ISSN: 2302-920X

E-Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Sastra dan Budaya Unud

Vol 14.1 Januari 2016: 23-29

FLOUTING OF COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE IN

“DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: DOG DAYS”

BY

Devi Yuliastini

email: [email protected]

English Department Faculty of Letters and Culture, Udayana University

Abstrak

Studi ini membahas tentang Pelanggaran terhadap Prinsip Kerja Sama dalam film Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days. Tipe-tipe yang muncul dalam film tersebut dianalisis menggunakan teori dari Cutting (2002) tentang pelanggaran maksim prinsip kerja sama. Lalu, implikatur yang ditemukan dalam maksim yang dilanggar kemudian diidentifikasi menggunakan teori dari Grice (1975) tentang implikatur percakapan.

Hasil dari studi ini menunjukkan bahwa semua tipe maksim dari prinsip kerjasama telah dilanggar dalam film ini. Keempat tipe itu adalah maksim kuantitas, kualitas, hubungan, dan cara. Diantara semua tipe tersebut, maksim hubungan merupakan tipe yang paling sering dilanggar dalam film ini. Disamping itu, semua ujaran yang melanggar maksim-maksim dari prinsip kerja sama mengandung implikatur percakapan dibaliknya.

Kata kunci: prinsip kerja sama, maksim, implikatur

  • 1.    Background of the Study

In the process of communication, people exchange information to other people through conversation. The speakers and listeners play an important role as participants of conversation. In order to send message to the hearer, the speaker unconsciously tries to speak clearly, relevantly to the context and sincerely to the listener in order that the hearer could present the match response to the speaker and there will be no misunderstanding.

Grice (1975) proposed four maxims which are called as Cooperative Principle or Grice’s maxims. The speakers and listeners should obey or fulfill the maxims in order to achieve successful and effective communication. However, practically in our daily life, people sometimes violate these maxims as they will notalways share their thoughts literally, because they have various intentions, such as to make a joke, to unhurt, or even offend people’s feelings.

There are four types of violation proposed by Paul Grice, they are violating, opting out, clashing, and flouting the maxims of conversation. Flouting becomes the most common type of violation. This kind of violation gives raise to conversational implicature.

This study analyzes the flouting of maxim of cooperative principle along with the implicature that arises by flouting the maxim found in the movie.

  • 2.    Problems

Based on the background mentioned above, there are research questions that could be addressed in this study. This study, however, discusses the following questions: a) What types of maxim are flouted by the characters of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog

Days movie?

  • b) What implicatures do occur in the movie as results of the flouting of maxims?

  • 3.    Aims

Related to the problems of study, there are two aims becoming the focus of the current study.

  • a)    To identify types of maxim that are flouted by the characters of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days movie.

  • b)    To find out the implicatures that occur in the movie as results of the flouting of maxims.

  • 4.    Research Method

The data used in this study was obtained from some utterances in the dialogue of the movie entitled “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days”, which is based on the novel series Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (2009) by Jeff Kinney. It was collected by applying documentation method and analyzed by using descriptive qualitative method.

  • 5.    Result and Discussion

All types of flouting of the maxims of cooperative principle which are proposed by Cutting (2002) can be found in the movie. However, from the four maxims, maxim of

relation is flouted the most. The conversations containing utterances representing each type of flouted maxims are presented below.

  • a)    Flouting Maxim of Quantity and Its Implicature

Cutting (2002:37) states that the speaker who flouts the maxim of quantity will give too little or too much information than it is required. Furthermore, this happens intentionally in order to generate implicature without intention to mislead the addressee. According to Yule (1996: 35), implicature is used to communicate something which must be more than just what the words mean. The utterance below indicates this type of the flouted maxim along with its implicature.

Susan Heffley : Tingy! Oh, my gosh, honey, you found your blanket! This is great, but how did it end up in the...Garbage.

Frank? (calling Frank)

Frank Heffley : Yeah (answering Susan’s call)

Susan Heffley : You didn't?

Frank Heffley : I didn't know that it meant that much to him anymore.

Susan Heffley : How could you?

Here, the context is that Susan Heffley is searching for the Manny’s tingy which is his son’s blue blanket. Frank tells her that Manny should move on from that tingy because he thinks that it is old and dirty. At first, tingy is a fluffy blue blanket which was given to Manny right after he was born. However, a couple of years later, it turns up into an old and dirty blanket. Frank really dislikes the blanket,so he throws it into the garbage which makes Susan searches for it. After a long time searching, his son, Manny finds his tingy in the garbage. Susan becomes curious how it could be in the garbage and thinks that someone must have thrown it. Then, she accuses Frank because he is the one who previously persuades her to throw it. She calls Frank and said “You didn’t?” which fails to fulfill the Maxim of Quantity because she provides too little information than is required. Her utterance is the shorthened version of “You didn’t throw Manny’s tingy into the garbage, Did you?”. There is a conversational implicature in her utterance because Susan does not only ask whether Frank is not the culprit, but there is an additional meaning that she also accuses Frank of being the culprit, although in a polite way. Then, Frank, who understands the implicature that she accuses him eventually

admits his action indirectly by saying “I didn’t know that it meant that much to him anymore” which triggers her anger.

  • b)    Flouting Maxim of Quality and Its Implicature

The speaker may flout the maxim of quality in several ways. First, they may say something that obviously does not represent what they think. In other words, the speaker says something which is untrue. Second, the speaker may use hyperbole as exaggerating expression and metaphor. Hyperbole is often at the basis of humour (Cutting: 37-38).The last two ways of flouting the maxim of quality are irony and banter. Cutting (1992: 38) says that irony is a friendly way of being offensive while banter is an offensive way of being friendly. In the case of irony, the speaker expresses the positive sentiment but implies negative. On the other hand, banter expresses negative sentiment and implies the positive one. It sounds like a mild aggression, but it is actually intended to express friendship and intimacy. The conversation below contains an utterance representing this type of the flouted maxim along with its implicature.

Susan Heffley : How about I get some real books? Classics. Something to stimulate your minds.

I’ll be right back!

Chirag : (Talking to Greg) Thank you sooooo much, Gregory, for making the summer a time to study and write book reports.

Greg Heffley : You think I want to do this? My summer is turned into a nightmare.

From this data, Susan Heffley who is the Greg’s mother creates a reading is fun club for Greg and his friends. In this club, they should study and write book reports about some literature books. Greg and his friends, Rowley and Chirag look unhappy and bored because they do not like to study. Moreover, it is summer holiday where they prefer to spend the holiday doing fun things rather than studying. Thus, in the conversation, Chirag states his opinion which flouts the Maxim of Quality by saying “Thank you sooooo much, Gregory, for making the summer a time to study and write book reports”. This expression is considered an irony which according to Cutting (2002: 38) that it serves as a friendly way of being offensive in which the speaker expresses a positive sentiment and implies a negative one. His utterance shows that he is overtly

thanking Gregby giving a long intonation on the word “so”. However, it has the opposite meaning, in which he is actually complaining to Greg.It is obvious that Chirag deliberately fails to fulfill the maxim to show the conversational implicature behind the literal meaning. Chirag gives a fake smile to Greg. Greg knows that the smile is fake because he understands the implicature of the utterance that Chirag is upset to Greg because Greg’s mother makes him study and write book reports during the summer holiday. Thus, he gives a proper response that he also does not want to study and write book reports. In addition he is also complaining that his summer holiday is not fun.

  • c)    Flouting Maxim of Relation and Its Implicature

Cutting (2002: 39) states that “If speakers flout the maxim of relation, they expect the hearers will be able to imagine what the utterance did not say, and make the connection between their utterance and the preceding one(s)”.It means that the speaker who flouts the maxim of relation is giving a response that is deliberately not relevant or related regarding to the topic that is being discussed in the conversation. The utterance below represents this type of flouted maxim along with its implicature.

RodrickHeffley : So... Heather. I'm going on a world tour with my band. If you're around, I could comp you chicks some tickets.

Heather Hills : (Talking to her friend) Let's go.

In this conversation, Rodrick goes to the Greg’s school to catch up with his brother when he then meets Heather who wants to pick up her sister in that school. Rodrick wants to invite Heather to watch his band’s performance concert. She listens to his invitation, but instead of accepting or refusing his invitation, she then said “Let’s go” to her friend which means that she would leave him. Her answer blatantly fails to fulfill the maxim because it is not related with the topic of conversation which is about invitation. By saying “Let’s go” she wants Rodrick to understand the conversational implicature that she is not interested with his invitation. She says that purposefully, so that he would know that she ignores him.

  • d)    Flouting Maxim of Manner and Its Implicature

In flouting of Maxim of Manner, the speaker is appearing to be obscure and ambiguous (Cutting, 2002: 39). The phrase “ratty old blanket” in the utterance below represents this type of the flouted maxim along with its implicature.

Susan Heffley : I can't find Manny's Tingy.

Frank Heffley : You know, it's probably time for him to move on from that ratty old blanket anyway.

From the conversation above, the context is that Frank and his family are having breakfast when Susan complains that Manny’s tingy is lost. It is a fluffy blue blanket which is given to Manny right after he was born. However, after years passed by, the fluffy blue blanked has turned into pieces of yarn held together with raisins and boogers. Frank does not like it anymore. He utters an utterance containing a phrase that flouts the Maxim of Manner since it is unclear and ambiguous. The phrase “ratty old blanket” is unclear because Frank does not explain which the phrase refers to. In fact, the phrase refers to the Manny’s tingy because in that situation they talks about Manny’s tingy. People who don’t know the context will find the phrase unclear and ambiguous. He flouts the Maxim of Manner by giving an unclear phrase in orderto make Susan understands his opinion about Manny’s tingy. Thus, Frank flouts the maxim by a purpose. He states Manny’s tingy as the ratty old blanket because he does not like it as it is already old and dirty. He wants to throw it away. His utterance implicates that he wants Susan to know that Manny’s tingy is already old and should be thrown away.

  • 6.    Conclusion

According to the theory of flouting maxims of Cooperative Principle proposed by Cutting (2002), it can be concluded that all four maxims of Cooperative Principle are flouted in the movie. From the four maxims, maxim of relation becomes the most flouted maxim in the movie.

All of the utterances that flout the maxim of cooperative principle raise conversational implicatures behind them. The fulfilling of cooperative principle is important to make the conversation runs successfully. However, flouting a maxim does not mean the conversation will end as long as the addressee notices the implicature lying behind the utterance.

  • 7.    Bibliography

Brown, Gillian. and Yule, George. 1983. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cutting, Joan. 2002. Pragmatics and Discourse. New York: Routledge.

Grice, Herbert.Paul. 1975. “Logic and Conversation.” In: Peter Cole and J. L. Morgan.Syntax and Semantics. Vol. III: Speech Acts, ed. New York: Academic Press.p.41-58.

Kinney, Jeff. 2009. Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days. New York: Amulet Books.

Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London and New York: Longman Linguistic Library.

Levinson, Stephen. 1983. Pragmatics. London: Cambridge University Press.

Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press.

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