CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE IN MATA NAJWA’S TALK SHOW.

CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE IN MATA NAJWA’S
TALK SHOW

A THESIS

Submitted as the Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

By:
SWARMAN RINDU M. SIAHAAN
Registration Number: 2112220017

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2015

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, the writer would like to express the greatest gratitude to Jesus
Christ the Almighty God for the blessings, guidance, guarding, and everything that
has been given along his life until the writer finally accomplishes his thesis.

This thesis is aimed to fulfill one of the requirements to obtain the S1 degree
of Sarjana Sastra at English Department in Faculty of Languages and Arts, State
University of Medan.
In completing this thesis, the writer realized that he faced problems and he
had received the academic guidance, suggestions, and comments and got a lot of
assistance and moral support from many people. Therefore, the writer would like to
express his gratitude and special thanks to:
 Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan.

 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts,
State University of Medan.

 Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature
Department, Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English and Literature
Department, and Syamsul Bahri, S.S., M.Hum., as the Head of English
Literature Study Program, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of
Medan.

 Drs. Muhammad Natsir, M.Hum., his Thesis Consultant, Drs. Lidiman
Sahat Martua Sinaga, M.Hum., as his Academic Adviser and as the

Examiner, and also Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D., and Dr. Sri Minda
Murni, M.S., as his Thesis Examiners who have given their precious time,
guidance, suggestions, and comments.

 All Lecturers of English Department who have taught, guided, and advised
him throughout the academic years.

ii

 Bu Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd., and Pak Pantes, the Administration Staff
of English Department, for their attention, assistance, and information.

 His special sincere gratitude goes to his beloved parents; his lovely father
Sukiman Siahaan, his beloved mother Anna Saogo, his lovely brothers and
sister Ferdinan Siahaan, Zulkifly Siahaan, Erwin Siahaan, Agus Siahaan
and Nancy Siahaan and all his families for their endless love, pray,
inspiration, motivation, and everything that they have given to the writer
during his whole life.

 All his brothers and sister in HMJ-BSI FBS UNIMED for all motivation,

spirit and attention in organization and campus every day. He thanks you all
so much.

 All his classmates in Sastra B 2011 who cannot be mentioned one by one that
shared knowledge, ideas, and have been cooperatively supporting the writer in
completing this thesis.

 His beloved friends 7 Disasters, Henny, Via, Lusi, Dila, Ines and Eren for
their endless support, attention, pray and beautiful day spent together.

 His sweetheart, Nayara Hafiza Surbakti, for special care, affection, laugh
and patience in accompanying the writer time by time.

The writer realizes that this thesis is still far from being perfect, he warmly
welcomes any constructive suggestions, comments, and advices that will improve the
quality of this thesis. He hopes that this thesis would be useful for those who are read
and interested in the field of this study.
Medan, July 2015
The writer,


Swarman Rindu M. Siahaan
Reg. No. 2112220017

iii

ABSTRACT
Siahaan, Swarman Rindu M. 2112220017. Conversational Implicature in Mata
Najwa’s Talk Show. A Thesis. English and Literature Department. Faculty of
Languages and Arts. State University of Medan. 2015
The objectives of this research were to find out the two types of conversational
implicature, they are; generalized conversational implicature and particularized
conversational implicature and to describe the reason of the most dominant type of
conversational implicature. This research was conducted by using descriptive
qualitative. The data was collected by applying documentary technique such as;
collecting reference and journal related to the study, searching and selecting the
source of data, downloading the data from youtube, and transcribing the script of the
show. The data were taken from six segments of one episode of Mata Najwa’s talk
show. The two types of conversational implicature were occurred in the episode of
Mata Najwa’s talk show. The findings of data analysis showed that the total numbes
of conversational implicature was 84 occurrences. The two types were Generalized

Conversational Implicature 49 (58.33%) and Particularized Conversational
Implicature 35 (41.67%). The most dominant type of conversational implicature was
Generalized Conversational Implicature. It shows that the interviews usually used the
clear, brief and straightforward statements in order to avoid the ambiguity and to
make the listeners were able to understand what he/she said. And also this program is
expected to give information, interested and give some positive lessons to the
listeners.
Keywords: Conversational Implicature, Mata Najwa’s Talk Show.

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LIST OF APPENDIX
Page
APPENDIX

Types of Conversational Implicature in Mata Najwa’s
Talk Show…………………………………………………….

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A.

Background of The Study
Everybody absolutely communicates along his life. Communication is the

process of transferring information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a
medium in which the communicated information is understood by both sender and
receiver, Adrian and Friends (2010: 366). It is the act or process of using words,
sounds, signs, or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express the
ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc., to someone else. Communication is one of the most
important aspects which cannot be separated from human beings.
Leech (1983: 54) said that doing communication means using language.
So, language is one system of communication which enables human to cooperate.
Without language people cannot do the interaction and understand each other.
Every time we use language in our daily life so that people around us know about

what we feel, what we desire or what we think. We communicate effectively with
our words, gestures, and tone in kinds of situation. Therefore, language is the
essential aspect in our life.
Communication will be run well because of the role of sender and
receiver.

Therefore,

both

speaking

and

listening

were

important


for

communication to take place. When a person listening to someone else speaking,
he/she must put together what is being said with how it is being said.
Communication is a bridge among people because it can make a good relationship
1

2

or even destroy the relationship itself. Both the speaker and hearer have to have
perception about what they were talking to make the communication can be
gained well. Sometimes if the hearer cannot catch what the speaker talk, it may
lead misinterpretation or misunderstanding among them.
This study was emphasized that to understand the utterances is not enough
if only sees from the real meaning or semantics side but it has to be seen from
pragmatics side because the messages were not only conveyed directly but also
implicitly. Yule (1996: 3) states that pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning.
This study is concerned with meaning as communicated by speaker (or writer) and
interpreted by a listener (or reader), and it has more to do with the analysis of
what people mean by their utterances. The usage of pragmatics enables people to

communicate not only explicitly but also implicitly.
Look at the example below. The conversation between the host and guest
in Mata Najwa’s talk show episode January 21st, 2015 (00:50:43):
Host (Najwa) : Kalo begitu singkatan yang BTP itu pas nggak buat pak
Ahok menurut Syahrini yaitu Bersih, Transparan,
Profesional?
Syahrini

: Kita lihat 5 tahun kedepan ya pak Ahok ya.

From the conversation above, we can see that the host namely Najwa
asked Syahrini with Yes or No question. She’s asking about Syahrini’s opinion
about Governor of DKI Jakarta namely Basuki Tjahja Purnama (BTP). But
Syahrini did not want to emphasize or give statement about the abbreviation of
BTP itself because she cannot ensure that it will be implemented or not in the

3

future. So, Syahrini conveyed an additional meaning in her statement. The host
and guest have special background knowledge and talk in a same context so they

can understand each other without making misunderstanding. In our daily life, the
event like the example above is frequently happened. We will understand each
other if we have the same background knowledge, but we will raise a
misperception if we do not catch the additional implied meaning from the
utterances. It is called as conversational implicature.
Grice (1975, 1989) defines that implicature is additional conveyed
meaning. In other word, implicature is a technical term, which refers to what is
suggested in an utterance, even though neither expressed nor strictly implied.
There are two types of implicature namely conventional implicature and
conversational implicature. Where conventional implicature is expression’s
agreed meaning, rather than derived from principles of language use and not part
of the conditions for the truth of the item or expression. And conversational
implicature means what is expressed literally in a sentence is different with what
is suggested or hinted at by an utterance of the same string of words.
This study would analyze about a specific implicature, it was
conversational implicature. There were two types of conversational implicature,
namely generalized conversational implicature and particularized conversational
implicature. To get the conveyed meaning which is suggested implicitly and to
avoid


a

misunderstanding

or

misperception

among

the

speaker

and

hearer/recipient, they must have the same background knowledge in which they

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were involved. So, the understanding of implicature was needed absolutely to
understand the implicit meaning in utterances.
Based on the explanation above, the writer eagerness was attracted to do a
research about conversational implicature in television’s program. Television is an
electronic system of transmitting transient images of fixed or moving objects
together with sound over a wire or through space by apparatus that converts light
and sound into electrical waves and reconverts them into visible light rays and
audible sound. It means that television is an effective way to promote or to show
everything, like goods or services, news, and etc., because not only emerge
face/image but also voice/sound.
Television used by many people around the world to show their thinking,
their desiring or their feeling to people/watcher. An example, like politician or
celebrities, television can be used to show their prestige in front of their
audiences, fans, or supporters. Of course he/she used implicature to keep his/her
image to audiences or sometimes implicature happens because he/she thinks the
topic is embarrassing. There were so many types of television programs like talk
show, infotainment, game show, news, sport, comedy, electronic cinema, etc. But
here, talk show’s program will be an object which is going to be analyzed.
Talk show is one of radio or television programming to represent the
utterances that were usually used in people life as the object of research. It is a
question and answer session in which a host interviews one person or a group of
people and discusses various topics. Television talk show is a program that talking

5

about the guest’s jobs, their personal lives, their spiritual experience and also
about things that recently happens. And in this research, there is an object will be
analyzed, it is a high class, most familiar and exclusive television talk show’s
programs in Metro TV which called Mata Najwa’s talk show.
Mata Najwa’s talk show is hosted by Najwa Shihab itself. She is a senior
journalist in Metro TV. She is a critical person, clever, has a good communication
skills, strict to the point and never satisfied before her questions answered by the
guests. She doesn’t afraid of anything, doesn’t hesitate to ask cynical question to
anyone. But beside that, she is also a fun and kindly person. Mata Najwa’s talk
show discuss and investigate the truth of particular current issues and crucial
problems, like politics issue, economics, law enforcement, education, health issue
and social phenomena (http://www.matanajwa.com). It is an exclusive talk show
because she always invites well-known persons in Indonesia, like president,
governor, minister, constitutional court, politicians, lawyer and also entertainer.
By capitalizing this Mata Najwa’s talk show, conversational implicature
will be found from the utterances that have been transcribed. All the findings will
be classified into the two types of conversational implicature. From the two types,
the most dominant type of conversational implicature will be found. Lastly, it is to
describe the reasons why the most dominant type of conversational implicature is
used.
There were six segments of one episode of Mata Najwa’s talk show from
different times and different persons that will be the source of data. They were

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politicians, governor, president, lawyers, parliament, entertainer and etc. This
study would try to find out the implicature which used by the host and guests, so
that the meaning or message of their utterances can be understood. In our daily
life, implicature was always used when doing conversation with anyone. Where,
we implicate something else when utter something. We would raise a
misunderstanding if we cannot catch the hinted meaning of the statement that is
uttered. It was the reason for this study to analyze conversational implicature.

B.

The Problem of The Study
Based on the background above, the problem of the study can be

formulated as follows:
1.

What types of conversational implicature were found in Mata Najwa’s
talk show?

2.

What is the dominant type of conversational implicature used in Mata
Najwa’s talk show?

3.

Why is the most dominant type of conversational implicature used in
Mata Najwa’s talk show?

C.

The Objective of The Study
Based on the problems of the study above, the objective of the study were:
1.

To find out the types of conversational implicature used in Mata
Najwa’s talk show.

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2.

To find out the most dominant type of conversational implicature used
in Mata Najwa’s talk show.

3.

To decribe a reason why the most dominant type of conversational
implicature used in Mata Najwa’s talk show.

D.

The Scope of The Study
Implicature is an additional conveyed meaning. There were two types of

implicature, they were conventional implicature and conversational implicature.
But in this case, this study will analyze about conversational impliture. The study
was limited on analyzing conversational implicature that will be taken from the
utterances of the host and guests mentioned in Mata Najwa’s talk show. The data
were limited on six segments in one episode of Mata Najwa’s talk show, namely
Mata Najwa’s talk show episode January 21st, 2015.

E.

The Significance of The Study
The findings of this study were expected to be useful theoretically and

practically:
Theoretically, the findings will give information and knowledge of
pragmatics especially knowledge about conversational implicature to students
who were majoring English. And also for students who wants to make a
conversation with foreigners.
Practically, the findings will be useful for English teachers who would like
to use conversational implicature as teaching materials as well as to increase

8

knowledge on pragmatics. And then for other students and researchers who would
like to conduct a more in depth research related to the study.

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A.

Conclusions
After analyzing and determining the types of conversational implicature

from the conversation that has been in the transcripts of the two episodes in Mata
Najwa’s Talk Show, the conclusions are presented as follows;
1.

The two types of conversational implicature were occurred in the two
episodes of Mata Najwa’s Talk Show, they were Generalized Conversational
Implicature (49) and Particularized Conversational Implicature (35).

2.

The most dominant type of conversational implicature was Generalized
Conversational Implicature conveyed by guests or interviewees with 49
occurrences (58.33%) which is showed in Mata Najwa’s Talk Show.

3.

The guests or interviewees conveyed statements briefly, clearly and
straightforward so that the host or interviewer and the listeners can easily
catch the meaning without having special background knowledge. According
to this dominant type was explained that the expectation of interviewer and
interviewees in this program were giving the understanding of what he/she
desire and think and also this talk show can inform, inspire, attract and give
some positive lesson to the listeners.

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B.

Suggestions
By considering the research findings and the conclusions, there are some

suggestions which are presented as follows;
1.

The students are suggested to comprehend Pragmatics especially knowledge
about conversational implicature so that they can catch the meaning in the
conversation whether it’s explicitly or implicitly.

2.

English teachers are suggested to increase their learning style and enrich their
teaching materials by choosing television program like talk show to improve
the students’ ability and to attract the student’s interest in conversational
implicature.

3.

Other researchers are suggested to conduct a more in depth research of
conversational implicature.

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Grice, H.P. 1989. Studies in The Way of Words. Cambridge, London: Harvard
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