Analysis on Non-Observance of the Gricean Maxims in Family Jokes Which Lead to humor in Laughfactory.com.

ABSTRACT

Di dalam penulisan skripsi ini, data yang saya gunakan adalah lelucon keluarga yang berasal dari sebuah situs Amerika Serikat yang berjudul

Laughfactory.com. Saya menganalisis pelanggaran-pelanggaran bidal atau maxim

yang merupakan gagasan Herbert Paul Grice. Pelanggaran bidal itu sendiri merupakan salah satu kajian dari Pragmatics.

Secara spesifik, pelanggaran bidal terdiri dari lima macam, yaitu: flouting

the maxims, violating the maxims, infringing of the maxims, opting out of maxims

dan suspending the maxims.

Salah satu temuan yang saya peroleh dari kajian ini adalah bahwa pelanggaran bidal perilaku merupakan pelanggaran bidal yang paling sering ditemukan karena kebanyakan lelucon yang saya kaji bersumber dari sarkasme, dan sarkasme paling efektif dikaji menggunakan pelanggaran bidal perilaku.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... i

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... ii

ABSTRACT ... iii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION………. 1

Background of the Study………... 1

Statement of the Problem……… 4

Purpose of the Study……….……... 4

Methods of Research ……….. 4

Organization of the Thesis ... 5

CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...6

CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS ON NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE GRICEAN MAXIMS IN FAMILY JOKES WHICH LEAD TO HUMOR IN LAUGHFACTORY.COM ... 14

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ... 45

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 49

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

While having a conversation in daily life, people are sometimes unable to convey what they actually want. They tend to beat around the bushes instead of going to the main point. This usually leads to many possibilities such as misunderstanding, conflict, humor, etcetera.

People rarely say what they actually want to say because of the situation that they are in. Probably it is because they are not allowed to tell the truth, or they intentionally try to mislead the hearer. In order to understand what the hidden meaning or implied meaning behind the speaker’s utterance is, the hearer must understand the situation and condition beforehand; otherwise, the hearer will fail for sure to understand the real meaning of the speaker. (Thomas 63)

For the reason above, the topic that I come up with for my thesis is:

Analysis on Non-Observance of the Gricean Maxims in Family Jokes which Lead

to Humor in Laughfactory.com. The significance of this topic is to reveal the

time, it will also help the reader of these family jokes to understand the real meaning behind them.

The chosen topic is within a linguistic area known as Pragmatics, an area which discusses the hidden meaning of a speaker’s utterance. The theory that I am going to use is created by H.P. Grice in 1950 about non-observance of maxims. The main purpose of using this theory is to reveal the humor of those family jokes. In a conversation, there are certain rules to be followed so as to make the conversation flow fluently. Those rules are called conversational maxims, introduced by H.P. Grice. There are four conversational maxims, which are Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner; each of which has its own rule to be followed by the speaker to make sure that the hearer gets the message.

However, there is a chance that a speaker may fail to observe a certain maxim. There are a lot of reasons why a speaker may fail to observe a maxim; for instance, they deliberately avoid answering a question, give an irrelevant response, or use imperfect language.

Grice noticed that, and thus he pointed out five different ways of how a speaker fails to observe the maxim, and those five ways are flouting the maxims, violating the maxims, infringing the maxims, opting out of maxims, and lastly suspending the maxims.

To strengthen the effect of humor in those jokes, I use another theory, Script Incongruity, which was founded by Raskin. The theory mainly talks about how a dialogue may have two different scripts. One of the scripts is easy to predict, while the other is totally unpredictable. It is the unpredictability effect that leads to humor in a dialogue.

This thesis mainly discusses the humorous dialogues in the family jokes on the website Laughfactory.com. Laughfactory.com started in 1979 and has been recognized as "the #1 comedy club in the country" by high-profile media such as USA Today. The founder and driving force of Laughfactory.com is Jamie Masada, who is revered as a pioneer and innovator and is an iconic name on the comedy scene. The New York Daily News called him the "Real King of Comedy." His knowledge and expertise have made him the leading authority on all things comedy and his advice is highly regarded by the entertainment industry's top power brokers. (Laughfactory.com)

The reason why I choose this particular category from the website

Laughfactory.com as my source is basically because of its amusing and funny

dialogues, which are totally worthy to be analyzed; moreover, most of the dialogues also contain non-observance of the Gricean maxims. The other reason is because the jokes in this category are mostly taken from our daily life conversations, which increases its analytical value. The most amusing part is to see the use of sarcasm at the perfect moment by each of the speakers with or without the intention of leading the dialogue into a humorous situation. In addition, as the jokes from this category are mostly taken from daily conversations, their languages are really simple and easy to understand.

By writing this thesis, I hope the readers will become more aware of the implied meaning in their daily conversations. The reason is because the failure to observe the maxims happen quite a lot without people noticing it.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The problems which will be analyzed are as follow:

1. What type of non-observance maxims according to Grice’s theory are there in the jokes of this category?

2. What is the implied meaning within the speaker’s utterance?

3. In terms of Raskin’s theory of Script Incongruity, how does a speaker’s failure to observe maxims lead to humor?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

Based on the stated questions, the purposes of my study are as follow:

1. To find out the type of non-observance of the Gricean maxims that occurs in the utterance.

2. To observe the implied meaning within the speaker’s utterance.

3. To reveal how the speaker’s failure to observe the maxims can lead into humor.

1.4 Method of Research

First of all, I started my research by browsing on the Internet about family

jokes which I am going to use as the source of my data on the website

Laughfactory.com. After that, I analyzed those jokes with the cooperative

principles of Gricean theory of non-observance maxims and Raskin’s theory of Script Incongruity which I learned from some sources, either in the form of books or websites. Finally, I identified the speaker’s failure to observe the maxims

which creates humor, and classified it based on Grice’s theory. At the same time, I also try to figure out the implied meaning of the speaker’s utterance.

1.5 Organization of the Thesis

This thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is Introduction, which includes Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research and Organization of the Thesis. The second chapter is Theoretical Framework, which is about the theories that I am going to use in my analysis. Chapter Three is the analysis of my data, which is taken from the category family jokes in the website Laughfactory.com. Chapter Four is Conclusion, which consists of my own comments and suggestions for further research. The last to be presented in this thesis is Bibliography and Appendices.

CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I present the result of my analysis on the family jokes that I chose from the website Laughfactory.com using the non-observance of the Gricean maxims along with Raskin’s theory of Script Incongruity.

After analyzing the family jokes from the website Laughfactory.com, I find two main possibilities regarding how a family joke can lead to humor. The first possibility that I find, and probably the most obvious one, is by being sarcastic to another family member. It is actually very effective as all of those jokes unexpectedly lead to humor to both the hearer and audience. The second possibility of how a family joke can also lead to humor is by ridiculing someone’s appearance. People usually flout the maxims of manner and relation when they are trying to ridicule someone’s appearance indirectly, and it is usually very effective. Other possibilities, such as the role of a family member and child’s innocence, can also lead a family joke to humor; however, it is not that clear in my analysis.

Even though there are five types of non-observance of the Gricean maxims, there are only a couple of types which can be found in the category of family jokes on the website Laughfactory.com. Those types are flouting the maxims and violating the maxims.

From my analysis, I find that the number of flouting the maxims occurs more than violating the maxims. In fact, out of seventeen data, there are thirteen data which are flouting the maxims. The reason could be because flouting the maxims is the most common type to occur in daily life conversations. The speaker may want the hearer to look for the implied meaning of the speaker’s utterance on his own.

Based on the analysis, flouting the maxim of manner is the most frequently occurring type. In fact, out of nineteen utterances, there are eight utterances that flout the maxim of manner. In my analysis, flouting the maxim of manner happens because the speaker does not have the courage to say the truth and he may be hiding something from the hearer. Another reason is that their relation is so close that the speaker is sure that the hearer would get his implied meaning even though he does not answer to the question directly.

The second most frequently occurring type is the flouting of the maxim of relation, which occurs four times. From the utterances which flout the maxim of relation, it can be concluded that people usually flout the maxim of relation in family jokes because the speaker thinks that it is unnecessary to reply to the question asked to them.

Next, the flout of the maxim of quality is the third most frequently occurring type, which totally occurs only three times. In a family, people barely

flout the maxim of quality because it is unnecessary for a family member to say things which are untrue to the others to make them understand the real meaning. There are a lot of easier ways such as flouting the maxims of manner or relation.

Last but not least, flouting the maxim of quantity only occurs twice. Flouting the maxim of quantity happens to be the least used among all kinds of flouting the maxims because people usually give the right amount of information in their daily life conversations.

In all the utterances, I personally conclude that all the speakers want the hearers to understand the implied meaning behind their words, and usually it is the implied meaning that leads the joke to humor. The implied meaning can lead a joke to humor because it is somehow unpredictable for both the hearer and the audience.

The other type of non-observance of the Gricean maxims that can be found in this thesis is violation of the maxim. Out of seventeen data, there are only four data that violate the maxim, which proves that misleading the hearer to create humor is less popular than wanting the hearer to find the implied meaning by themselves.

The other types of non-observance of the Gricean maxims, such as infringing the maxim, opting out of the maxim, and suspending the maxim are not analyzed in my thesis as they are not found on the website. The reason why infringing the maxim cannot be found on the website, particularly in the category of family jokes, may be because the speakers use English as their mother tongue; therefore, they rarely infringe the maxim. As for opting out of the maxim, I personally think that it is because people who are in a family prefer to violate or

flout instead of refusing to respond to the other party of the family. Lastly, my analysis does not include suspending a maxim purely because there is no reason for a family member to suspend anything. They are able to speak freely to each other because of they are a family.

The other theory that I apply in this thesis is the theory of Script Incongruity founded by Raskin. I use this theory because I find it helpful in revealing humors of the jokes by having the dramatic switch between the first and second script. I personally believe this theory is applicable for my thesis because the category that I chose is family jokes and the audience may have experienced it in their daily life before; therefore they may have certain expectation for the script. However, the second script of every single joke is always unpredictable and the unpredictability itself also increases the value of every humor that I reveal.

Finally, for further researchers who are interested in the theory of the non-observance of the Gricean maxims, I personally would like to suggest for analyze the category of Wedding Jokes on the website Laughfactory.com because there are a lot of jokes which are applicable for the theory. Besides, it is also notable that family jokes on other websites could also be a good material to be analyzed along with the theory of the non-observance of the Gricean maxims. The sarcastic yet humorous side of those jokes is worthy to be analyzed as they all reflect the situation that we may face in our own daily lives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Source

Laughfactory.com Laughfactory, Inc, 1979. Web.12 March 2014

References

Alexandra, Raceanu Marina “Speech Acts in Professional English” N.p. N.d. Web. 23 April, 2014.

Cook, Guy. Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford. Oxford University Press.2000. Print.

“Grice Cooperative Principle, Maxims and Implicature.” N.p. N.d. Web. 23 April, 2014.

Raskin, Victor (1985) Semantic Mechanisms of Humour N.p. N.d. Web 23 April, 2014.

Thomas, Jenny (1995) Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics. London and New York: Longman Group Limited

which creates humor, and classified it based on Grice’s theory. At the same time, I also try to figure out the implied meaning of the speaker’s utterance.

1.5Organization of the Thesis

This thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is Introduction, which includes Background of the Study, Statement of the Problem, Purpose of the Study, Method of Research and Organization of the Thesis. The second chapter is Theoretical Framework, which is about the theories that I am going to use in my analysis. Chapter Three is the analysis of my data, which is taken from the category family jokes in the website Laughfactory.com. Chapter Four is Conclusion, which consists of my own comments and suggestions for further research. The last to be presented in this thesis is Bibliography and Appendices.

CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I present the result of my analysis on the family jokes that I chose from the website Laughfactory.com using the non-observance of the Gricean maxims along with Raskin’s theory of Script Incongruity.

After analyzing the family jokes from the website Laughfactory.com, I find two main possibilities regarding how a family joke can lead to humor. The first possibility that I find, and probably the most obvious one, is by being sarcastic to another family member. It is actually very effective as all of those jokes unexpectedly lead to humor to both the hearer and audience. The second possibility of how a family joke can also lead to humor is by ridiculing someone’s appearance. People usually flout the maxims of manner and relation when they are trying to ridicule someone’s appearance indirectly, and it is usually very effective. Other possibilities, such as the role of a family member and child’s innocence, can also lead a family joke to humor; however, it is not that clear in my analysis.

Even though there are five types of non-observance of the Gricean maxims, there are only a couple of types which can be found in the category of family jokes on the website Laughfactory.com. Those types are flouting the maxims and violating the maxims.

From my analysis, I find that the number of flouting the maxims occurs more than violating the maxims. In fact, out of seventeen data, there are thirteen data which are flouting the maxims. The reason could be because flouting the maxims is the most common type to occur in daily life conversations. The speaker may want the hearer to look for the implied meaning of the speaker’s utterance on his own.

Based on the analysis, flouting the maxim of manner is the most frequently occurring type. In fact, out of nineteen utterances, there are eight utterances that flout the maxim of manner. In my analysis, flouting the maxim of manner happens because the speaker does not have the courage to say the truth and he may be hiding something from the hearer. Another reason is that their relation is so close that the speaker is sure that the hearer would get his implied meaning even though he does not answer to the question directly.

The second most frequently occurring type is the flouting of the maxim of relation, which occurs four times. From the utterances which flout the maxim of relation, it can be concluded that people usually flout the maxim of relation in family jokes because the speaker thinks that it is unnecessary to reply to the question asked to them.

Next, the flout of the maxim of quality is the third most frequently occurring type, which totally occurs only three times. In a family, people barely

flout the maxim of quality because it is unnecessary for a family member to say things which are untrue to the others to make them understand the real meaning. There are a lot of easier ways such as flouting the maxims of manner or relation.

Last but not least, flouting the maxim of quantity only occurs twice. Flouting the maxim of quantity happens to be the least used among all kinds of flouting the maxims because people usually give the right amount of information in their daily life conversations.

In all the utterances, I personally conclude that all the speakers want the hearers to understand the implied meaning behind their words, and usually it is the implied meaning that leads the joke to humor. The implied meaning can lead a joke to humor because it is somehow unpredictable for both the hearer and the audience.

The other type of non-observance of the Gricean maxims that can be found in this thesis is violation of the maxim. Out of seventeen data, there are only four data that violate the maxim, which proves that misleading the hearer to create humor is less popular than wanting the hearer to find the implied meaning by themselves.

The other types of non-observance of the Gricean maxims, such as infringing the maxim, opting out of the maxim, and suspending the maxim are not analyzed in my thesis as they are not found on the website. The reason why infringing the maxim cannot be found on the website, particularly in the category of family jokes, may be because the speakers use English as their mother tongue; therefore, they rarely infringe the maxim. As for opting out of the maxim, I personally think that it is because people who are in a family prefer to violate or

flout instead of refusing to respond to the other party of the family. Lastly, my analysis does not include suspending a maxim purely because there is no reason for a family member to suspend anything. They are able to speak freely to each other because of they are a family.

The other theory that I apply in this thesis is the theory of Script Incongruity founded by Raskin. I use this theory because I find it helpful in revealing humors of the jokes by having the dramatic switch between the first and second script. I personally believe this theory is applicable for my thesis because the category that I chose is family jokes and the audience may have experienced it in their daily life before; therefore they may have certain expectation for the script. However, the second script of every single joke is always unpredictable and the unpredictability itself also increases the value of every humor that I reveal.

Finally, for further researchers who are interested in the theory of the non-observance of the Gricean maxims, I personally would like to suggest for analyze the category of Wedding Jokes on the website Laughfactory.com because there are a lot of jokes which are applicable for the theory. Besides, it is also notable that family jokes on other websites could also be a good material to be analyzed along with the theory of the non-observance of the Gricean maxims. The sarcastic yet humorous side of those jokes is worthy to be analyzed as they all reflect the situation that we may face in our own daily lives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Source

Laughfactory.com Laughfactory, Inc, 1979. Web.12 March 2014

References

Alexandra, Raceanu Marina “Speech Acts in Professional English” N.p. N.d. Web. 23 April, 2014.

Cook, Guy. Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford. Oxford University Press.2000. Print.

“Grice Cooperative Principle, Maxims and Implicature.” N.p. N.d. Web. 23 April, 2014.

Raskin, Victor (1985) Semantic Mechanisms of Humour N.p. N.d. Web 23 April, 2014.

Thomas, Jenny (1995) Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics. London and New York: Longman Group Limited