VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY 4 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES VIOLATION OF GRICE’S MAXIMS IN CASE OF JOKES SEMANTICS COURSE (Final assignment) Student Nguyen Thi Hong Vinh Group K18C Supervisor Ha Cam Tam, Dr Date of submission 30062010 Hanoi, 2010 TABLE OF CONTENT PART A INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study 2 Aims of the study 3 Scope of the study 4 Method of the study PART B DEVELOPMENT 1 Theoretical backgroun.
0 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VIOLATION OF GRICE’S MAXIMS IN CASE OF JOKES SEMANTICS COURSE (Final assignment) Student: Nguyen Thi Hong Vinh Group: K18C Supervisor: Ha Cam Tam, Dr Date of submission: 30/06/2010 Hanoi, 2010 Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment TABLE OF CONTENT PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Aims of the study Scope of the study Method of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT Theoretical background 1.1 Grice’s maxims of conversation 1.2 Jokes and Joke types Violation of Grice’s Maxims in jokes 2.1 Violation of Grice’s Maxims 2.2 Violation of Grice’s Maxims in Jokes 2.2.1 Violation of the Maxim of Quantity 2.2.2 Violation of Maxim of Quality 2.2.3 Violation of Maxim of Relation 2.2.4 Violation of Maxim of Manner PART C: CONCLUSION REFERENCES Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment PART A: INTRODUCTION RATIONALE OF THE STUDY The philosopher Paul Grice proposed four conversational maxims which are a way to explain the link between utterances and what is understood from them The Maxims are based on his cooperative principle which states “‘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,’ Following cooperative principle, listeners and speakers must speak cooperatively and mutually accept one another to be understood in a particular way In other words, speakers try to contribute meaningful, productive utterances to further the conversation Based on these principles, people can know how effective communication in conversation is achieved in common social situations However, there are many cases in which someone might be uncooperative in conversation This phenomenon can be named as violation or flout Grice’s maxims Perhaps some people violate or flout Grice’s maxims in their conversation because they are being interrogated for information which they not want to give or because they hate the person they are talking to, in other situations, they may be want to imply something or sometimes some people just intend to make jokes It seems that the case of jokes is a remarkable example for the violation or flouting of Grice’s maxims Many jokes only make sense when hearer or readers realize that the basic rule in common conversation or communication is somehow not normally followed Finding out the principles which are violated means understanding the jokes Many English jokes I have read before confused me because I could not discover why English people find it funny; therefore I am really interested in investigating the way joke stories flout or violate the Grice’s Maxim By doing this, I hope that I have more chances to understand more profoundly joke stories That is the reason I choose the topic “An investigation into the ways different types of joke violate Grice’s maxims” Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment AIMS OF THE STUDY The study is expected to reach the following purposes: - Have an overview of the violation of Grice’s Maxims - Explore the ways in which different types of joke violate Grice’s Maxims SCOPE OF THE STUDY The research aims at providing an investigation into the ways different types of joke flouting Grice’s maxims In order to make the task manageable in keeping the aims of the research, within the paper length allowance, it is intended that not every types of jokes will be listed here to analyze whether it violate the Grice’s maxims or not The focus of this study is only analyzing the way several jokes violating Grice’s maxims without listing them in any particular joke types METHODS OF THE STUDY Some methods applied to carry out this research are: - Collecting many joke stories - Reading about Joke, about Grice’s maxims - Analyzing the way some chosen joke stories flouting the four principles of Grice’s maxims Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment PART B: DEVELOPMENT THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Grice’s maxims of conversation Grice is the first person who advanced the theory of the cooperative principle in Harvard University, 1967 Grice says, all of actions communication, in order of achieve the specific destination, there is a tacit agreement between the speaker and hearer, an agreement that both sides are expected to observe It tries to explain how a speaker can mean more than what he says and how a hearer perceives what the speaker really means Grice thinks there is a set of assumptions governing the conduct of conversation This is what he calls the cooperative principle He formulates the principle and its maxims in “Logic and Conversation” (1975) named Maxims of Quality, Quantity, Relevance and Manner Maxim of Quality: Be Truthful Do not say what you believe to be false Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence Maxim of Quantity Make your contribution as informative as is required Do not make your contribution more informative than is required Maxim of Relation: Be relevant This is the most important maxim, since it is responsible for preventing random, incoherent conversations lacking any continuity Maxim of Manner: Be Clear Avoid obscurity of expression Avoid ambiguity Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) Be orderly Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment 1.2 Jokes and Joke types According to Encyclopedia, a joke is a short story or short series of words spoken or communicated with the intent of being laughed at or found humorous by the listener or reader Most jokes contain two components: joke setup (for example, "A man walks into a bar ") and a punch line, which, when juxtaposed with the setup, provides the necessary irony to elicit laughter from the audience Jokes can be categorized into many differing topics relating to their content and punch line, and also there are many ways to classify joke and sometimes many jokes fit into more than one category Here listed some main popular types of joke: Yo' mama jokes, Question–answer, Dirty jokes, Sick jokes, Blonde jokes, Jokes about animals, Shaggy dog stories, Duck jokes, Religion in jokes, Knock-knock jokes (Puns), Profession-targeted jokes, Light bulb jokes, Dead body jokes, Ethnic jokes, Mathematics jokes VIOLATION OF GRICE’S MAXIMS IN JOKES 2.1 Violation of Grice’s Maxims Without cooperation, human interaction would be far more difficult and counterproductive For example, it would not make sense to reply to a question about the weather with an answer about groceries because it would violate the Maxim of Relation Likewise, responding to a request for some milk with an entire gallon instead of a glass would violate the Maxim of Quantity However, it is possible to violate a maxim intentionally or unconsciously and thereby convey a different meaning than what is literally spoken Many times in conversation, this violation is manipulated by a speaker to produce sarcasm or irony Speakers who deliberately violate the maxims usually intend for their listener to understand their underlying implication (This violation can be called flouting) Conversationalists can assume that when speakers intentionally flout a maxim, they still so with the aim of expressing some thought Thus, the Grice’s Maxims serve a purpose both when they are followed and when they are flouted Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment With the Maxim of quantity, violation happens when speakers don’t say enough or say too much With the Maxim of quality, violation happens when speakers deliberately lie or speakers communicate in a way that does not reflect an honest intention With the Maxim of relation, violation happens when speakers make an irrelevant comment With the Maxim of manner, violation happens when speakers are obscure, ambiguous or disorganized 2.2 Violation of Grice’s Maxims in Jokes It is a common knowledge that joking, which typically results in laughter, is essentially an intentional act that evolves from both the joker and the joke itself, and is expected to be of interest to the listener, who usually turns into a key player once the joke has been cracked More often than not, the joker flouts one or more of the maxims of conversation, in order to create more interest and suspense in his/her joke The examples below are going to analyze the humor in jokes caused by violating cooperative principles of conversation in detail 2.2.1 Violation of the Maxim of Quantity Observing the maxim of quantity, the interlocutors should not make their contributions more or less informative than is required The following jokes are formed through the violation of the maxim of quantity Joke 1: Mallon sat in his attorney's office - Do you want the bad news first or the terrible news? The lawyer asked - Give me the bad news first - Your wife found a picture worth a half-million dollars - That's the bad news? Asked Mallon incredulously- I can`t wait to hear the terrible news - The terrible news is that it’s of you and your secretary In the conversation, the lawyer only told Mallon that his wife has found a photo worth $5000 When Mallon heard the news, he was unbelievable that was a Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment bad news and has enough reason to trust that the “terrible news” also was good news Not until the lawyer told him what the terrible news in was Obviously, it was the lawyer didn`t offer as much as information that Mallon misunderstood However with this violation, the conversation becomes humorous Joke 2: Aunt: How did Jimmy his history examination? Mother: Oh, not at all well, but there, it was not his faults They asked him things that happened before the poor boy was born In the conversation, if the mother answers the question “oh, not at all well”, she is observing the maxim of quantity But Jimmy`s mother provides too much information She ascribes Jimmy`s fail of history exam to the teacher who asks the question before Jimmy`s was born It sounds ridiculous In fact, the mother tries to shrink responsibility and give a good explanation for her son Joke 3: Man: Excuse me; you know what time it is? Woman: Yes The woman violates the maxim of quantity by not providing enough information In this conversation, the communicative purpose would succeed if the asker got the information he expects - that is the exact time Therefore in this situation what the woman usually need to is simply giving the exact time at that asking moment or saying that she does not know what time it is However in this story, the answerer leaves the gap information unanswered That she only says “yes” to answer the yes-no question of the asker “Do you know what time it is?” creates humor 2.2.2 Violation of the Maxim of Quality According to the maxim of quality, the interlocutors should not say what they believe to be false Neither should they say that for which they lack adequate Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment evidence The following examples reflect the use of the technique of violating the maxim of quality for humorous purposes: Joke 4: Bob: I had a rough time this morning The farmer caught me in one of his peach trees Barbara: Gosh! What did you do? Bob: I told him one of his peaches fell down and I was trying to put it back! At the end of the conversation Bob says, “I told him one of his peaches fell down and I was trying to put it back!” What he told the farmer could not be scientifically true; therefore, his response violates the maxim of quality, thus making the conversation a joke Joke 5: Butler: Professor, there's a bill collector at the door I told him you were out, but he wouldn't believe me Absent-minded professor: No? Then I suppose 1'll have to go out sad tell him myself In this joke, the butler says something he believes to be false The absentminded professor is at home, yet the butler says he is not Since the bill collector doesn't believe what the butler said, the absent-minded professor responds to the butler unexpectedly that he himself will go out to tell the bill collector that he is not at home, which is funnily false and violates the maxim of quality one more time in this situation, thus achieving the effect of humor 2.2.3 Violation of the Maxim of Relation According to the maxim of relation, the interlocutors should make their contribution relevant This maxim demands that the hearer should give answers relevant to what the speaker has said in their dialogue The technique of violating the maxim of relation is obviously used in the following jokes: Joke 6: Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment Jay, my brother - in - law, was studying political science at U C.L.A one summer Many mornings the lure of the beach won out over his obligation to attend class, until finally he realized he’d fail the course if he missed any more lectures When Jay walked into class late, the professor interrupted his talk about folkways, customs and mores He consulted his seating chart, then called on Jay: “Please tell the class what mores are.” Jay’s sense of humor took over as he sang out, “When the moon hits your eye like a pizza pie, that’s a mores are” Jay is late for school; as a result, the professor asks him to explain what mores is It implies that it is not a good mores always late for class Jay violates the maxim of relation purposely and not answers correctly But his reply teases the professor and has a sense of humor Joke 7: Below is a Jordanian political joke that was heard at the time of an Arab summit conference in Amman (1986), which was officially called mu’tamar al-wifāq wal-’itifāq (Conference of Reconciliation and Agreement) by the host country (Jordan) This political joke violate both manner and relevance maxims Ronald Reagan (the then American president) was holding a press conference in Washington to discuss domestic issues Out of the blue, a journalist stood up and posed this question: "Mr President, what you think of al wi fak and al ’iti fak Summit Conference in Amman?" The president had no idea what that was Improvising, however, he responded: "I think we fuck, but we don’t declare it" As can be seen, the joke teller wanted to conversationally implicate that President Regan knew nothing about what was happening in the rest of the world, because he lacked a good education To achieve this end, the joker made the journalist flout the maxim of manner by struggling with the alliterative pronunciation of the Arabic conference name, thus triggering a sexual scenario that was taken at face value by the president although it was far-fetched, and then the Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment 10 joker had the president flout the maxim of relation, in order to sustain his facevalue interpretation of the journalist’s question: "I think we fuck, but we don’t declare it" These two violations succeed in creating laughter 2.2.4 Violation of the Maxim of Manner With the maxim of manner the interlocutors should not use words they know their listeners will not understand or say things which they know could be taken multiple ways They should also not state something in a long, drawn-out way if they could say it in a much simpler manner To achieve the effect of humor, the usually use technique of violating the maxim of manner is the technique of violating the maxim of avoiding ambiguity The following jokes violate the maxim of manner in pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax Ambiguity in pronunciation Joke 8: Betty was taken to the museum by auntie They went into the Egyptian room, and there saw a mummy Betty asked what it was “That is someone’s mummy, dear,” answered auntie “Auntie,” she confided, “I am glad my mammy’s not like that” In this joke, the humor is produced by the same pronunciation of the two words “mummy” and “mammy” Betty misunderstands “mummy” - the dead body preserved from decay in ancient Egypt as the word “mammy”- the mother As a result, she feels lucky that her mother doesn`t like that Ambiguity in vocabulary Joke 9: “Where is Washington?” “He is dead．” “I mean the capital of the United States?” Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment 11 “They loaned it all to Europe.” “Now you promise to support the constitution?” “Me? How can I? I have got a wife and six children to support” The dialogue happens in an oral test when the electors have to register their name to join the election There are many ambiguous words in the short conversation, such as Washington, capital and support These words have various meanings For example, Washington is both the most important city of the USA and the name of its first president in American history Capital has one meaning”the most important city in a country or area”, another meaning “a sum of money, especially one used to produce more money or to start a business” Support, in the same way, the first means “to show approval of the constitution”, but the voter deliberately apprehend as “to provide money or food for a person or a family to live on” The vivid answer from the voter achieves good sense of humor Ambiguity in syntax Joke 10: Two men wandering in a quiet cemetery found this tombstone: THIS STONE WAS ERECTED IN MEMORY OF JAMES MACMILAN WHO WAS DROWNED IN THE RIVER SEVEN BY SOME OF HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS We have two ways to understand the words engraved in this tombstone If the “By” structure is subordinated to past-participle “erected”, it means his friends make the tomb for him But if the “By ” structure is attaching to the word “drowned”, it means that it was his closest friends who pushed James Macmilan in the Rice seven Maybe the answer is just he himself can know it Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment 12 There are other ways to achieve the humor for specific destination as the example below: Joke 11: Policeman (producing note book): “Name please” Motorist: “Aloysius-Alastaer-Cyprian-“ Policeman (putting book away): “well, don’t let me catch you again.” The conversation flouts one of the requirements of the maxim of manner-Be brief The policeman catches a driver who breaks the traffic rules and would have to write down his name But the driver is crafty and he tells the policeman a long, eccentric and uneasy to read and write name, hence the policeman has to give up inquiring his responsibility The driver deliberately violates the maxim of manner to avoid the punishment There are even some jokes that violate all four Grice’s maxims Take the joke below as an example: Joke 12: Steven: Alfred is meeting a woman for dinner tonight Susan: Does his wife know about it? Steven: Of course, she does The woman he’s meeting is his wife! This kind of humor flouts all four maxims It flouts the Maxim of Quantity when Steven uses the word “Woman” for “wife”; it means that he is withholding the information, not being as informative as he should be It is also flouting the Maxim of Quality since Steven knows that woman is Alfred’s wife He also flouts the Maxim of Relation It is a common knowledge that a woman when connecting to an adult married male implies adultery or sexuality and never means as “wife” The last is flouting the Maxim of Manner, since Steven does not speak clearly at the beginning that the woman is the wife or he deliberately speaks ambiguously to create laughter Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment 13 In the study above, we have many examples to demonstrate the universality in jokes We also know, in the conversation it is not always the hearer’s violation the “cooperative principle”, so that the speaker will be taken in Sometimes it was the speaker who first violates the cooperative principle, accordingly there is a relative relationship to observed or violate the cooperative principle In our life, the hearer make use of the opportunity when the speaker unintended violates the Grice’s Maxims, and then to get the sense of humor PART C: CONCLUSION Humor is a seasoning of life No matter what embarrassment or other troublesome situation, humor smoothes us to get out of the awkward position and to help the problem solved In this study, I have tried to analyze the humor caused in joke stories by violating the four Grice’s maxims As shown in the examples above, it will achieve effects of conversation implicit beyond we expect because of violation one or some maxims of cooperative principle, especially in humorous conversation Of course, the results which lead to humor are not just only violation of cooperative principle Others such as violation of the maxims of courtesy, suing the language relativity, misusing of the language, etc all that can reach the effects of humor However, to grasp the reason of humor production by analyzing some joke violating Grice’s Maxims, it will benefit us, the non-English country people to thoroughly understand English culture, and more proficiently to use this language REFERENCES Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment 14 S Attardo Violations of conversational maxims and cooperation: The case of jokes Journal of Pragmatics 19 (1), 1993, 537-558 Grice, H Paul (1975) Logic and Conversation In Cole, P and J Morgan (eds.), 41-58 Raskin, V (1985) Semantic Mechanisms of Humor Dordrecht: Reidel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke http://tonygoodson.typepad.com/tonygoodson/2005/06/seven_types_of_.html http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-jokes.htm http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Joke_-_Types_of_jokes/id/5029410 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gricean_maxims http://www.spectrum.uni-bielefeld.de/Classes/Summer98/Functions/node19.html 10 www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/BJDP229.pdf 11 www.cog.brown.edu/courses/cg45/ /Gricean%20Maxims.pdf 12 www.laurahughes.com/art/grice.doc 13 http://web2.adfl.org/adfl/bulletin/v19n2/192013.htm 14 cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/view/449/pdf_288 Nguyễn Thị Hồng Vinh Final assignment ... 1.2 Jokes and Joke types Violation of Grice’s Maxims in jokes 2.1 Violation of Grice’s Maxims 2.2 Violation of Grice’s Maxims in Jokes 2.2.1 Violation of the Maxim of Quantity 2.2.2 Violation of. .. Profession-targeted jokes, Light bulb jokes, Dead body jokes, Ethnic jokes, Mathematics jokes VIOLATION OF GRICE’S MAXIMS IN JOKES 2.1 Violation of Grice’s Maxims Without cooperation, human interaction... overview of the violation of Grice’s Maxims - Explore the ways in which different types of joke violate Grice’s Maxims SCOPE OF THE STUDY The research aims at providing an investigation into the