled Maxim Violation in the Movie of Pirates of The
Caribbean: At World’s End. The first study discovers that violation of maxim is
occurred in quantity, relevance and manner and the most dominant is maxim of
quantity. It proved that not always obeyed in conversation. In the second study
results show that all types of maxim were violated, and the most dominant
types of maxim which was violated are the maxim of quantity.
To distinguish this study with those previous explanations above, the
writer is interested in studying the violation of maxim of utterance used by the
characters on “Hannah Montana” because she wants to know more about
violation of maxims, especially in drama comedy, which have been learned in
Pragmatics class. Besides, the writer is also interested to take television series
of Hannah Montana as the object of her research because it is a kind of visual
4
communication which is using written conversation and it is the one of the
famous television series which has been nominated for some Awards in
America.
B. Problem of Study
This study examines the following questions:
1. What type of violation of maxims is used in episodes of Hannah Montana
television series?
2. What effect do the violations provide to the comical situation in the series?
C. Objective of Study
The objectives of study are:
1. To discover the violation maxim which is used in episodes of Hannah
Montana television series.
2. To describe the effect of the violations provide to the comical situation in
the series.
D. Scope of Study
5
The discussion of study is limited to violation of maxim. The writer will
analyze the violation maxim occurred in main characters’ utterances in Hannah
Montana television series. There are six main characters in Hannah Montana
television series, they are: Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana, Lily Truscott/Lola
Luftnagle, Oliver Oken/Mike Standley III, Jackson Stewart, Robby Stewart,
and Rico Suave.
E. Significance of Study
The research finding is expected to be useful in theoretically and
practically. In theoretically, it is hoped to be useful for expand the knowledge
for other students who are attracted in learning Cooperative Principle and
Maxims. Practically, it can give idea for other students who want to do some
researches about Cooperative Principle and the violation of maxims.
Furthermore, this study hoped to give contribution for the student to be a
source for other researchers about Cooperative Principle and the violation of
maxims in television series as a source of data.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
Based on the analysis of the utterances in Hannah Montana
television series in the previous chapter, it can be concluded that:
1. The four types of maxim which are violated by six main
charaters in episode one until episode three in the third season
of Hannah Montana television series. There were 94 utterances
of violation of maxims which occur in this series, they were 17
to maxim of quality, 22 to maxim of quantity, 26 to maxim of
relation, and 29 to maxim of manner.
2. There are some effects of the violations provide to the comical
situation in the series which can be done. It is to give the lack
the evidence by using the sarcasm, irony, or metaphor utterance,
to lying to the other speaker in hiding the truth, to save face the
embarrassment, to present that the statement is the strongest
information that is needed for the speaker or most informative
that can be made in the situation, to represent what is in the
40
41
speaker’s mind, or even to trick the audience or the listener,
even though for making a joke or not.
B. Suggestion
Having seen the result of the study, suggestions are staged as
follows.
1. For those who want to take the pragmatics study as the tool of their
research, especially on cooperative principle, they must understand and
learn more about this study. They may take the diferent object of the
research such as from movie, literary work like novels or short stories,
television show, radio program, or the others so that it will make the
research to be more interesting.
2. For those who want to be a scriptwriter, can learn this study to make
the joke or humor side in the script by creating the unusual utterance or
conversation, particularly in the drama comedy genre.
3. To every speaker is suggested to speak as clear as possible so that there
will be no violation in their conversation.
42
REFERENCES
Bednarek, Monika. 2010. The Language of Fictional Television: Drama and
Identity. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Creswell, John W. 2009. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed
Methods Approaches. Third Edition. United States of America: SAGE
Publications, Inc.
Cook, G. 1989. Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dornerus, Emma. 2005. Breaking Maxims in Conversation: A Comparative Study of How
Scriptwriters Break Maxims in “Desperate Housewives” and “That 70’s Show”.
English Journals, 1-37.
Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole, & J. Morgan (Eds.),
Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, 41-58. New York: Academic Press.
Hasibuan, Benny P. 2010. Maxim Violation in the Movie of Pirates of the
Caribbean: at World’s End. Medan: Universitas Negeri Medan.
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marshall, J. and Werndly, A. 2002. The Language of Television. London:
Routledge.
Pan, Weiwei. 2012. Linguistic Basis of Humor in Uses of Grice’s Cooperative
Principle. International journal of Aplied Linguistics and English Literature,
1(6) 20-25.
Peccei, Jean Stilwell. 1999. Pragmatics. New York: Routledge.
Rini, Setia. 2010. Violating the Maxims of Quality and Quantity on the ‘Demo
Sabun’ Sketch of Extravaganza Situation Comedy TV. Journal REGISTER,
language and language teaching journals, 3(2), 35-51.
43
Salvatore, Attardo. 1990. The Violation of Grice’s Maxims in Jokes. Proceedings
of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 355-362.
Saragih, Mariana Desy E. 2010. Types of Cooperative Principles in Kick Andy
Talk Show. Medan: Universitas Negeri Medan.
Tarihoran, Rezky Khoirina. 2010. The Study in the Violation of Maxim in the Play
“The Boy Comes Home” by A.A Milne. Medan: Universitas Negeri Medan.
Tupan, A H., and Natalia, Helen. 2008. The Multiple Violations of Conversational
Maxims in Lying Done by the Characters in Some Episodes of Desperate
Housewives. Literary Journals, 10(1), 63-78.
Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: oxford university Press.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Montana (retrieved on November 17, 2012)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_program (retrieved on November 25,
2012)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/62906995/Research-Methodology-by-Ashish-Basnet
(retrieved on November 28, 2012)
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/englishlanguage-television-dram
a (retrieved on July 26, 2013)
http://www.glyndwr.ac.uk/rdover/med-stud/narrativ.htm (retrieved on July 26,
2013)
IN “HANNAH MONTANA” TV SERIES
A THESIS
Submitted to Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of
Sarjana Sastra
By:
NURUL CHAIRINA
Regristration Number 209220038
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
ABSTRACT
Chairina, Nurul. 2013. The Violation of Maxims in Hannah Montana TV
Series. A Thesis. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan.
The study deals with the types of maxims violation in Hannah Montana TV Series.
The objectives of study are to describe the violation of maxim and to find the effect
of the violations in this series. The data is the transcript of Hannah Montana
television series and taken from the internet. This research is conducted by using
descriptive qualitative design and limited on the main characters. The data analysis
result shows there are 22 violation of maxim of quantity, 17 violation of maxim of
quality, 26 violation of maxim of relation, and 29 violation of maxim of manner.
The effects of the violations are to give the lack evidence, to lying to other speaker
in hiding the truth, to save face the embarrassment, to present the strongest
information, to represent what is in the speaker’s mind, or to trick audience or
listener for making a joke or not.
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Alhamdulillah, the writer express her best gratitude to Allah SWT, for
giving the writer blessing, endless love and mercy, especially in the process of
accomplishing this thesis. In accomplishing this thesis, the writer was helped by so
many beloved people and the writer would like to express her gratitude to:
1. Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si. as the Rector of State
University of Medan
2. Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum. as the Dean of Faculty of Languages
and Arts
3. Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd. as the Head of English and Literature
Department and Dra. Meisuri, M.A. as the Head of Applied
Linguistics Program
4. Dra. Sri Juriaty Ownie, M.A. as her thesis adviser, for the advice,
guidance, comment, and precious time in supervising the draft of
writing during the completion of this thesis, Dra. Yunita Agnes
Sianipar, M.Hum. as her academic adviser, and all her beloved
lecturers in English and Literature Department
5. Her beloved family, her father, Drs.Chairul Rahman; her mother, Ir.
Reny Rosfiarty; and her dearest sisters Nurul Musfirah and Shofi
Munifah, thank you for the understanding and the big support in
ii
prayer, love, motivation and financial while accomplished this
thesis.
6. Her beloved friends, SEMAK (Dewi, Hervina, Juniar, Putri,
Siswantia, and Vany), thanks for your love, happiness, and
friendship. Her special thanks also go to all friends in Applied
Linguistics A and B 2009 especially for her comrades; Murdianti,
Sisna, Suci, Conny, Astri, and many others that she cannot be
mentioned one by one.
7. Her best friends, Windy, Redny, and Tari, for their support
although they have separated in different university.
8. All others whose name cannot be mentioned one by one for their
help and support. Thanks for everything. May Allah bless us. Amin.
Finally, the writer admits that this thesis still far from being perfect.
Therefore, the writer would like to invite the readers to give suggestion for the
improvement of this thesis later on.
Medan,
July 2013
The writer
iii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A Identification of Violation of Maxim in the Main Characters’
Utterances of Hannah Montana in Season Three 44
Appendix B The Transcript of Hannah Montana in Season Three 60
vii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of Study
In conversation, the speaker(s) and the hearer(s) can achieved an ideal
communication when they have a good interaction and try to cooperate to each
other so that they understand and there is a correlation to the current topic
which they talk. When the speaker(s) and the hearer(s) have given a good
contribution in a conversation and use the good language, it shows that they
have fulfilled the rule of language. As Yule (1996:37) said that in most
circumstances, the assumption of cooperation is so pervasive that it can be
stated as a cooperative principle of conversation and elaborated in four
sub-principles, called maxims. This principle is the best practices in
communication in order to facilitate the process of conversation to be smoother
for the participants. But in fact, there are many people who disobey this
principle. This is called as the violation of maxim.
The violation of maxim occurs in a condition where someone fails to
fulfill a maxim in conversation. There are times when meaning deliberate
violations. It can be occurred when someone wants to create prolixity, to show
1
2
respect, to change the topic/subject and also for humor purpose (Cook,
1989:30-31).
Sometimes people express their opinion and ideas with concise,
humorous, dramatic, exaggerating and sarcastic method to achieve certain
effects, thereby people could feel content and funny, and even get
enlightenment and meditation (Pan, 2012:20). Recently, comedy cannot be
dismissed in social life. It can be occurred in daily conversation and also in
television programs to create humor. Humor is a mode of communication
which produces to entertain the hearer. A basic assumption which underlies the
following remarks is that a large number of jokes involve violations of one or
more of Grice’s maxims (Attardo, 1990: 355). It means that humor can violate
based on each type of violation of maxim, such as lying, irrelevant, or run out
from the topic.
The violation may exist not only in ordinary conversation but also in
dramatic conversation as in a television series. A television series is one of
television program which functions to entertain the audience. It is the media
instrument for human being and it is the one of the mass media orally delivered.
It used the scripts to present the story by the characters as well. In creating the
scripts that deal with social reality, the scriptwriter must be able to violate the
maxim (Rini, 2010:37)
3
Hannah Montana is one of the famous television series in America and
it is a drama comedy. Sometimes the characters do not speak clear, not relate
to each other as a usual conversation and use code or another word to replace
the word they mean, or even to make a humor/funny conversation for comedy
purpose so that there is a great chance that he/she repeatedly violates the
maxims.
The relevance studies of maxim violations inspires the writer to take a
study about violation of maxim, named Tarihoran (2010) entitled The Study in
the Violation of Maxim in the Play “The Boy Comes Home” by A.A Milne and
Hasibuan (2010) entitled Maxim Violation in the Movie of Pirates of The
Caribbean: At World’s End. The first study discovers that violation of maxim is
occurred in quantity, relevance and manner and the most dominant is maxim of
quantity. It proved that not always obeyed in conversation. In the second study
results show that all types of maxim were violated, and the most dominant
types of maxim which was violated are the maxim of quantity.
To distinguish this study with those previous explanations above, the
writer is interested in studying the violation of maxim of utterance used by the
characters on “Hannah Montana” because she wants to know more about
violation of maxims, especially in drama comedy, which have been learned in
Pragmatics class. Besides, the writer is also interested to take television series
of Hannah Montana as the object of her research because it is a kind of visual
4
communication which is using written conversation and it is the one of the
famous television series which has been nominated for some Awards in
America.
B. Problem of Study
This study examines the following questions:
1. What type of violation of maxims is used in episodes of Hannah Montana
television series?
2. What effect do the violations provide to the comical situation in the series?
C. Objective of Study
The objectives of study are:
1. To discover the violation maxim which is used in episodes of Hannah
Montana television series.
2. To describe the effect of the violations provide to the comical situation in
the series.
D. Scope of Study
5
The discussion of study is limited to violation of maxim. The writer will
analyze the violation maxim occurred in main characters’ utterances in Hannah
Montana television series. There are six main characters in Hannah Montana
television series, they are: Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana, Lily Truscott/Lola
Luftnagle, Oliver Oken/Mike Standley III, Jackson Stewart, Robby Stewart,
and Rico Suave.
E. Significance of Study
The research finding is expected to be useful in theoretically and
practically. In theoretically, it is hoped to be useful for expand the knowledge
for other students who are attracted in learning Cooperative Principle and
Maxims. Practically, it can give idea for other students who want to do some
researches about Cooperative Principle and the violation of maxims.
Furthermore, this study hoped to give contribution for the student to be a
source for other researchers about Cooperative Principle and the violation of
maxims in television series as a source of data.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
Based on the analysis of the utterances in Hannah Montana
television series in the previous chapter, it can be concluded that:
1. The four types of maxim which are violated by six main
charaters in episode one until episode three in the third season
of Hannah Montana television series. There were 94 utterances
of violation of maxims which occur in this series, they were 17
to maxim of quality, 22 to maxim of quantity, 26 to maxim of
relation, and 29 to maxim of manner.
2. There are some effects of the violations provide to the comical
situation in the series which can be done. It is to give the lack
the evidence by using the sarcasm, irony, or metaphor utterance,
to lying to the other speaker in hiding the truth, to save face the
embarrassment, to present that the statement is the strongest
information that is needed for the speaker or most informative
that can be made in the situation, to represent what is in the
40
41
speaker’s mind, or even to trick the audience or the listener,
even though for making a joke or not.
B. Suggestion
Having seen the result of the study, suggestions are staged as
follows.
1. For those who want to take the pragmatics study as the tool of their
research, especially on cooperative principle, they must understand and
learn more about this study. They may take the diferent object of the
research such as from movie, literary work like novels or short stories,
television show, radio program, or the others so that it will make the
research to be more interesting.
2. For those who want to be a scriptwriter, can learn this study to make
the joke or humor side in the script by creating the unusual utterance or
conversation, particularly in the drama comedy genre.
3. To every speaker is suggested to speak as clear as possible so that there
will be no violation in their conversation.
42
REFERENCES
Bednarek, Monika. 2010. The Language of Fictional Television: Drama and
Identity. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Creswell, John W. 2009. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed
Methods Approaches. Third Edition. United States of America: SAGE
Publications, Inc.
Cook, G. 1989. Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dornerus, Emma. 2005. Breaking Maxims in Conversation: A Comparative Study of How
Scriptwriters Break Maxims in “Desperate Housewives” and “That 70’s Show”.
English Journals, 1-37.
Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole, & J. Morgan (Eds.),
Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, 41-58. New York: Academic Press.
Hasibuan, Benny P. 2010. Maxim Violation in the Movie of Pirates of the
Caribbean: at World’s End. Medan: Universitas Negeri Medan.
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marshall, J. and Werndly, A. 2002. The Language of Television. London:
Routledge.
Pan, Weiwei. 2012. Linguistic Basis of Humor in Uses of Grice’s Cooperative
Principle. International journal of Aplied Linguistics and English Literature,
1(6) 20-25.
Peccei, Jean Stilwell. 1999. Pragmatics. New York: Routledge.
Rini, Setia. 2010. Violating the Maxims of Quality and Quantity on the ‘Demo
Sabun’ Sketch of Extravaganza Situation Comedy TV. Journal REGISTER,
language and language teaching journals, 3(2), 35-51.
43
Salvatore, Attardo. 1990. The Violation of Grice’s Maxims in Jokes. Proceedings
of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 355-362.
Saragih, Mariana Desy E. 2010. Types of Cooperative Principles in Kick Andy
Talk Show. Medan: Universitas Negeri Medan.
Tarihoran, Rezky Khoirina. 2010. The Study in the Violation of Maxim in the Play
“The Boy Comes Home” by A.A Milne. Medan: Universitas Negeri Medan.
Tupan, A H., and Natalia, Helen. 2008. The Multiple Violations of Conversational
Maxims in Lying Done by the Characters in Some Episodes of Desperate
Housewives. Literary Journals, 10(1), 63-78.
Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: oxford university Press.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Montana (retrieved on November 17, 2012)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_program (retrieved on November 25,
2012)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/62906995/Research-Methodology-by-Ashish-Basnet
(retrieved on November 28, 2012)
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/englishlanguage-television-dram
a (retrieved on July 26, 2013)
http://www.glyndwr.ac.uk/rdover/med-stud/narrativ.htm (retrieved on July 26,
2013)