A STUDY ON HOW SCRIPTWRITERS FLOUT CERTAIN MAXIMS OF GRICE’S COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE TO CREATE VERBAL IRONY THROUGH THE SITCOM FRIENDS FROM EPISODE 1 TO EPISODE 10

4 LIST OF GRAPHS Graph Percentage of situations flouting certain maxims 35 Graph Percentage of situations flouting maxim of quality by making a statement 37 and asking a question TABLE OF CONTENT PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Significance of the study 1.4.1 In theory 1.4.2 In practice 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Design of the study PART 2: THE DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Implicature 1.1.1 Definition of implicature 1.1.2 Implicature and inference 1.1.3 Types of implicature 1.2 Grice’s cooperative principle 1.2.1 Conversational maxims 1.2.1.1 The maxim of quality 1.2.1.2 The maxim of quantity 1.2.1.3 The maxim of relation 10 1.2.1.4 The maxim of manner 10 1.2.2 Observing the maxims 11 1.2.3 Non-observances of the maxims 11 1.2.3.1 Flouting a maxim 12 1.2.3.2 Violating a maxim 12 1.2.3.3 Infringing a maxim 13 1.2.3.4 Opting out of a maxim 13 1.2.3.5 Suspending a maxim 14 1.2.4 Flouts exploiting the maxims 15 1.2.4.1 Flouts exploiting the maxim of quality 15 1.2.4.2 Flouts exploiting the maxim of quantity 16 1.2.4.3 Flouts exploiting the maxim of relevance 16 1.2.4.4 Flouts exploiting the maxim of manner 17 1.3 Irony 19 1.3.1 Ironology: A history of irony 19 1.3.2 Definition of irony 20 1.3.3 Taxonomy of irony 22 1.3.4 The risks and rewards of ironic communication 24 1.3.4.1 The risks of ironic communication 24 1.3.4.2 The rewards of ironic communication 26 1.3.5 Self-directed irony 27 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 29 2.1 Methodology 29 2.1.1 Qualitative and quantitative methods 29 2.1.2 Some supplementary techniques 30 2.2 An introduction to American sitcoms and the sitcom “Friends” 30 2.2.1 Definition of sitcoms 30 2.2.2 Characteristics of American sitcoms 31 2.2.2.1 Common characteristics of sitcoms 31 2.2.2.2 Characteristics of American sitcoms 32 2.2.3 The sitcom “Friends” 33 2.2.3.1 Main characters 33 2.2.3.2 First season sypnose 34 2.3 Findings and discussion 35 2.3.1 Findings 35 2.3.1.1 The analysis on situations which flout the maxim of quality 36 2.3.1.2 The analysis on situations which flout the maxim of quantity 49 2.3.1.3 The analysis on situations which flout the maxim of relation 54 2.3.1.4 The analysis on situations which flout the maxim of manner 60 2.3.2 Discussion 65 PART 3: THE CONCLUSION 68 3.1 Recapitulation of main ideas 68 3.2 Limitations of the study 69 3.3 Suggestions for further research 69 Appendix PART 1: THE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Verbal irony is a common form of speech used in daily discourse The reason why irony is deliberately chosen over its literal counterpart is because it serves several functions that cannot be achieved through a literal utterance These functions are derived from the very nature of verbal irony that distinguishes it from a literal statement There are many ways to create verbal irony Different approaches have different ways to clarify the mechanism in which verbal irony is generated, but none of which has reached their fulfillment This study, thus, is carried out in the light of pragmatic approach in which verbal irony is considered to be the product of the art of flouting certain maxims of Grice‘s cooperative principle (Grice, 1975) This theory helps to analyze not only the linguistic features of an ironic utterance but also its functions in comparison with its literal counterpart This is the first reason why the author decided to choose Grice‘s cooperative principle the basis for this study It is also necessary to provide an explanation for the choice of analyzing the scripts of the sitcom ―Friends‖ According to Alison, ―although British comedy has a high reputation and used to claim a higher degree of subtlety and irony, some of the most popular recent sitcoms are from the USA‖ (2006: 91) Among all American sitcoms, ―Friends‖ is considered to be one of the most typical and successful ones It was even so popular that it was rerun in 1997 as the beginning of Channel 4‘s night of comedy The success of the series can be attributable to many factors, among which, the great potential for verbal irony created by the language used itself plays an important part The verbal irony appeared in the series have not only attracted the young but also made ―Friends‖ a sitcom for every family In analyzing the scripts of the sitcom ―Friends‖ from episode to episode 10, this study aims to unpack the relationship between the verbal irony and the Cooperative Principle in the sitcom ―Friends‖, discover how scriptwriters flout certain maxims to create verbal irony and how the implied message behind the verbal irony is conveyed 1.2 Aims of the study This study is carried out specifically to aim at: (1) revisiting some theoretical background knowledge of implicatures, (especially conversational implicatures), Grice‘s cooperative principles and verbal irony (2) investigating how verbal irony is generated by the art of flouting certain maxims of Grice‘s conversational cooperative principles in the scripts of the sitcom ―Friends‖ from episode to episode 10 (3) identifying which of the maxims of Grice‘s conversational cooperative principle is more likely to be flouted to produce verbal irony 1.3 Research questions This study is supposed to answer the following questions: (1) How verbal irony is created by the art of flouting certain maxims of Grice‘s conversational cooperative principles in the scripts of the sitcom ―Friends‖ from episode to episode 10? (2) Which of the maxims of Grice‘s conversational cooperative principle is the most likely to be flouted to produce verbal irony? 1.4 Significance of the study 1.4.1 In theory This study is designed to enhance Grice‘s observation on how people use language to mean much more than the words they actually say It also tries to prove that in communication, when interlocutors aim to generate verbal irony, although the maxim of quality is the most likely to be flouted as stated by Levinson (1984), other maxims are flouted as well Besides, by exploring the art of flouting certain maxims of Grice‘s cooperative principles to create irony, the author means to give evidence that linguistic features contribute a great deal to the success of that sitcom 10 1.4.2 In practice It is because language is for communication In other words, language is used to realize socio-cultural functions, some of which can be to save face or amuse people In these situations, in order to communicate successfully (in both production and reception), people should be more able to realize these functions Thus, this paper aims at facilitating interlocutors to be better-aware of the cases when speakers flout certain maxims with the intention of generating verbal irony, which helps interlocutors to be more successful in communication 1.5 Scope of the study The research on non-observances of maxims of Grice‘s cooperative principle is so broad that it is impossible to cover all its aspects Therefore, this study narrows down the study only to the art of flouting certain maxims of Grice‘s cooperative principles to create verbal irony Furthermore, the data are only collected from scripts of the American sitcom ―Friends‖ in the first season (from episode to episode 10) in regard with the limit of time Also, this paper will not be able to deal with the cultural differences when analyzing ironic dialogues because of the limit of time although is also clear that, in many cases, the fact that people in non-English speaking countries cannot completely understand irony in English is due to cultural differences Besides, in the scope of this study, figures‘ characters and traits which may have some effect on the style of humor and the change of voices which sometimes plays a important role in understanding irony will not be discussed The reason is that thorough studies on these subjects will be too broad for this research 11 1.6 Design of the study This thesis is divided into three main parts: Part 1: Introduction This part is aimed at clarifying the rationale, objectives, research questions, scope and outline of the study Part 2: Development This part includes two chapters: Chapter I: Literature review This chapter is supposed to provide the readers with the frame of the theory of the study and some basic concepts Chapter II: The study This chapter includes the methods employed by the study, data collection and analysis procedures It also lays out the findings of the study Part 3: Conclusion This part provides the recapitulation of the main ideas of the study, the limitations of the study and suggestions for further research 12 PART 2: THE DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Implicature Paul Grice (1975), the American philosopher who is considered to be the ―father of pragmatics‖ (Aitchison 2003:104), was fascinated by how the hearer gets from the expressed meaning to the implied meaning That is, his aim was to explain how the hearer gets from what is said to what is meant 1.1.1 Definition of implicature Grice (ibid.) suggested that speakers often mean much more than what they actually say That‘s why the first major theory of communication that he was concerned was the theory of meaning He recommended two types of meaning as illustrated below: conveyed Implicated Said/ entailed conventionally conversationally generalized Natural meaning particularized Non-natural meaning 13 As seen above, implicature refers to the implicit meaning inferred from an utterance In these cases, the hearer needs to look for an implicature, i.e the implication of the utterance not directly stated in the words but hinted at for the hearer to interpret There are also some different definitions of implicature A rather clear one is given by Yule (1996: 35) that implicature is ―an additional conveyed meaning‖ of an utterance (Yule 1996: 35) Moreover, many other ways of defining the term ‗implicature‘ can be found at various websites on the Internet According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ―implicature is the relationship between two statements where the truth of one suggests the truth of the other, but does not require it Another definition is that ―An implicature is anything that is inferred from an utterance but that is not a condition for the truth of the utterance‖ The point is that despite the difference in expressions, these clarifications are all based themselves on the core idea proposed by Grice (1975) 1.1.2 Implicature and inference With regard to the fact that these two levels of interpretation have caused much confusion and been the root of some misunderstandings of implicature theory, I find it necessary to make a distinction between these two terms According to Thomas (1995: 58), ―To imply is to hint, suggest or convey some meanings indirectly by means of language‖ It is the speaker who implies something For example, a man and a woman are talking in a room When it becomes a little chilly, the woman says ―It‘s rather cold in here‖ What the woman tries to imply can be ―Could you close the door for me, please?‖ Here the speaker is hinting that the weather is getting bitter and the man should shut the door Inference, on the other hand, is the part of the listener Thomas (1995: 58) points out, ―To infer is to deduce something from evidence (this evidence may be linguistic, paralinguistic or non-linguistic).‖ In the example above, the listener can fail to infer the speaker‘s intention by saying that ―No, I feel really hot.‖ Accordingly, it can be noticed that an implicature is produced with the intention of the speaker and it may or may not be understood by the listener Thus, it is important to note that it is speakers who communicate meanings via implicatures and it is listeners who recognize those communicated meanings via ... down the study only to the art of flouting certain maxims of Grice‘s cooperative principles to create verbal irony Furthermore, the data are only collected from scripts of the American sitcom ? ?Friends? ??... the verbal irony and the Cooperative Principle in the sitcom ? ?Friends? ??, discover how scriptwriters flout certain maxims to create verbal irony and how the implied message behind the verbal irony. .. attributable to many factors, among which, the great potential for verbal irony created by the language used itself plays an important part The verbal irony appeared in the series have not only attracted