Conversational implicature used by 4 main characters in Extra English series = Hàm ý hội thoại bốn nhân vật chính sử dụng trong bộ phim Extra English. M.A Thesis Linguistics: 822020101

ABSTRACT This research aims to identify the types of maxims flouting performed by four main characters, to explain the strategies and reasons used by four main characters to flout the ma

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



PHẠM THỊ THANH LOAN

CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE USED

BY FOUR MAIN CHARACTERS IN EXTRA ENGLISH SERIES

(Hàm ý hội thoại bốn nhân vật chính sử dụng

trong bộ phim Extra English)

MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



PHẠM THỊ THANH LOAN

CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE USED

BY FOUR MAIN CHARACTERS IN EXTRA ENGLISH SERIES

(Hàm ý hội thoại bốn nhân vật chính sử dụng

trong bộ phim Extra English)

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled “Conversational implicature

used by four main characters in Extra English series” is the result of my own

work in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts of Faculty at Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University of Hanoi The research has not been submitted to any other universities or institutions

Signature

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest and sincere gratitude to my respectable supervisor, Ms Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm for her stimulating suggestions, critical comments and endless support

Also, many thanks go to my parents and all my close friends who always encourage me to keep up my work All their caring and encouragements are valuable mental support for me to strive more and come over all difficulties

ABSTRACT

This research aims to identify the types of maxims flouting performed by four main characters, to explain the strategies and reasons used by four main characters to flout the maxims Moreover, the study is undertaken as an attempt to discover the similarities and differences in their habits of flouting maxims

The research employed both quantitative and qualitative method The data

were in the form of utterances The source of data was Extra English series The

researcher employed some steps to collect the data: watching the episodes and transcribing the equivalent data to pinpoint the frequency, the strategies and functions used

There are three results in this study The first result is that all the types of maxim are flouted by four main characters and maxim of relation is flouted the most often The second result is that there are seven strategies and fourteen reasons used to flout the maxims The last result draws comparison of the way different characters flouting the maxims

TABLES OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES vii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study .1

1.2 Aims of the study and research questions 2

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Significance of the study 3

1.5 Structure of the thesis 3

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Pragmatics 5

2.2 Implicature 6

2.3 Grice‟s conversational implicature 6

2.3.1 Conventional implicature 7

2.3.2 Conversational implicature 7

2.3.3 Cooperative principle 8

2.3.4 Non-observance of Maxims 9

2.4 Later developments 13

2.5 Horn‟s Q principle and R principle 14

2.6 Relevance theory 15

2.7 Review of previous studies 17

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY 19

3.1 A brief introduction of “Extra English” 19

3.2 Data collection 20

3.3 Data analysis 20

3.4 Analytical framework 21

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 24

4.1 Findings 24

4.1.1 The flouting of 4 maxims 24

4.1.2 Strategies of maxim flouting performed by 4 main characters .26

4.2 Discussion 27

4.2.1 The flouting of the maxim of quantity 28

4.2.2 The flouting of the maxim of quality 33

4.2.3 The flouting of the maxim of relation 40

4.2.4 The flouting of the maxim of manner 42

4.2.5 Strategies of maxims flouting 45

4.2.6 Reasons of maxim flouting 51

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 56

5.1 Conclusions 56

5.1.1 Answer to research question 1 56

5.1.2 Answer to research question 2 57

5.2 Implications of the study 59

5.3 Limitations of the study 59

APPENDIX I

1 Flouting maxim of Relation I

2 Flouting maxim of Quantity VIII

3 Flouting maxim of Quality XIII

4 Flouting maxim of Manner XVIII

LIST OF FIGURES List of tables

1 Table 3.1 Types of flouting Grice‟s maxims and strategies

3 Table 4.2 The ways to flout 4 maxims 26

4 Table 4.3 Flouting maxim of relation 45

5 Table 4.4 Flouting maxim of quantity 46

6 Table 4.5 Flouting maxim of manner 48

7 Table 4.6 Flouting maxim of quality 49

8 Table 4.7 Reasons of flouting maxims 51,52,53

List of charts

1 Chart 4.1 Tendency of characters flouting the maxims 25

2 Chart 4.2 The strategies of maxims flouting 27

3 Chart 4.3 The strategy used to flout maxim of relation 45

4 Chart 4.4 The strategies used to flout maxim of quantity 47

5 Chart 4.5 The strategy used to flout maxim of manner 48

6 Charts 4.6 The strategies used to flout maxim of quality 50

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This initial chapter presents the problem and the rationale, the aims, the scope and the significance of the thesis Most importantly, the research questions are identified to work as a guideline for the whole research

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

Learning a language is much more complicated than understanding the words themselves, when the meanings put in different contexts may create different results Therefore, it is essential for language learners to thoroughly understand utterances under certain circumstances Among various fields of studying discourse analysis, conversational implicature is worth being taken into consideration since the hidden meanings it carries really can result in the misunderstanding of a conversation

Extra English series is selected for this research due to three main reasons First, this is a language education television series designed for learning English purposes, which is quite familiar with those who learn English Second, with 30 hilarious, half-hour sitcom programmes conducted in an authentic London setting, the study is expected to represent the way native speakers use language in daily life Last, we can see how laughter is created based on the hidden meanings under the words through funny situations of this sitcom

There are certain previous studies conducted about implicature with diverse types of objects; however, with this study, the researcher would like to put one more brick to the study of implicature in a different context Furthermore, since it is observed that Vietnamese learners of English often fail in considering the context when speaking English to foreigners, which results in some improper replies, this study is expected to contribute to understanding language in pragmatics With the aforementioned reasons, the researcher is encouraged to conduct a study on

“Conversational implicature used by four main characters in Extra English series”

In this study, the researcher attempts to see how conversational implicature used in this series Besides, with the purpose of digging a deeper analysis on implicature use, the researcher also hopes to present the similarities and differences among the way each main character using implicature

1.2 Aims of the study and research questions

The objectives of the study are:

1 to identify the types of maxims flouting and explain the strategies used to flout those maxims by the main characters in English Extra English series

2 to identify the differences and similarities in the purposes of each main character flouted the maxims

In order to gain the objectives, the research is conducted to answer the following research questions:

1 How are conversational implicature used by four main characters in Extra English series?

2 What are the similarities and differences among the way these characters using conversational implicature?

1.3 Scope of the study

As it was mentioned above, due to the limit of time, the study only focuses

on conversational implicature, which is closer to pragmatics and the study of discourse analysis Specifically, the analysis is about implicature created by flouting

4 Grice‟s maxims (they will be discussed later) The data chosen is the Extra English series which contains 30 episodes All the episodes will be measured and

1.4 Significance of the study

Since the researcher aims to provide a detailed and comprehensive analysis and evaluation of conversational implicature used in a language education television series- Extra English, theoretically this study is highly expected to enrich the researcher‟s and readers‟ knowledge in the pragmatics which is particularly related

to cooperative principle and maxim flouting Practically, the findings of this research are expected to contribute to the comprehension of other studies on conversational implicature in particular and pragmatics in general Besides, the researcher and other English teachers can understand more about English situation comedies with their art of exploiting conversational implicature Therefore, this study hopes to be a reference for other English teachers to use situation comedies in teaching students about implicature

1.5 Structure of the thesis

Overall, this paper is comprised of 5 chapters:

- Chapter I: Introduction

This chapter presents statement of the problem and rationale for the study, aims of the study and research questions, scope, significance and structure of the study

- Chapter II: Literature review

The researcher provides the review of previous studies and theoretical background

of the study including pragmatics, implicature, types of implicature, Grice‟s conversational implicature and other theories (Horn‟s Q principle and R-principle, relevance theory)

- Chapter III: Methodology

In this chapter, the research methods applied will be clearly explained

- Chapter IV: Findings and Discussions

This chapter answers the research questions with data analysis

- Chapter V: Conclusion

The summary of the main points discussed as well as suggestions for further studies are provided in this last chapter

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

This second chapter sheds light on the literature review of the study, specifically the background of pragmatics, implicature, Grice‟s conversational implicature and other related theories

2.1 Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, linguistics and anthropology (Mey, 1993)

The term of modern pragmatics for the first time is introduced by Charles Morris in 1938 (Levison, 1983) He defines that pragmatics is the study of the relations of signs to the interpreters It is concerned with the study of meaning communicated by the speaker or the writer and interpreted by the listener or the reader

This term has been developed in the modern study of linguistics The most common definition of pragmatics proposed by Thomas (1995) is meaning in use or meaning in context Leech also (1983) states that pragmatics is the study of how utterances have meanings in situations

Unlike semantics, which is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and entity in the world; that is how words literally connect to things, pragmatics is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the users

of those forms It studies how meaning arises from the interaction of linguistic meaning with contextual factors such as the physical situation, general knowledge and the speaker‟s apparent intentions

Compared to semantics, only pragmatics allows humans into the analysis The advantage of studying language via pragmatics is that one can talk about

people‟s intended meanings, their assumptions, their purposes or goals, and the kinds of actions (requests, apologies, orders… ) that they are performing when they speak The big disadvantage is that all these very human concepts are extremely difficult to analyze in a consistent and objective way

Thus, pragmatics is appealing because it is about how people make sense of each other linguistically, but it can be frustrating area of study because it requires us

to make sense of people and what they have in mind

2.2 Implicature

Implicature is a technical term in pragmatics, coined by H.P Grice, which refers to what is suggested in an utterance, even though neither expressed nor strictly implied (Blackburn, 1996)

According to Yule (1996), implicature can be considered as an additional conveyed meaning It is attained when a speaker intends to communicate more than just what the words mean It is the speaker who communicates something via implicature and the listeners recognize those communicated meanings via inference

In another word, implicature can be understood as the implied meaning generated intentionally, when there is a very general distinction between “what is said” by a speaker and “what he means or implicates” (Grice, 1975) For example,

in the sentence “some of your students are smart”, the speaker implies that not all your students are smart

2.3 Grice’s conversational implicature

Grice‟s theory of implicature includes two main kinds of implicature which

he called conversational implicature and conventional implicature This study concerns only conversational implicature, which is by far the more important

Grice proposed that communicative utterances and exchanges, typically in conversation but not confined to conversation, are in accordance with a general principle of cooperation

2.3.1 Conventional implicature

Conventional implicature conveys the same extra meaning regardless of context and it is always lexicalized and easily known to people (Grice, 1975) It doesn‟t have to occur in conversation and is associated with specific words such as

but, even, therefore, yet For instance, in the utterance Even John is smart, the

implied meaning that the speaker wants to convey is that: other people are smart and of other people, John is the least likely to be smart

2.3.2 Conversational implicature

In contrast to conventional implicature, conversational implicature conveys different meanings according to different contexts; hence, the meanings are still negotiable between both the speaker and the hearer through their interaction It is not intrinsically associated with any expression but is inferred from the use of some utterance in context

Generally, there are two types of conversational implicature, which are generalized conversational implicature and particularized conversational implicature

a Generalized conversational implicature

When no special knowledge is required in the context to calculate the additional conveyed meaning, it is called a generalized conversational implicature (Yule, 1996) Therefore, it is inferable without a specific context

It is also worth noticing that one kind of generalized conversational implicature is scalar implicature, which is commonly communicated on the basis of

a scale of values

Scalar implicature

Certain information is always communicated by choosing a word which expresses one value from a scale of values This is particularly obvious in terms for expressing quantity, as shown in the scales below, where terms are listed from the highest to the lowest value

<all, most, many, some, few>

<always, often, sometimes>

The basis of scalar implicature is that “when any form in a scale is asserted, the negative of all forms higher on the scale is implicated.” (Yule, 1996)

b Particularized conversational implicature

Unlike generalized conversational implicature, “a particularized conversational implicature occurs when a conversation takes place in a very specific context in which locally recognized inferences are assumed” (Yule, 1996) In another word, particularized conversational implicatures are conversational implicatures that are derivable only in a specific context

2.3.3 Cooperative principle

Grice (1975) proposes that in ordinary conversation, speakers and hearers share a cooperative principle The cooperative principle is a principle of conversation stating that participants expect that each will make a “conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted

In other words, the listener presumes that the speaker is being cooperative and is speaking truthfully, informatively, relevantly, perspicuously, and appropriately

Specifically, 4 types of maxims including quantity, quality, relation and manner will be presented in more details below (Yule, 1969):

Quantity

1 Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange)

2 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true

1 Do not say what you believe to be false

2 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

Thomas (1995) summarizes 5 major ways of failing to observe a maxim: flouting, violating, infringing, opting out and suspending

 Violating a maxim

Violation is defined by (Grice, 1975) as the “unostentatious or „quiet‟ observance of a maxim” A speaker who violates a maxim will be “liable to mislead” Violating a maxim rather prevents or at least discourages the hearer from seeking for implicature and rather encourages their taking utterances at face value

non-Speakers can violate 4 maxims: quality, quantity, relation and manner

 Opting out a maxim

Opting out a maxim occurs whenever speakers indicate “unwillingness to cooperate in the way the maxim requires” (Thomas, 1995) Moreover, he also said that the "example of opting out occurs frequently in public life, when the speaker cannot, perhaps for legal or ethical reason, reply in the way normally expected The speaker usually wishes to avoid generating a false implicature or appearing uncooperative"

 Suspending a maxim

implicature), the speakers do not observe the maxim This category may be culturally-specific Specifically, it can be found in case of funeral orations and obituaries (maxim of quality), poetry (maxim of manner) or jokes (maxims of quality, quantity and manner)

 Flouting a maxim:

“A speaker blatantly fails to observe a maxim, not with any intention of deceiving or misleading, but because the speaker wishes to prompt the hearer to look for a meaning which is different from, or in addition to, the expressed meaning” (Thomas 1995) In conversation, flouting a maxim intentionally or unconsciously to convey a different meaning than what is literally spoken as well as to produce a negative pragmatic effect, as with sarcasm or irony Therefore, this is a process to generate conversational implicature

The maxims are often purposefully flouted by comedians and writers, who may hide the complete truth and manipulate their words for the effect of the story and the sake of the reader‟s experience (McCulloch, 2014)

 Types of maxims flouting

With 4 types of maxims, there are correspondently 4 ways of flouting maxims, which can be illustrated in the following examples: (extracted from the Extra English series)

- Flouting the maxim of quantity

Annie: Did you have a good day at work?

Bridget: Oh, I‟m so tired Training with the England football team this morning Oh those boys- so cheeky! But they really know what they‟re talking about

Bridget‟s answer flouts the maxim of quantity when she is trying to provide too much information

- Flouting the maxim of quality

Annie: What are you doing?

Annie: (laughing) Oh, nice outfit, Nick!

Annie is flouting the maxim of quality because her praise is untruth Maybe she probably wants to tease Nick

- Flouting the maxim of relation:

Bridget: Eunice, what are you doing here?

Eunice: Long time no see, Bridget And how‟s Nick? Does he miss me? Eunice‟s answer violates the maxim of relation She may imply her underestimation

to Bridget and try to delay to inform the news

- Flouting the maxim of manner:

Bridget: I want my tights back- now

Nick: Ok

Annie: You want your tights back?

Bridget: They are Versace The remote, please, Annie

The last answer of Bridget is flouting the maxim of manner She doesn‟t give the direct answer “yes” or “no” Instead of that, she talks about the manufacturer of the

From 5 ways of non-observance of the maxims mentioned above, it can be noticed that only flouting a maxim plays the most important role in generating implicature Therefore, the study of implicature in this paper will only focus on flouting four Grice‟s maxims

2.4 Later developments

Since Grice‟s theory of implicature, there have been some other theories revised and re-evaluated from this original hypothesis They would be discussed further in the following sections 2.5 and 2.6, which emphasize in various ways the significance of Maxims of Quantity and Relation over the other two: Quality and Manner as well as the interdependent relationship between them

As we have seen, Maxims of Quantity and Relevance play a more important role in giving rise to implicatures The primary sort of implicature ascribed to Maxim of Manner is the „warning of potential listeners‟ device, which is definitely not a noteworthy piece of everyday communication Despite being said to support the working of the various Maxims, Maxim of Quality does not frequently have the primary influence in offering ascends to implicatures, aside from its conceivable commitment to unexpected expressions

Notice that in addition to the preeminence of Maxims of quantity and relation, they are connected and interdependent As mentioned above, to observe maxim of quantity, speakers have to make contribution as informative as is required

In other words, they have to know exactly how much information needed, so as not

to give too much or too little information If they give too much information, it means that the redundant information is not related to the purpose of questions If they give too little information, it means the relevant information is omitted

Parts 2.5 and 2.6 will discuss in detail two main approaches to implicature in which both maxims of relation and quantity are stressed

2.5 Horn’s Q principle and R principle

This approach takes maxim of quantity as the basis for a new theory of implicature, incorporating maxim of relation into a more general principle

Horn‟s Q principle (Q for quantity) is a reformation of Grice‟s maxim of Quantity combined with the first two sub-maxims of Manner The Q-principle states

“Say as much as you can (given R)” (Horn, 1989) The Q-principle leads to the implication that if the speaker did not make a stronger statement (or say more), then its denial is (implied to be) true

The Q principle collects Grice‟s Maxims

Quantity 1: Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange)

Manner 1: Avoid obscurity of expression

Manner 2: Avoid ambiguity

The R-principle (R for relation) is a reformation of Grice‟s maxim of Relation combining with the second sub-maxim of Quantity and the third and fourth sub-maxims of Manner The R principle states “Say no more than you must (given Q)” (Horn, 1989)

According to the R-Principle, there is no reason to make a stronger statement (say more) if the extra information can be contributed by implicature

The R-principle collects Grice‟s maxims

Relation: Be relevant

Quantity 2: Do not make your contribution more informative than is required Manner 3: Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)

Manner 4: Be orderly

2.6 Relevance theory

Another theory which was developed to explain implicature theory is Relevance theory It was initially proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1995) Like Horn‟s R principle and Q principle, relevance theory does not focus on the independent necessity of all 4 maxims Instead, relevance (or relation) becomes central in human communication and no set of distinct communication – specific maxims is necessary

The core of the theory is the "communicative principle of relevance", which states that by the act of making an utterance the speaker is conveying that what they have said is worth listening to, i.e it will provide "cognitive effects" worthy of the processing effort required to find the meaning In this way, every ostensive act of communication (that is the lexical "clues" that are explicitly conveyed when we speak/write) will look something like this:

1 The speaker purposefully gives a clue to the hearer, ("ostensifies"), as to what she wishes to communicate – that is a clue to her intention

2 The hearer infers the intention from the clue and the context-mediated information The hearer must interpret the clue, taking into account the context, and surmise what the speaker intended to communicate

For Sperber and Wilson, relevance is conceived as relative or subjective, as it depends upon the state of knowledge of a hearer when they encounter an utterance However, they are quick to note that their theory does not attempt to exhaustively define the concept of "relevance" in everyday use, but tries to show an interesting and important part of human communication, in particular ostensive-inferential communication

Even though there have been different views towards implicature, Grice‟s Cooperative Principle has proved to be one of the most influential theories in the development of pragmatics and it is still a milestone of modern linguistic

development Besides, to this specific research which targets to English language learners and teachers, Grice‟s maxim is the fundamental principle to be taught about implicature Therefore, this study chooses Grice‟s cooperative principle as the main approach to analyze the data given This principle can be illustrated briefly through the following diagram:

Cooperative Principle

Maxim of quality

Maxim of

quantity

Maxim of relation

Maxim of manner

Flouting Opting out Infringing Violating

Maxim of

Quantity Flouting

Maxim of quality flouting

Maxim of Relation flouting

Maxim of Manner flouting Types

Suspending

2.7 Review of previous studies

Related to implicature, there have been many researchers showing their interests in this field Many studies were conducted to analyze the use of implicature in various aspects such as advertisements, daily conversations, TV shows and films Some of them are used as reference before the researcher conducted this study

In 2014, Widiana conducted a research entitled “A pragmatics study on jokes and the implicature in broadcast messages” Her research applied the pragmatic equivalent method to analyze the topics of jokes based on the implicatures contained in them The findings included the kinds of implicature found in jokes which are classified into conventional and conversational implicature Then, in detailed analysis, implicature in jokes is divided into implicature related to gender, culture, and social phenomena The two main purposes of implicature in jokes found are to give entertainment and to soften criticisms or satire

Different from the above study, another study by Umi (2015) used a play as the data source He focused on the flouting of the maxims of quality and quantity in the three-act play “A Doll‟s House” to find and describe how they are flouted and to explain the purposes of the main characters in flouting those kinds of maxims in a conversation The findings indicate 6 strategies used and 11 functions in total

In a recent research by Hanna and Ghozali (2017), “An analysis of maxims flouting in “The jungle book” movie script” presented the frequency of 4 types of maxims: maxim of quality, maxim of quantity, maxim of manner and maxim of relation flouted as well as the functions of flouting maxims used by the characters

Regarding research on sitcoms, there are also some studies conducted on

“Friends” by Dao (2010) and Tran (2015) and “How I met your mother” by Prispevku (2010) and Andriyani (2010) They focused on the examples roles of violating and flouting maxims and their roles in creating humor in these sitcoms

As observing there being no research about implicature conducted on Extra English series and with expectation of presenting some new features in the findings

on strategies and functions used, the researcher is in the hope of discussing in detail the strategies of flouting all 4 maxims of quality, quantity, relation and manner used

in the series by each main character as well as the differences and similarities in the purposes of each main character flouted the maxims

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the methodology of the study will be presented This includes the overview of the series, the method and the procedures of data collection, analysis and analytical framework

3.1 A brief introduction of “Extra English”

Extra (or Extr@) English is a series of situation comedy produced for the purpose of teaching English and broadcast on Rai TV Channel in the United Kingdom It was in production from 2002 to 2004, and is mainly marketed to the instructional television market for middle school and high school language classes Considered one of the best educational series of situation comedy, it has gained success in many countries around the world Extra English seems to arouse the viewers‟ curiosity with its funny videos and hilarious content Four versions were made, each in a different language: English, French, German, and Spanish The English version has 30 episodes, each of which lasts from twenty-three to twenty five minutes, and the other three languages have 13 episodes each The story is about four main characters: Bridget and Annie, who share a flat in London and the boys next door, Nick and his friend - Hector from Argentina Bridget and Hector work for a television company, Nick is an actor, and Annie is a student We can see them at work and play – they have fun, they fall in love, they break up, they argue – sometimes all on the same day They sometimes meet really unusual people and have amusing and incredible adventures Like other situation comedies, the content

of “Extra English” is centered around a common environment, so its language is quite similar to the daily life one It is particularly suitable for adolescents and young adults who can relate to the contextual setting and implied meanings in the screenplay

3.2 Data collection

The data of this study are 30 episodes of Extr@ English series The utterances of 4 main characters: Bridget, Annie, Nick and Hector which contain conversational implicature will be used for analysis

In total, the procedure consists of 3 steps

Step 1: all 30 episodes were watched carefully to find out conversational implicature uttered by 4 main characters

Step 2: Cases with conversational implicature were transcribed and classified into 4 types of flouting maxims: quality, quantity, relation and manner

Step 3: All cases with implicature were reexamined to put them into different categories of strategies used and the reasons why they are used

3.3 Data analysis

Both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods will be adopted in this research Specifically, quantitative analysis is to examine the number and proportion of each type of conversational implicature together with strategies and functions used by each character and qualitative analysis is to explain specifically how they are used and similarities and differences among 4 characters

In this paper, the specific procedure applied is described as follows:

Step 1: The data will be categorized and synthesized into statistics to draw conclusions about how frequently and in what ways conversational maxims are flouted

Step 2: For each strategy used and each character, cases will be analyzed in detail with the reasons they are used

3.4 Analytical framework

Analytical framework used in this study is based on Grice‟s theory of cooperative principle as well as strategies proposed by Cutting (2002) illustrated through the table below (Except for the example of banter which was provided by Cutting (2002), the other ones are taken from Extra English series):

Table 3.1 Types of flouting Grice’s maxims and strategies used

Types of

flouting

maxims

Quantity The speaker

the speakers supply more information than the situation requires

Annie: Did you have a good day at work?

Bridget: Oh I‟m so tired Training with the

England football team this morning Oh these boys- so cheeky! But they really know what they‟re talking about

Giving too little information

the speakers supply less information than the situation requires

Hector: she says “How many bridesmaids is Annie having? Ten or twelve?”

Annie: ten or twelve?

Quality The speaker

says

something

which “is

Using metaphor

the speakers say

something as

if that thing

Hector: Hi, sugar plum Annie: Hi, snuggly puppykins

Using hyperbole

the speakers exaggerate a statement in order to make it sound worse

or better than reality

Marty: Have we met? Bridget: Well, only about one hundred times

Using sarcasm

the speakers express a positive sentiment and imply a negative one

Bridget: Isn‟t he wonderful?

Nick: wonderful

Using banter

the speakers express a negative sentiment and imply a positive one

You are nasty, mean and stingy How can you only give me one kiss? (A boy talks to his girlfriend)

Relation The speaker

the speakers make a response or observation which is very

Annie: What or who is more important than me? Hector: Annie, today was difficult

irrelevant to

the topic” in

hand

the topic in hand

Manner The speaker

the speakers give obscure expressions

Annie: You want your tights back?

Bridget: They are Versace

Summary:

In brief, the research was conducted in accordance with the quantitative and qualitative methods which involve the data with 30 episodes in Extra English series The content analysis aims at analyzing the data so as to answer two research questions The analytical framework used in this study was based on Grice‟s theory

of Cooperative principle and 8 strategies proposed by Cutting The results were presented, analyzed and discussed in the next chapter – Chapter IV: Results and discussion

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

The fourth chapter concentrates on the findings and discussions of the thesis This provides the answer of two research problems that have been presented in the first chapter

4.1 Findings

In this section, the writer presents the analysis of flouting 4 maxims of quantity, manner, relation and quality by Hector, Bridget, Nick and Annie as the main characters in Extra English series After that, the writer shows the strategies of flouting maxims they use and makes comparison among the main characters

4.1.1 The flouting of 4 maxims

After a thorough analysis, the researcher demonstrates data collected into the table and the chart below, “flouting maxims” by characters

Table 4.1 The number of times flouting maxims by characters

Chart 4.1 Tendency of characters flouting the maxims

As mentioned before, all 30 episodes of the series are analyzed The average length of each episode is about 24 minutes apart from the beginning and ending, which in total sums up to about 720 minutes or 12 hours of material A total of 99 instances of flouting 4 maxims by 4 main characters were identified Even though it may not a high rate, this number indicates that many of situations have taken advantage of conversational implicature in their dialogues As a result, it is necessary for viewers to be aware of additional conveyed meaning beyond the utterances of the characters

It is also noticed from the table 4.1 that the frequency of flouts varied considerably among each type of maxims The maxim of relation tends to be the most dominant choice with 36 times Flouting the maxim of quality ranks the second with 28 times and followed closely by flouting maxim of quantity (27 times) Meanwhile, the maxim of manner is the least flouted with only 8 times in total

In terms of flouts performed by characters, When looking at which characters performed flouts, as can be seen from table 4.1, the results are expected:

Quantity Relation Manner Quality

the way they flouts maxims is not similar Nick is the one with the most frequency

of flouting maxims Both Annie and Bridget rank the second since each of them contributes 24 times of flouts The rests belong to Hector with only 19 times

When looking at the chart, the most striking feature can be observe is the highest frequency of Nick to exploit maxim of relation and by contrast, the lowest frequency belongs to Hector and Bridget with only 0 and 1 time of flouting maxim

of manner

4.1.2 Strategies of maxim flouting performed by 4 main characters

After the data are analyzed (see Appendix), the strategies used are presented

in the table and the chart below

Table 4.2 The ways to flout 4 maxims

Giving too much information 16 16%

Giving too little information 11 11%

Chart 4.2 The strategies of maxims flouting

From the table and the chart, we can see that the highest occurrence of the strategy to flout the maxim is being irrelevant strategy with 36 times, accounting for

37 percent

Except for the most prevalent “being irrelevant strategy”, other strategies used with quite low rate, all under 20 percent Ranking the second is giving too much information strategy with 16 times of employing and followed by giving too little information strategy with 11 times

Frequencies of using “giving too little information strategy, sarcasm, hyperbole and metaphor are approximately equal with 10, 9, 9 and 8 times correspondingly Using banter is the only strategy which is not used at all

4.2 Discussion

In this section, the answers of the research questions are given with detailed explanations using several related theories which are discussed in Chapter II This section itself is divided into six main parts The first four parts follow each type of

Being obscure Using hyperbole Using metaphor Using banter Using sarcasm

maxims flouted In each type, strategies used will be analyzed in particular with one example for each character to elaborate more on the reasons why he/she flout these maxims Part 1 discusses the flouting of the maxim of quantity with the analysis of two strategies “giving too much information” and “giving too little information” Part 2 discusses the strategies of maxim of quality flouting “using hyperbole, metaphor and sarcasm” The third part discusses the flouting of maxim of relation using “being irrelevant strategy” In the fourth part, the maxim of manner and the strategy “being obscure” will be exemplified and explained with details And the last two parts will recapitulate all the strategies and reasons of creating implicature

4.2.1 The flouting of the maxim of quantity

As having been discussed in the last section, the flouting of the maxim of quantity occurs when the speakers supply more or less information than the situation requires Under these circumstances, some conversational implicature will

be generated In Extra English series, 4 main characters, as seen in table 4.1 do the flouting of maxim of quantity 27 times

4.2.1.1 Giving too much information

a Bridget

Situation 1: (episode 4- Hector looks for a job)

“Bridget and her boss – Howard were having dinner at her flat Annie has heard that Howard had a reputation as a womanizer, so the boys decided to help at the dinner Nick was doing the cooking, Hector was being a waiter When Howard arrived, they realized that he had bad intentions and insulted the boys Bridget did not like his behaviors and she threw him out”

Howard: Hey! You have poisoned me! You fool! You stupid boys!

Bridget: He is…a kind and clever and lovely man, which is something

that you never ever be

It can be seen that Bridget produced an answer which contained too much

unwarranted information to Howard‟s question “Is he you boyfriend or something?”

By asking this question, he wondered if Hector was Bridget‟s boyfriend However,

she described some personal qualities of Hector in place of answering “Yes” or

“No” This made Bridget seem to be uncooperative as her contribution was more

informative than required Despite appearance, it was presumed by Howard that

Bridget was trying to obey the Cooperative principle Her possible implicature

might be that Hector was not her boyfriend and that Howard was an unkind man In

this case, Bridget had a purpose of avoiding the answer, which was the fact that

Hector was not her boyfriend Thus, the maxim of quantity was flouted by Bridget

by using giving too much information strategy

b Annie

Situation 2 (episode 23): Truth or dare

Nick, Hector, Annie, Bridget and Ziggy (Annie‟s friend) played “truth or dare” The

one who was picked must choose either to tell the truth or do a dare None of them

chose to tell the truth; so Annie decided to dare all of them to speak the truth for the

whole day with the reward for the winner was dinner for two at The Ivy restaurant

Annie: you will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

In this case, it is adequate for Annie to just say “you have to tell the truth”

However, she chose to flout the maxim of quantity by giving too much information

by adding “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” Her purpose was to stress

something (emphasize the rule to everyone)

c Hector

Situation 3 (episode 2- Hector goes shopping)

Nick saw a picture of a nice car on a magazine cover He showed it to Hector

Nick: Nice car, eh?

Hector: I have this car at home

Hector‟s reply was not only to agree with Nick that it was a nice car but he also wanted to affirm that he possessed a car like this at home His flouting maxim of

quantity indicated his purpose of showing off his wealth to Nick

d Nick

Situation 4 (episode 16- Uncle Nick)

Dreaming of becoming a Hollywood movie star, Nick was so glad that Victoria Yallop, an actress promised to tell George Ducas, the Hollywood director, about him In return, Nick has to look after Lucas, her son The following dialogue happens when he tries to explain the situation to Annie, Hector and Bridget

Nick: Because she‟s going to meet George Ducas

Hector: Where?

Nick: New York

Bridget: New York?

Nick: She‟ll be back tomorrow

Logically, to answer Bridget‟s question, Nick only needed to say “yes”, which is enough to observe maxim of quantity However, he flouted the maxim by giving more information which was the time she would come back In fact, Nick didn‟t try

to mislead anyone Bridget‟s question must be understood that it was her complaint for having to keep Lucas in her room during all the time Victoria went to New York

have to take care of her son so long His purpose is to persuade everyone to help

him

4.2.1.2 Giving too little information

a Bridget

Situation 5 (Episode 20- Every dog has its day):

Bridget recently lost some stuffs and suspected Annie was the one who took them One day, Annie saw Bridget using her audio player

Annie: Bridget, that‟s my Walkman

Bridget: Well, you take my things

Annie: I don‟t take your things

In this situation, Bridget generated implicature by flouting the maxim of quantity

By stating “my things”, Bridget gave too little information than it is required She is supposed to say specifically which her things are However, she still obeyed the Cooperative Principle since she didn‟t try to mislead Annie In her thought, Annie was the one who stole her things; therefore Annie had to know exactly what she

meant by “my things” In this case, she just simply wants to save time instead of

having to list out all the things she lost

b Annie

Situation 6 (episode 13- A wedding in the air)

Annie and Hector are preparing for their marriage Annie just wanted a small wedding but Hector‟s mother expected their wedding must be lavish since Hector Romeo was one of the richest families in Argentina The following is the conversation between Hector and Annie after reading the email from his mother