Flouting Maxim in BBC Series “Sherlock: A Study In Pink”
on
DOI: 10.24843/JH.2018.v22.i03.p29
ISSN: 2302-920X
Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud
Vol 22.3 Agustus 2018: 764-770
Flouting Maxim in BBC Series “Sherlock: A Study In Pink”
Rezuwana Burhan
English Department, Faculty of Arts – Udayana University [[email protected]]
Abstract
This research entitled “Flouting Maxims in BBC Series “Sherlock A Study In Pink”” aims at investigating the flouting maxims and analyzing the context of situation behind the flouting maxims produced by the character in Sherlock: A Study In pink. Sometimes speaker blatantly and deliberately fails to fulfill the certain maxims because the speaker wants to express the implicit meaning hidden behind the literal meaning. The data was taken from the utterance of the characters in “Sherlock: A Study in Pink”. The observation method is used in collecting the data since the data are obtained from spoken source like movie. The/ method and technique of analyzing data used in this study was descriptive qualitative method. By applying Grice's cooperative principle and his theories on flouting and theory of Context of Situation by Halliday and Hassan (1985), certain conversations show recurring uses of flouts and the reason by context of situation. From the analysis, the most flouted maxim from the collected data is maxim of relation and the least flouted maxim is maxim of quantity and quality. There are several utterances that has flouted more than one maxim. Another point is about the context of situation behind the flouting maxim occurred in the data. There are several context of situation that make the characters flouted the maxim based on the analysis. By knowing the context of situation, the participant can easily conclude the meaning behind the flouting maxim.
Keywords: Flouting Maxim, Grice’s Maxims, Context of Situation, Sherlock.
Abstrak
Penelitian ini berjudul “Flouting Maxims in BBC Series “Sherlock A Study In Pink”” bertujuan untuk menganalisis pencemoohan atau pelanggaran maksim secara disengaja dan juga menganalisi konteks dari situasi dibalik terjadinya pelanggaran maksim yang di lakukan oleh karakter didalam Series BBC “Sherlock: A Study in Pink”, seringkali para pembicara secara sengaja gagal untuk memenuhi maksim tertentu karena sang pembicara ingin mengekspresikan makna terselubung dibalik makna sebenarnya. Data-data penelitian ini diambil dari ungkapan-ungkapan para karakter di “Sherlock A Study In Pink”. Metode observasi digunakan untuk mengumpulkan data karena data tersebut dikumpulkan dari film. Metode dan teknik menganalisis data yang digunakan pada penelitian ini adalah metode deskriptif-kualitatif. Dengan menggunakna prinsip kerja sama dari Grice dan teori pelanggarannya (1973) dan juga teori konteks situasi atau wacana dari Halliday dan Hassan (1985), percakapan tertentu menunjukan terjadinya pelanggaran maksim dan alasan konteks dibaliknya. Dari analisis, Maksim yang paling banyak di langgar adalah maksim relevansi dan maksim yang paling jarang dilanggar adalah maksim kuantias dan maksim kualitas. Ada beberapa ungkapan yang melanggar lebih dari satu maksim.
Poin lainnya yaitu tentang konteks situasi di balik terjadinya pelanggaran maksim. Ada beberapa konteks situasi yang membuat karakter melanggar maksim berdasarkan analysis. Dengan mengetahui konteks, partisipan percakapan bisa dengan mudah menyimpulkan makna dibalik pelanggaran maksim
Kata kunci: Pelanggaran Maksim, Maksim Milik Grice, Konteks Situasi, Sherlock
Stated in Oxford Dictionary (Hornby, 2010: 320), conversation is an informal talk involving a small group of people or only two. A conversation can be stated as ‘success’ when there is no misinterpretation or misunderstanding between the participants. Searle (1969:17) stated that the goal of spoken interaction or conversation is to communicate the things to the participants by getting them recognize the real intention behind every utterances.
To have a good conversation, the participant must deliver the message clearly to the other participants. The participants sometimes use several kinds of long utterances to extend the message. If the speakers use the ambiguous utterance to the listener, the listener will not understand of what the speakers are talking about and it will make the listener of the utterance misunderstood the meaning.
Inside a conversation, situation has become an important role in delivering the conversation meaning, because situation make a difference in both the way the participants of the conversation engage with each other and the way they interpret other participants utterances . Here is the example about how important situation is inside a conversation; a sarcasm that would not be understandable by the people who did not know the situation behind the utterance. Similar with how a person pouring someone’s heart out to a dear
friend, is different from doing so with a young child.
On the other hand, the cooperativeness between the participant must be done by both of the participant in order to make conversations run smoothly along the situation. The cooperative principle is also known as Grice’s Maxims, was divided into four kinds of maxims. It is describing specific rational principles observed by people who obey the cooperative principle; these principles enable effective communication. Grice stated that each participant of the conversation must obey four conversational maxims. Such as: maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of manner and maxim of relevance. (Wijana: 1996).
In A certain cases in a conversation, Sometimes when the maxims were not obeyed, we cannot convey the information that should be understood by the other participants . So flouting maxim is the reason why some conversation can be understandable by the participants.
Flouting a maxim is a particular salient way of getting an addressee to draw an inference and hence recover an implicature (Grundy, 2000:78). It means that when flouting occurs, it will make the listener think what the meaning of what has been said before. Flouting is not all the negative way, there are some cases when we have to flout the maxim to have a proper conversation.
Base on the background of the study, there are two problems that we can formulate into:
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a. What types of maxim are flouted in the BBC Series Sherlock: A Study In Pink.?
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b. What is the context of situation behind the occurrence of flouting maxim in the BBC Series Sherlock: A Study In Pink?
Based on the problem above, the aims of the study are:
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a. To identify what types of maxim that are flouted in the dialogue inside BBC Series Sherlock: A Study In Pink
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b. To explain what is the context of situation behind the occurrence of flouting maxim in BBC Series Sherlock: A Study In Pink
Research method is a systematic plan for conducting a research. A research method deals with the methods used in analyzing this study. In this point, the writing procedure must be done in order to obtain the expected and also qualified outcome. Research methods were divided into 4 points. They were (1) data source, (2) method and technique of collecting data, (3) method and technique of analyzing data, and (4) method and technique of presenting the result of data analysis.
The data in this study were taken from a series broadcasted in BBC One UK entitled Sherlock: A Study in Pink on 25th of July 2010. This series was inspired by a short story published in 1887 entitled A Study in Scarlet. The short story is a series of one famous character of all time Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A Study in Pink screenplay was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Paul McGuaian.
The method of collecting data was documentation method. The data was obtained by downloading the movie from the internet. The techniques of collecting data in this study were: first, watching and listening to the movie carefully in order to comprehend the utterance and to see relationship between one character to another character. The second is reading the script play which was downloaded from the internet in order to catch the missing words. The third is selecting the relevant data by doing note-taking of the dialogue or utterance which related to Grice’s Maxims is compiled. This study also use the simple random sampling from the theory probability sampling as a method to choose the data that was discussed in the chapter three.
The method and technique of analyzing data in this study are qualitative research method which is supported by quantitative method. Descriptive analysis has been conducted wiith calculating the total amount of the flouted maxim. To analyze the first problem, which is “What types of maxims are flouted in the BBC Series Sherlock: A Study in Pink?” this study use the Flouting of the four maxims or Flouting Maxim by Herbert Paul Grice (1975). To analyze the second problem, which is “What types of maxims are flouted in the BBC Series Sherlock: A Study in Pink?”, this study use the theory of context of situation by Halliday and Hassan (1985)
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4.4. Method and Technique of Presenting The Result of Data Analysis
The data were presented in descriptive method. There are several steps to presenting the result of analysis,
First the data were numbered and then the data were presented in the form of dialogue. The data in the second section are accompanied with pictures of the scene where the dialogue occurred. For the analysis there are two points. The first point is the analysis of the first problem which is type of flouting maxim. The type of flouting maxims are described after the data were presented, in a form of paragraph and in descriptive method. The second point is the analysis of the context of the situation behind the flouting. The second part is to explain the context of situation and analyze the second problem.
There are two points of analysis, the first is the analysis of flouting in the form of four conversational maxim (maxim of quantity, quality, manner, and relevance) were found from the observation of the movie and with a little help from the script play. The second point is the context of situation based on the theory of Halliday. The data will be presented first, and followed with the analysis of the first problem and second problem.
MIKE : It’s an old friend
of mine, John Watson.
SHERLOCK : Afghanistan or Iraq?
JOHN : Sorry?
SHERLOCK : Which was it – Afghanistan or Iraq?
JOHN : Afghanistan.
Sorry, how did you know...?
Analysis:
The maxims that are flouted in the utterance of Sherlock were maxim of
manner, maxim of quantity and maxim of relevance. The first utterance that flouted the maxim was stated by Sherlock. He asked “Afghanistan or Iraq?”. And the second utterance is where John asked him to be more specific but instead he just repeat the same question. Stating “Which was it – Afghanistan or Iraq?”. Both of the utterances has flouted the maxim of manner and maxim of relation or relevance. The utterances were flouted the maxim of manner because first, the utterances are ambiguous. Based on the context of the situation in the previous paragraph, there are no leads of what actually Sherlock asked for. This also based on the character background of Sherlock as we know that he did not know anything about John before but he just asked about the two country all of the sudden. For the viewers and the reader, this is really flouting the maxim of manner because what exactly Sherlock asked could not be known based on the utterance. The second utterance also when John asked him to be more specific, Sherlock just repeat almost the same question, make it more ambiguous for the people who did not know the background of the story. The second reason why the utterances considered as flouting the maxim of manner is because the conversation is not in orderly manner. This especially applied to the first utterance by Sherlock which was “Afghanistan or Iraq?”. It is not in order because usually, when you met the person for the first time, all you have to say maybe some greeting or introducing yourself, or maybe asking about the name or your job. But in this conversation, Sherlock just straightforwardly asked about the nation or the country where John had served as an army doctor. Make the other speaker confuse.
Why both of the utterances flouted the maxim of relation or relevance because as we can see from the context of
the situation and the order of the conversation, the utterances from Sherlock can be seen as a ‘sentences that come from nowhere’. No leads can actually connect with the question from Sherlock Holmes. No relation can be make from the previous conversation so for the people who did not know about Sherlock Holmes character, it only would give them a confusion.
For maxim of quantity, the utterance seems to flout the maxim too because the utterance give less information than it should. It just straightforwardly asked about two nations without context. If the people who did not share the knowledge, it will be very confusing. The people will think about what actually he asked, is it about nationality?, about favorite countries? That’s the reason why the utterances considered flouting the maxim of quantity.
Data 2
LESTRADE : Why d’you keep
saying suitcase?
SHERLOCK : Yes, where is it?
She must have had a phone or an organiser. Find out who Rachel is.
LESTRADE : She was writing
‘Rachel’?
SHERLOCK : No, she was
leaving an angry note in German Of course she was writing Rachel; no other word it can be. Question is: why did she wait until she was dying to write it?
LESTRADE : How d’you know
she had a suitcase?
Analysis:
The utterance from sherlock that stated “No, she was leaving an angry note in German Of course she was writing Rachel; no other word it can be. Question is: why did she wait until she was dying to write it?” was the one that
had flouted maxim based on Grice (1975) theory. The utterance that has been bolded was the utterance that has flouted the maxim of quality. Grice has stated that if the speaker want to obey the maxim of quality, the speaker had to make their contribution one that is true and do not stated something that you believe to be false. The bolded utterances can be categorized as sarcasm. Sarcasm is a literary and rhetorical device that is meant to mock with often satirical or ironic remarks with a purpose to amuse and hurt someone or some section of society simultaneously, which is mean sometimes in sarcasm, the utterance’s meaning contrasted with the actual meaning the speaker intended to deliver. The utterance can clearly be categorized as flouting maxim of quality because what sherlock uttered is actually what he believed to be false.
The utterance considered as utterance that was not believed by the own speaker because of the context of situation. As we know, the first person who mention about RACHE was a german noun means ‘revenge’ is Anderson and sherlock had found that this opinion from anderson is untrue. Another reason is that after uttered “No, she was leaving an angry note in German” sherlock had given some words that emphasize that he did not believe what he said in the first utterance by saying “Of course she was writing Rachel; no other word it can be”. Which is completely opposite from the first utterance he stated. His tone and expression become another reaon why the utterance was said to be sarcastic and flouting the maxim of quality.
MIKE : It’s an old friend
of mine, John Watson.
SHERLOCK : Afghanistan or Iraq?
JOHN : Sorry?
SHERLOCK : Which was it – Afghanistan or Iraq?
JOHN : Afghanistan.
Sorry, how did you know...?
Analysis:
The conversation tenor took place between three people at the same time. The mode of the conversation is a face to face conversation that happened in one of the laboratories inside St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. The conversation happened between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson who was two prominent characters in the story and their colleague Mike Stamford. This conversation is one of the highlight scene in the series because this is the first time, the two main characters met, John Watson that in the series will be known as the partner of the private consultant detective Sherlock Holmes and share a talk between them.
After Sherlock had done the experiment at the morgue, he came to one of the lab to do some experiment in order to solve the case. When he was in the lab, Mike came with one of his old friend, John Watson. John and Mike was talking about getting John Watson a flat mate or people who want to share a flat with John because he could not afford to pay the loan alone and Mike had suggested one of his colleague in the Bart’s, Sherlock Holmes who was also searching for a flat mate. Because of this reason both of them had agreed to go to Bart’s and find Sherlock Holmes. Here was how the background story of the conversation start to evolve. Sherlock did not really pay attention to Mike or John and keep doing his laboratory research. After several minutes passed, Sherlock Holmes asked Mike Stamford to borrow his phone but unfortunately Mike left his phone inside the coat so he did not bring
them to the lab. John then let Sherlock know that he can borrow his phone. At the same time as Sherlock walk to John, Mike introduced John as his old friends. Unexpectedly Sherlock asked about Afghanistan or Iraq which made John bewildered as Sherlock typed in John’s phone. John then asked back about what the meaning or can you repeat the question once more by saying “Sorry?” Sherlock did not explain about the question, instead repeating it once more. He said “Which was it? Afghanistan or Iraq”. Timidly and with confusion John said “Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you know ...?” John was confuse because how Sherlock, as a stranger at that time, knew about his past serving at the army as an army doctor and exactly asked about the country he was serving. But in the meantime, Mike had been smiling all the time because he knew Sherlock ‘Uniqueness’
The context of situation above describe the meaning behind the flouted the maxim of Manner and Relevance. Sherlock wants to be to the point. From the character background, we can see that Sherlock is not that type of person that like to beat around the bush before starting the conversation. His ability to deduce someone based on what he sees also make the lack of communication in Sherlock life getting worse. As a normal human, if we tried to ask about a person’s past life, we should probably ask after we got closer, but Sherlock who has the ability to deduce one person’s life, he did not need to asked about trivial thing and instead just asked about something he was not sure for, in this case, the country where John had served as an army doctor.
Based on the collected data, it conclude that The most flouted maxim from the collected data is Maxim of Relevance or Relation The least flouted
maxim is Maxim of quantity and quality with the same total of data.
2010 , [video: MKV]
Another point is about the context of situation behind the flouting maxim occurred in the data. For the most flouted maxim which is maxim of relation or relevance, the context situation behind it mostly because the speaker do not want to continue or answer the given questions or the speaker did not really care about the conversation. For the context of situation behind the flouting of maxim of manner mostly because the character is a straightforward person. Context of situation behind the maxim of quantity is mostly because the speaker want to give more information or the speaker want to describe their opinion. And the context behind the flouting maxim of quality is because the speaker want to convince the other person by giving temporary hypothesis and the speaker want to describe their opinion which is not true based on the storyline
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