CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, I explain about background of
the study, problem of the study,
objectives of the study, significance of thestudy, scope and limitation, and the definition of the key terms.
1.1 Background of the Study Conversation is usually spontaneous and
natural. Even in daily life, it is very
casual, conversation is governed by rules and principles of language and behavior. Grice states in, conversations
probably follow the principle of cooperation
and agree between the speaker and hearer to cooperate in understanding what each is saying (Mijas 2005).
When communications occur, there
are some rules to follow which commonly
called conversational maxims. The conversational maxim is a way to explain the link between the utterances and
what isunderstand from the hearer (Grundy,
2000). Grice used the term maxims rather than rules because conversational maxims may appear to be broken
than grammatical or phonological rules
(Cole and Morgan, 1997).
2 Then, when communications take place between
two interactants who do not share the
same language or the same culture, unintended violations of the maxims can easily occur. It is assumed that
four maxims may apply to all cultures but
the interpretation may be quite different (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain, 2000:97). “The Malagasy, for example, follow a
completely opposite cooperative principle
in order to achieve conversational cooperation. In their culture, speakers are reluctant to share information and violate
the maxims by avoiding direct questions
and replying on incomplete answers because of the risk of losing face by committing oneself to the truth of the
information, or having information is a form
of prestige” (Jacob, 2001:76). Therefore, violation of maxims applies due to intercultural differences. However, it is
possible to violate the maxims intentionally
or unconsciously and convey a different meaning than what is literally spoken.
Applying the maxims in other
culture can create different interpretations.
Delivering utterances informative
or relevant in some cultures may sound crude and inappropriate in others, but there would
be some mutual expectations with respect
to the maxims that would make the communication more or less successful (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain,
2000:80). Therefore, rules how the sounds,
vocabularies, pronunciations and grammar ofsome culture govern differently. That is why study of Grice’s
theory inthe violation of maxims is very important because it would cover some hidden
meanings. “Moreover, the value related
to each maxim might be quite different in different cultures. In some cultures, the appropriate answer would be
brief andinformative while in others, it 3 would
be lengthy and contains some digressions fromthe main point” (CelceMurcia and
Olshtain, 2000:85).
If the speaker from the first
culture directly translates the directions, s/he gives into the language of the other culture,
the hearer may sound somewhat disinterested.
However, a speaker from the latter culture does the same thing when functioning in the former one, s/he may sound
overly verbose and perhaps even annoying
(Olshtain, 2000:12). For example, African American Vernacular English (AAVE) speakers often use the sentence
“sheis beautiful bad” to mean “she is
very pretty”. In Standard English the sentence “she is beautiful bad” may make crude sound (Sidnell, 2008).
Such pragmatic transfer might
result in the violation of a maxim in the new language and culture. When such
cross-cultural violations take place, the speakers may not be aware of the need to carry
out a correction and may therefore leave
the impression of being impolite or even aggressive. This is not at all the speaker's intention (Celce-Murcia and
Olshtain, 2000:88). On the other hand, the assumption may be that the speaker
deliberately violates a maxim in order to convey additional information or add some
special implied meanings beyond what is
actually said. Unconsciously, violating the maxims in some culture may create dynamic conversations.
When thanking to someone for an
unusual nice gift, the receiver might violate
the maxim of quantity and say more than necessary in order to express a deeper sense of gratitude. For example; (when
Kim gives a cute doll to Irene in her
birthday) Kim says: “This is for you” then Irene responds: “Wow, how a 4 beautiful
doll. Thank you so much. I will keep it.”“Kim, shall we have dinner together tonight?”. The statement of Irene
above isviolation of maxim quantity because
Irene gives unnecessary information to Kim.It is caused by Irene’s happiness getting a special gift from Kim. She
responds Kim by saying “Kim, shall we
have dinner together tonight?”.
The violation may exist not only
in ordinary conversation but also in dramatic
conversation as in a movie. Movie is the media instrument for human being. Conversation in the movie have
additional levels of communication, since there is indirect link between the message of
the screenwriter/director and the audience,
while other factors, such as the cameras and the editing process, have to be dealt with (Bubel, 2007). Movie,
television, newspaper, radio are the mass media for delivering impersonal communications
to avast audience (Macionis, 2007). It
arises as communication technology spreads information on a mass scale. Nowadays, the mass media have an
enormous effect on personal’s attitudes and
behavior. Furthermore, movie is one of the massmedia orally delivered.
Therefore, Grice’s theory of
cooperative principle is often purposefully violated by comedians and writers, who may hide the
completetruth and manipulate their words
for the effect of the story and the sake of the reader’s experience.
In this research, I analyze “Step
Up 2” movie as the data source. This movie
is selected because it is the current movie that was released in 2008.
Furthermore, “Step Up 2” movie
has unique linguistics features. In this movie, the main character and supporting characters are
from different culture backgrounds.
Andie (as the main character) is
speaking Standard English (SA) frequently. In 5 contrast,
all of Andie’s friends (street dancers) and her family (as the supporting characters) are often speaking African
American Vernacular English (AAVE). In “Step
Up 2”, whether AAVE and SE people communicateeach other, they have tight and strong connections. Then, the
language mostly used is AAVE.
Some researchers actually have
done the study aboutGrice’s theory of cooperative
principle. Irawati (1996) analyzed the conversation in ‘Dunia Bintang’, an SCTV program, by using Grice’s
theory of conversational maxims to determine
which conversational maxims are followed and violated during the interview. She also used Geoffrey Leech’s
theory tofind out why those maxims are
violated. She also uses Searle’s categories of illocutionary acts to help categorizing the politeness principle maxim.
Another researcher, Leonard (2004) analyzed
the flouting of Grice’s cooperative principle in “The Boy Comes Home”.
He focused only on how the maxims
are violated. Thenext researcher is Tandyo (2007) who studied about the violation of four
maxims in the drama “Desperate Housewives”,
concerns with the conversations among the parents and their children, consciously or unconsciously, she
focusedthe violation of four maxims whether
maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relation and maxim of manner by Grice’s theory.
From the previous studies, my
study has some differences from others.
The previous studies analyzed the
violation of fourmaxims. In this research, I focus more on ways why someone deliberately
violates the maxims and investigates
which the utterances violate maxims from the conversations of “Step Up 2”. Based on explanation above, this
research isproposed.
6 1.2
Problem of the Study Based on the
descriptions of the background above, the proposed research question is “how do the violation of maxims
occur between main character and supporting
characters in the conversation of “Step Up 2” ?” 1.3 Objective of the Study The
study has a purpose to reveal the way conversational maxims are violated in the conversation between the main
character and the supporting characters
in the movie of “Step Up 2”.
1.4 Significance of the Study This research is expected to give some
significant contributions. First, the readers
can understand that different culture backgrounds might cause different interpretations on the same utterance. When
someoneviolates the maxims intentionally,
s/he might have some reasons. Then, the readers can take the advantages how to converse with other people
in or across different cultures and languages.
Second, for teaching and learning
specifically discourse analysis, this research
concerns with cooperative principle of Grice’s theory, by focusing on using maxim violations in four ways. I may
provide much richer empirical data 7 for complementing the existing theories. Then,
thisresearch will enrich discourse analysis
field.
Third, for the future researcher,
they could take this research as the state of the art. They would understand the violation
of maxims in the conversations which
occurr in different cultures. Furthermore, the next researchers get the different findings which may complement other
findings which applied Grice’s theory of
cooperative principle on different objects, cultures or languages.
1.5 Scope and Limitation The present research focuses on the
conversation and its context. It uses Grice’s
theory of conversational maxims in analyzing the conversations to determine the
violation of maxims in four ways, namely violation of maxims, opt out of maxims, maxims of clash and flout a maxim.
To avoid broadening the
discussion and to make thisresearch manageable, I use only the utterances in the conversations
which occur between the main character
and the supporting characters in “Step Up2” as the source of data either purposefully or unintentionally in different
context.
1.6 Definition of the Key Terms This
part consists of some key terms used in this study. I define some key terms as followings: 1)
Cooperative Principle: a way of accounting for how people interpret discourse, in order to uphold the
effectiveness andefficiency of 8 communication. The principle is expressed in
terms of four maxims. This was
formulated by the linguistic philosopher Paul Grice.
2) Maxims of Quantity: the speaker should give
enough informative as requires not too
much or less information.
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