CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS IN DRAMA “SALOME” BY OSCAR WILDE
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CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS IN DRAMA “SALOME” BY OSCAR WILDE
By
Komang Juni Widyasmara
Jurusan Non Reguler Sastra Inggris Fakultas Sastra Universitas Udayana
Abstrak
Studi ini ditujukan untuk menganalisa percakapan berdasarkan maxim yang digunakan didalam drama yang berjudul “Salome” ditulis oleh Oscar Wilde. Permasalahan yang pertama adalah mengungka pjenis-jenis maxim yang ada di dalam drama berdasarkan percakapan maxim yang dikemukakan oleh Grice dan permasalahan yang kedua adalah factor sosial yang mempengaruhi pemilihan maxim yang digunakan dalam percakapan di dalam drama.
Penelitian ini dirancang dengan menggunakan penelitian kualitatif. Data-datanya diambil dari naskah drama yang berjudul “Salome” dan dianalis menggunakan theori maxim yang dikemukakan oleh Grice. Semua data dalam bentuk percakapan. Percakapan-percakapan di identifikasi dan dianalisis untuk mengetahui maxim yang digunakan dalam percakapan. Dilanjutkan dengan mengidentifikasi dan menganalisa faktor sosial yang mempengaruhi penggunaan maksim.
Ditemukan bahwa dalam percakapan menggunakan empat jenis maksim, yaitu: maxim kuantiti, maxim kuantitas, maxim hubungan, maxim kesopanan. Ada beberapa kasus penggunaan maxim yang tidak jelas dan pembicara memilih untuk keluar dari aturan maxim. Faktor sosial yang mempengaruhi pemilihan maxim dalam percakapan adalah setting dan tujuan dari percakapan berdasarkan teori dari Holmes.
Kata kunci: percakapan, maxim, drama
Communication is "the process of sending, receiving, and interpreting messages through which we relate to each other and to our larger world as well." (Smith, 2001: 20). Communication is usually described along three major dimensions: content, form, and destination.The examples of communication content include acts that declare knowledge and experiences, give advice and commands, and ask questions.
During conversation we probably follow the principle of cooperation, implicitly agreeing with the other person to cooperate in trying to understand what
each is saying (Grice, 1975). Moreover, he stated that it is assumed to say something which is true and to the point, and is assumed not to withhold any relevant information. Specifically, he claimed that speakers are expected to observe the following rules or maxims. In the maxim of quantity, speakers should be as informative as necessary to communicate the intended meaning. In the maxim of quality, speakers are required to say what is true. The maxim of Relevant talks about what is relevant to the conversation. In the maxim of manner, speakers should be clear and avoid ambiguities. By following these rules, a pleasant conversation may be acquired.
From the opinion above, the researcher decided to investigate this matter to give a contribution to the world of knowledge. For that reason, this research was intended to find out whether the language in a drama is also concerned about the effectiveness of communication since it is also a medium to express ideas about the society at that time. Conversational maxims proposed by Grice (1975), were used as the basis to investigate the effectiveness in communication. The researcher would analyze the conversations in the drama through the use of Conversational Maxims, then, the analysis would be continued by investigating the social factors that might become the reasons in choosing the maxim. In conclusion, the field of this research would be about socio-pragmatics study.
Based on the background, two problems can be listed as follows:
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1. What kinds of maxims are expressed in Oscar Wilde's Salome on the basis of Conversational Maxims?
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2. What are the social factors that affect the choice of maxim used in the conversations?
According to those statements of problems, the purposes of this study were intended:
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1. To reveal kinds of maxims expressed in Oscar Wilde's Salome on the
basis of Conversational Maxims.
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2. To analyse the social factors that affect the choice of maxim used in the conversations.
The scope of this study is limited to the matter of investigating the problems mentioned above in a drama entitled Salome by Oscar Wilde, they are:
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1. Kinds of maxims expressed in Oscar Wilde's Salome on the basis of Conversational Maxims.
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2. The social factors that might affect the choice of maxim used in the conversations.
Research method is very important if we make scientific writing because they influence the validity of the analysis. There are three points that are applied in the research method namely data source, collecting data, method and technique of analyzing data.
The data of this study were taken from the drama entitled Salome by Oscar Wilde. The drama is analyzed in order to know how effective the implicatures expressed in the conversations. Are the analysis is done on the basis of Conversational Maxims proposed by Grice (1975: 45), namely: Quality Maxim, Quantity Maxim, Maxim of Relevant and Maxim of Manner. The analysis is also conducted in order to find out the social factors that affect the choice of the maxim.
There are several steps in collecting the data.
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a. There are three steps in collecting the data to support the first research problem, that is,
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1. Identifying the drama being studied in order to get a deeper understanding. The identification of the drama gives a starting point for the researcher to proceed to further analysis.
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2. Selecting the data, in the form of the conversations, on the basis of conversational maxims.
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3. Classifying the data based on conversational maxims.
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b. The data for the second research problem is gathered after classifying the data for the first research problem. There are some steps in collecting the second data:
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1. Identifying the reasons or the social factors behind the choice of maxim based on theory social factor.
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2. Selecting the data in the form of the conversation by using the theory of social factor.
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3. Classifying the data based on the social factors.
There are three steps in analyzing the data,
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a. Data analysis for the first research problem.
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1. Presenting the data.
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2. Analyzing the data. The analysis was done based on Conversational Maxim (Grice, 1975: 45), that is, maxim of Quality, Quantity, Relevant and Manner.
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3. Interpreting the data. The data were interpreted through the use of library research related to Conversational Maxim (Grice, 1975:45) and also the prior knowledge of the researcher.
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4. Drawing the conclusion. After analyzing and interpreting the data, the conclusion was made. The conclusion gave the answer about kinds of Conversational Maxim (Grice, 1975:45) expressed in drama entitled Salome by Oscar Wilde,
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b. Data analysis for the second research problem.
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1. Analyzingthe social factors based on the users of language, setting, topic and function of thr interaction (Holmes, 1992: 11) that affect
the choice of maxim. After the data for the first research question were gathered, the analysis was continued to find out the social factors that influenced the characters in choosing the use of the maxim.
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2. Interpreting the data. The data were explained in details through the use of library research on the basis of the social factors affecting the conversations. The prior knowledge of the researcher comes in hand to assist this interpretation.
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3. Drawing the conclusion. The conclusion of the second question is about the social factors that influenced the characters in Salome in choosing the maxim.
Based on Conversational Maxims, to make an effective communication, there are four rules or maxims that should be followed, that is, Maxim of Quantity, Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Relevant and Maxim of Manner. Therefore, the following conversations were analyzed based on those four maxims.
Conversation I
The soldiers are talking about the guests who come to the banquet.
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(5)First Soldier |
: Who are these howling wild animals? |
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(6)Second Soldier |
: The Jews. They are always like that. They are arguing about their faith. |
|
(7)First Soldier |
: Why do they argue about their faith? |
|
(8)Second Soldier |
: I don’t know. They do it all the time. The Pharises, for example, claim that angels exist |
while the Saducess say that they are no such things as angels
In (5), the First Soldier asked who the guests are. The second soldieractually only needed to answer “The Jews.” without any additional information. It is the same as in (7) and (8); the Second Soldier should give information not more than it was required. It means that he flouted maxim of Quantity by giving more information than it is required.
From the analysis, it was found that from the 42 conversations taken from thedrama, 20 conversations fulfill the rule of maxim of Quantity, 11 conversations fulfillthe rule of maxim of Quality, 2 conversations flout maxim of Quantity, 2 conversations flout maxim of Quality, 4 conversations flout maxim of Manner, and 4 conversations opt out of maxim of Relevant as it is seen in the table.
Social Factor That Affected the Choice of Maxim
After analyzing the data, it was found that the main factors affecting thecharacters in the drama in giving contribution were the purpose and the setting of thetalk exchanges. While the participants and the topic did not affect them in choosingwhich maxim they wanted to obey.
The choice of following, flouting, or opting out of a maxim was not affectedby the participants, or the users of the language. For examples, in Conversation 2 the participants were people at the same level of social structure that is theCappadocian and the First Soldier. The topic also did not affect the choice of maxim. The topic, whether it is about the existence of God, to show the passion for someone, or talking about thequeen or other person, they would follow, flout or opt out of a maxim.
Meanwhile, the setting affects the way how they would express their utterances. For examples, in conversation 8 the setting was the princess who was boredbeing at the party, so she went out to the terrace to enjoy the night. Therefore, sheignored the Young Syrian’s question and chose to opt out of a maxim.
The purpose also affected the choice of maxim in the conversations. The characters would follow, flout or opt out of a maxim because he wanted to reach acertain goal or purpose, for example, to give a more description of the thing beingtalked, to show their passion of something, to cover that they are scared of something,or to cover the real feeling that they are sad.
In conclusion, the setting and the purpose would affect the characters to fulfill, to flout, or to opt out the maxims.
Kinds of maxims expressed in the drama are maxim of Quantity, Quality, Relevant and Manner. There are also cases in which the maxim is flouted thatare flout of maxim of Quantity, Quality and Manner, and the speakers chose toopt out of maxim of Relevant.
The social factors that affected the choice of maxim are the setting and thepurpose of the talk exchanges. These social factors affected them whether tofulfill Maxim of Quality, Quantity, Manner and Relevant or to flout, or to opt out of a maxim.
Grice, H.P 1975. Logic and Conversation in Cole, P. And J.L. Morgan (eds). P 41-58.
Holmes, Janet. 1992. An Introduction to Sociolinguistic. Edinburgh: Longman.
Smith, Robert E. (2001). Principles of Human Communication (5thEd.).Iowa.Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2001.
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