The Study of Maxim Clash in “Titanic
Movie”
JOURNAL
Composed by
RamlanPakaya
321410016
English Department
Letters and Culture Faculty,
UniversitasNegeriGorontalo
ABSTRACT
RamlanPakaya[1].
2015. NIM: 321410016.The Study of Maxim Clash in
“Titanic Movie”.
This research is about the study of maxim clash in
Titanic Movie which is applied by using the theory ofCooperative Principle by
Grice. The purpose of this research is to find out the maxim clash in Titanic
Movie including to find out the reason of why the maxim clash occurred. This
research is conducted by using descriptive method. The source of the data is
the “Titanic Movie”, the data is all of the conversation in the movie and the
corpus is every single data which contained maxim clash.
The result
of the research shows that there are 21 maxim clashes in the movie namely the
clash between maxim of Quantity with maxim of quality (9 data), the clash
between maxim of Quality with maxim of Quantity (2 data), the clash between
maxim of Quality with maxim of Manner (1 data), the clash between maxim of
Quality with maxim of Relation (2 data), the clash between maxim of Relation
with maxim of Quality (2 data), the clash between maxim of Relation with maxim
of Manner (1 data), the clash between maxim of Quantity and Quality with maxim
of Relation (3 data) the clash between maxim of Quantity and with maxim of
Quality and maxim of Manner (1 data)
Therefore
it can be concluded thatclash between maxim of Quantity with maxim of quality
dominates the flouting on the utterance of the movie. It means that there are
many utterances of the movie which the people in it give contribution more
informative as is required.
Key Words: Maxim Clash, Cooperative Principle, “Titanic Movie”.
Introduction
Cooperative principles is one of the branches in
Pragmatics. This discipline is simultaneous with Politeness principles in order
to achieve a succesful discourse between speakers and interlocutors. Regardless, in taking and giving
information between speaker and listener, it is essential to comprehend and to implement the cooperative
principles in order to keep the discourse in obliged purpose. However, by do not pay attention to the cooperative
principles, the aim of the discourse will not beeasy to be interpreted by the speaker to adjust the comprehension.
According to Grice (as cited in Leech, 1993), there are four rules that should be paid
attention in doing conversation.
It is called cooperative principles. Cooperative principle means that the main
purpose is to make the conversational
contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which it is engaged.
Observing whether the rules are being followed
consistently by the speaker or interlocutor in doing conversation, the rules
was violated or disobeyed because of some reasons such as to maintain the
politeness of the discourse, or in some other conditions, the reasons might be
to maintain the good relationship between the speaker and interlocutor
Conversational maxims purposed by Grice were crucial rules. Those rules have important role
when taking and giving information is being occured where the speaker and
interlocutor should cooperate each other in order to achieve the aims of the
discourse. The rules direct the speaker and/or the interlocutor to give a
proper and accurate contribution in conversation. In another side, the rules
also maintain the refinement of language.
The condition when someone was able to fulfill one maxims, but in another side
he/she had to violate one maxim is
called maxim clash. Here is an example that can be found in Titanic Movie. One
day, the conversation took place in Lovett’s ship. Rose (old Rose) was asked to
tell about the story of titanic. Marketing Lovett started the conversation.
Lovett : Tell us, Rose.
Rose :
(take a deep breath) It’s been 84 years.
Lovett : It’s okay. Just try to remember anything, anything at all.
Rose : Do
you want to hear this or not Marketing. Lovett?
It’s been 84 years. And I can still
smell the fresh paint.
In this conversation, Rose started with “It’s been 84
years” which refers to the sinking of Titanic. This sentence is still ambiguos and directs the listeners towards
two interpretation possibilities. The first possibility could be meant she was trying to inform the listeners that itwas an old story. It might be hard to remember the story. The second
interpretations was she would start the story with the sentence “It’s been 84
years”. In this case, Mr. Lovett took the first interpretation and answered
“It’s okay. Just try to remember anything, anything at all”. In contradiction,
Rose actually intended to the second
possibility. Of course, there was a misunderstanding between Rose and Mr. Lovett
in that conversation.
The case was not over yet in
the violation of maxim above. There was more interesting case to be analyzed that appear after it. Let us just
move to another viewpoint of that context. As it had been judged that Rose
violated the maxim of manner which contended ambiguous in her sentence “it’s
been 84 years”, in another side, she actually obeyed two other Maxims; they
were maxim of quality and maxim of relation. Maxim of quality appeared because
she provided the truth that the story happened 84 years ago. The next maxim
that she obeyed was maxim of relation. Beyond of the context, the sentence
“it’s been 84 years” did not leave the line of conversation which connect to
the previous sentence of Mr. Lovett “tell us Rose”.
By concerning those cases above, it interested the writer to do a deep study about the maxim clash in conversation in Titanic movie. That was why the cooperative principles by Grice took an important role in order to rule each
participant of conversation. The cooperative principles meant to guide or rule
the member of conversation to avoid misunderstanding in communication. Furthemore, this
study is expected to be a reference for those who learn pragmatics study in
order to know the conversational maxims which can be clashed each other.
Literature Review
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a branch of
linguistics that being studying
the contextual meaning. Furthermore, Yule (1996) stated that Pragmatics concerned to study about the meaning which uttered or communicated by speaker (writer) and it was
interpreted by a listener (reader). In a deeper understanding, the meaning
which are being analyzed focused on what people mean by the utterance,
furthermore, it also explored about the meaning of a word or phrease that might
be meant by the utterance of people.
Moreover, study of meaning is not only worked out by the
Pragmatics itself. There are two branches of linguistics that study about
meaning and both of them concerned about meaning in a wide principle. They are
Semantics and Pragmatics. For the brief explanation, Leech (1983) explained
distinctively that both of semantics and pragmatics concerned with the study of
meaning, but, in order to distinguish between them, it can be separated by the word to mean:
Semantics
related to a simple question “what does X
mean?”, meanwhile pragmatics related to a simple question “ what did you mean by X”. By the
explanation above, it can be clearly differentiated that semantics focused on each meaning of a word,
phrase of sentence paticularly. While, pragmatics
goes beyond the meaning which uttered or expressed by the speaker, in this case
the context holds a very important role.
Cooperative Principles
In Cooperative principle, Grice(in Leech: 1993:119)stated that
inorder to implement thecooperative principles, each elementmustobey
four conversationalmaxims. Those maxims are maximofquantity,
maxim of quality, maxim of relevance,
and maxim of Manner.
The maxims above shows that the success of a conversation depends on the various speaker's approach
to the interaction. The matter is if the speaker and listener want to have a
good conversation, every of the participant have to be cooperative with the
maxims.
Grice proposed that
in ordinary conversation, speaker and listener share a cooperative principle.
Speakers shape their utterances to be understood by listener and the listener
is expected to give an expected answer by the speaker. So, in order to create a
good conversation, there must be conversational maxims which make a ruled
conversation between the speaker and the listener.
Maxim
Every conversation is improved by the
cooperation between the participant of conversation itself. The participants
have to obey some rules that are called as conversational maxims which are
mentioned above. The conversational maxims are also sometimes called Grice's or Gricean
maxims. They are as follows:
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.
Relation Be relevant.
Manner: Be perspicuous
1 . Avoid
obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid
ambiguity.
3. Be brief
(avoid unnecessary prolixity).
4. Be
orderly.
The
Cooperative principle (following Grice 1975) ( in Yule, 1996 : 37)
a) Maxim of quantity
1.
Make
your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of
the exchange) (Grice in Yule, 1996:36)
2.
Do not
make your contribution more informative than is required (Grice in Yule,
1996:36)
Both of the specific
explanation of maxim of quantity above required an appropriate contribution in
a conversation. The quantity of the information has to be fixed which means
that do not contribute a lot as needed by the participant, besides, the speaker
is acquired to avoid the lack of information that is needed.
b) Maxim
of Quality
Try to make your contribution
one that is true.
1.
Do not
say what you believe to be false (Grice in Yule, 1996:36)
2.
Do not
say that for which you lack adequate of evidence (Grice in Yule, 1996:36
Both of the
specific explanation of the maxims above required the accurateness of the
contribution in conversation. This maxim prevents the speaker to deliver any
information that is wrong or lack of evidence.
c) Relation
Be relevant (Grice in Yule,
1996:36)
This maxim
requires a relevance contribution from each participant in the conversation.
Every line of conversation must be relevant to the previous conversation to
prevent a misunderstanding in conversation. However, to keep the participants
of conversation engaged with the topic of conversation, maxim of relation is
one of the important rule which must be obeyed.
d)
Manner
Avoid obscurity (Grice in Yule, 1996:36)
The maxim of manner in the cooperative principle of Gricerequires
thateach participantare alwaysgreetedspeakdirectly, clearly
andthe messageshould not beambiguousorobscureit (Rahardi, 2003:31). So, the contribution should be
giving clear message to the hearer, not contain an ambiguous message, be brief
and be orderly.
Maxim
Violations
In communications,
a speaker tries to say something to the listener and hopes the listener can
understand what will be said by the speaker, and then gives an
expected respond for the speaker. But,
when the listener does not give the answer of what the speaker expected or
maybe the listener gives the answer more than the speaker expected, it means
that the maxim is exploited. It can be said as a flouting of utterance. Meyer
(2009: 56) stated, “When a maxim is violated (or “flouted”), a conversational
implicature results, i.e., the utterance receives an interpretation that goes
beyond the word are spoken”.
As Grundy (2000:78) strengthens it in his theory, “Flouting a maxim is a particular
salient way of getting an addressee to draw an inference and hence recover an
implicature”. So, based on some statements above, it can be
concluded that the violation of maxim is when the utterance violates or flouts
the conversational maxim which is known as the maxim of cooperative principle
and result the implicature. In this case, this research will talk about
violation of conversational maxims which exists on the movie conversation.
Maxim Clash
According to Oxford
Dictionary (4th Edition, 2008 p.74) clash (as a verb definition) can
be meant be very different and opposed to one another.Clash can also be
meant difference between two opposing things (in a noun definition).
It could be concluded that the meaning of the word “clash” is a contradiction
between two (or more) opposed thing and those things were different each other.
According
to logic and conversation by Grice (1975), a participant in conversation may
fail to fulfill the maxims in various ways as follow:
1.
One of
the participants may quietly unostentatiously violate a maxim; in some cases it will be liable to mislead.
2.
One of
the participants may opt out from
the operation both of the maxim on the cooperative principles. It might be
said, indicated, or allowed it to become plain that unwilling to cooperate the
way that the maxim required.
3.
One of
the participants may flout a maxim;
that is blatantly failed to fulfill it.
4.
One of
the participants may be faced with a clash
of maxim; the information might be unable for example to fulfill the first
maxim of quantity ( be as informative as required) without violating the second
maxim of quality (has adequate evidence for what to say).
Many of the previous study had explored about
the kind of maxim violations. Maxims are the rules of conversation, and the
rule must be obeyed to reach a good conversation. Most of them analyzed about
the flout or violation in each maxim that occurred in a conversation. As it
showed from the result of the researches before that violating the maxims are
unavoidable by the participant of conversation.
According to Yin (in Mukaro et al., 2013, p
3) maxim clash (usually between quantity and quality) occurs when the speaker
presumably means to observe cooperative principles and yet he obviously cannot
fulfill one of the two maxims at the same level. In this case, the speaker
faced two options of maxim and he had to fulfill one maxim while he had to be
fail in another maxim.
Maxim
violations commonly happened and they are reasonable. That statement had been
proven by many researches before. In this case, there is something which is
curiously encouraging. The case is “Maxims are the rule that must be obeyed,
what about if those rule can be clash each other?” what about when one rule
says that the information is true but according to another rule it was a maxim
violation? By concerning those questions, here it comes a critical case that
must be explored, that case must be talking about what is maxim clash?, how and
why do maxim clash happen? Those are included in research question.
Titanic
Movie
Titanic was a movie by John Cameron. This movie had been
published 23 years ago. The
movie told about two racial groups
which were being together in a big
ship. They were heading to
America. The story began when a girl from high class met a boy from lower class
in an accidental moment. By that time, they became close and fell in love each
other. In another side, the girl was actually being a fiancée by another boy
from high class. The boy was so haughty. That cannot be loved by the girl.
The
story had many conversations which contains implicated and hidden meaning
between the speakers. They spoke in a high manner, but it went irregularly
according to the cooperative principles. It does not matter whether they spoke
according to the cooperative principles or not, because the important point is
to find out the case that risen after it. There were many clashes of maxim in
the conversation. By this reason, the titanic movie was chosen to be explored
deeply in this research.
Methodology
This
chapter elaborated and explained about the research methodology, data and
source of data, technique of collecting the data and technique of analyzing the
data.
Research methodology
This research is a
descriptive qualitative research. In this case, the researcher wiould like to
find and describe about how the maxim clash occurs “on Titanic Movie”.
According to Gumilar (2005) “Research method is a systematic way that is used
by researcher in collecting data in order to identify and explain the process
of research itself”.
The data and the source of the
data
SvenjaAdolps
(2008, p. 11), in her book “Corpus and Context Investigating pragmatic
functions in spoken discourse” argued that “corpus is dedicated to the
selection and groupings of texts, spoken and written, that make up any one
corpus. Corpus design thus involves demarcating particular contexts that are
widely recognized.” That explanation could be simplified in a brief conclusion
that movie is the sources of data and all of the conversations in the movie are
the data. When some of the data are taken to be researched, they are called
corpus. The data of the research was the
whole conversation in the Titanic Movie, while the primary data that would be
analyzed in the research were only the Corpus. In this case, those conversations
which contained maxim clash were the corpus.
Technique of collecting the
data
In this Research, there were several steps in collecting the
data as the technique ofcollecting the data on “Titanic
Movie” as a mediumwhichwas usedin collectingthe necessarydatain
this studyas aresearchobject. Every step in this
technique of collecting the data was an important partindata collection
techniques. These were the following steps for
collecting the data.
a. Watching the film
This was the most important part when
conducting the data collection. This
part required more focus and full attention to get the corpus. The aim of this
step was to make sure the corpuses that have been collected are precisely
representing the data. That was why this step must be done more than once.
b. Taking-note
In
this section, the researcher took note when watching the movie. All the
conversations on the movie were useful as an authentic evidence for supporting
the corpus data. The collection of the data only focused on the maxim clash
that was uttered by the actors and actress.
Technique
of analyzing the data
The corpus was analyzed by using qualitative
descriptive method. The data corpus here was all the utterances that produced
by the actors/ actress on the movie that contain maxim clash, so those all were
analyzed in this section. Therefore, here are the following
steps as part of the process of analyzing the data:
a.
Identifying
all utterances which were taken from the movie.
In
this section, all of the data which contained the maxim clash was identified
based on the Grice’s Cooperative Principle.
b.
Classifying
the data
After identifying all the utterances which
contained the maxim clash attached, the data was classified. There were four
maxims that ruled the conversation. In this section, every maxim that clashed
each other was classified.
c.
Interpreting
the data
The
last section was interpreting the data. In this section, the data was explained
by applying the Cooperative Principle.
Findings and Discussions
Research
Findings
This part is going to explain about the
results of the research according to the research question which is what maxim clashes that occurred in “Titanic
Movie?”,The data that were found in the movie contained 8 Maxim clashes in
21 conversations. Those data can be observed in explanation below.
The data can be divided into two big generalizations. The first was the
maxim clash which is singular characteristic. Most of the maxim clash occurred
between maxim of Quantity and maxim of Quality. The data of maxim Quantity
clash to maxim of Quality are 9 data. This type of maxim clash was the most
commonly occurred in the movie. Furthermore, there were two data of maxim clash
between maxim of Quality and maxim of Quantity. It is conversation 1 and 21.
The next data is maxim clash between maxim of Quality and maxim of Manner which
is found in conversation 11. The next data is maxim clash between maxim of
Quality and maxim of Relation which is found in conversation 13 and 18. The
next data which is maxim clash between maxim of Relation and maxim of Quality
that are found in conversation 10 and 12. And the last is the clash between
maxim of Relation and maxim of Manner which is found in conversation 5.
The next two data were maxim clash which have
plural characteristic. Plural characteristics mean one or more maxims clash to
one or more maxims in the opposite. The first data is maxim of Quantity and
Quality clash to maxim of relation. These data were found in conversation 2, 3
and 20. The last data is maxim of Quantity clash to maxim of Quality and
Manner. This data was found in conversation 8. Those findings could be seen in
the table bellow:
|
No.
|
Maxim Clash
|
Conversation
|
|
|
1
|
Quantity VS Quality
|
4,6,7,9,14,15,16,17,19
|
|
|
2
|
Quality VS Quantity
|
1,21
|
|
|
3
|
Quality VS Manner
|
11
|
|
|
4
|
Quality VS Relation
|
13, 18
|
|
|
5
|
Relation VS Quality
|
10,12,
|
|
|
6
|
Relation VS Manner
|
5
|
|
|
7
|
Quantity, Quality VS Relation
|
2,3,20
|
|
|
8
|
Quantity VS Quality, Manner
|
8
|
|
Research Discussion
This part elaborates the analysis of the data about maxim clash by
using Grice’s theory about cooperative principles. The data is called corpus,
which are all the utterances that contains the maxim clash which is found in
“Titanic movie”.
It had already been discussed in Chapter two about
the analysis used Grice’s theory about cooperative principles. In
Cooperative principle, Grice(in Leech: 1993:119)stated that inorder to implement thecooperative principles,
each elementmustobey four conversationalmaxims.
Those maxims are maximofquantity, maxim of quality,
maxim of relevance, and maxim of Manner.
Furthermore, there would always be a condition when one maxim was being
violated, and in another side another maxim was being fulfilled. It is maxim
clash.
According
to logic and conversation by Grice (1975), a participant in conversation may
fail to fulfill the maxims in four ways. One of the ways is maxim clash.
According to Yin (in Mukaro et al., 2013, p 3) maxim clash (usually between
quantity and quality) occurs when the speaker presumably means to observe
cooperative principles and yet he obviously cannot fulfill one of the two
maxims at the same level. In this case, the speaker faced two options of maxim
and he had to fulfill one maxim while he had to be fail in another maxim.
In order to find out about the maxim clash in
a conversation, it is needed to analyze the maxim violation first. Meyer (2009:
56) stated, “When a maxim is violated (or “flouted”), a conversational
implicature results, i.e., the utterance receives an interpretation that goes
beyond the word are spoken”.
Based on the finding in the previous
exploration, it had been found that maxim clashes were clearly occurred in the
conversation in Titanic Movie. It could be seen from the data findings that
there were 8 kinds of maxim clashes that could be found in titanic movie. The
first maxim clash is between maxim of Quantity with maxim of Quality which was
found in 9 conversations. They are conversation 4, 6, 7, 9, 14, 15,16, 17 and 19.
The second maxim clash is between maxim of Quality with maxim of Quantity which
was found in conversation 1 and 21. The third maxim clash is between maxim of
Quality with maxim of manner which was found in conversation 12. The fourth
maxim clash is between maxim of Quality with maxim of Relation which was found
in conversation 13 and 18. The fifth maxim clash is between maxim of Relation
with maxim of Quality. The sixth maxim clash is between maxim of Relation with
maxim of manner. The seventh maxim clash is between maxim of Quantity, maxim of
Quality with maxim of Relation which was found in conversation 2, 3 and 20. The
last maxim clash is between maxim of Quantity, maxim of Quality, with maxim of
manner which is found in conversation 8. So the total of maxim clash that found
in titanic movie was 8 kinds of maxim clash in 21 conversations. Those data
will be concluded in the next paragraphs.
The maxim clash between maxim
of Quantity with maxim of Quality
The
maxim clash between maxim of Quantity with maxim of Quality is the most
commonly maxim clash which occurred in titanic movie. It could be simply
concluded that this maxim clash contained the excessive information which was
gone beyond from the context of the conversation. The point that needed to be
paid more attention in clarifying the maxim clash is the first maxim that was
being violated by the speaker. In this maxim clash, the speaker violated the
maxim of quantity as the first maxim. According to Grice (as cited in Yule,
1996:36), maxim of Quantity consists of two categories, the first is to make the
contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the
exchange). And the second one is do not make the contribution more informative
than is required. By observing the intention of the speaker violated the first
maxim, it could be simply drawn about the purpose and tendency of the speaker
to be comprehended.
In this case, most of the purpose and
tendency in the maxim clash is to ensure that the information which is
delivered by the speaker was clearly understood by the interlocutor. Besides,
this maxim clash occurred as the indication that there were strong inference
between the interlocutor and the speaker. Then, while the speaker say “A” and
required “B” the interlocutor directly delivered “C” or even “D” as the
efficiency of time. The interlocutor could infer that the real information that
was needed by the speaker is C or D. so that he/she provided D instead of B.
The clash between maxim of
Quality with maxim of Quantity
The
maxim clash between maxim of Quantity with maxim of Quality could be concluded
as the maxim clash which contained falsehood.The point that needed to be paid
more attention in clarifying the maxim clash is the first maxim that was being
violated by the speaker.In this maxim clash, the speaker violated the maxim of
Quality as the first maxim.According to Grice (as cited in Yule, 1996:36) maxim
of Quality consist of two categories. The first is do not say what you believe
to be false, and the second one is do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence.. By observing the intention of the speaker violated the first maxim,
it could be simply drawn about the intention was to trick or to mislead the
interlocutor.
The maxim clash between maxim
of Quality with maxim of Manner
In the maxim clash between maxim of Quality
with maxim of Quantity, the speaker violated the maxim of Quality as the first
maxim.According to Grice (as cited in Yule, 1996:36) maxim of Quality consist
of two categories. The first is do not say what you believe to be false, and
the second one is do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.. By
observing the intention of the speaker violated the first maxim, It could be
concluded that this maxim clash contained falsehood. In another side, the
interlocutor had tried to be more specific by giving the direct and clear
answer. Giving direct and clear answer was only the way to distract the
interlocutor to believe about the information.
The maxim clash between maxim
of Quality with maxim of Relation
In the maxim clash between maxim of
Quality with maxim of relation, the speaker violated the maxim of Quality as
the first maxim.According to Grice (as cited in Yule, 1996:36) maxim of Quality
consist of two categories. The first is do not say what you believe to be
false, and the second one is do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence.. By observing the intention of the speaker who violated the first
maxim and also based on Grice theory, it could be concluded that this maxim clash
contained the intention of tricking and diverting the listener by providing the
falsehood.
The maxim clash between maxim of Relation
with maxim of Quality
In the maxim clash between maxim of
Quality with maxim of relation, the speaker violated the maxim of Relation as
the first maxim.According to Grice (as cited in Yule 1996:36) the maxim of
Relation requires a relevance contribution from each participant in the
conversation. By observing the intention of the speaker who violated the first
maxim, and also considering Grice theory, it could be concluded that this maxim
clash contained a deeper or further inference between the participants of the
conversation. This indicates the advance inference from each participant. In
another word, the interlocutor had already understood about what is the
required information because what was asked by the speaker was not what was
required. To avoid a wasteful information, the interlocutor directly give the
required answer instead of answering the question.
The maxim clash between maxim of Relation
with maxim of manner
In the maxim clash between maxim of Quality
with maxim of relation, the speaker violated the maxim of Relation as the first
maxim.According to Grice (as cited in Yule 1996:36) the maxim of Relation requires
a relevance contribution from each participant in the conversation. By
observing the intention of the speaker who violated the first maxim, and also
considering Grice theory, it could be concluded that this maxim clash contained
a distraction attempt. This is indicated from the context that the interlocutor
did not provide the answer which was required. The interlocutor actually knew
the answer; however, she did not want to tell about the truth. Then, she
provided any other information which was not relevant to the context of the
discourse. As the result, the attempt of distraction was success.
The clash between maxim of Quantity and
Quality with maxim of Relation
Inthe maxim clash between maxim of Quality
with maxim of relation, the speaker violated the maxim of quantity as the first
maxim and quality as the second. It could be concluded that the speaker
intended to trick or divert the interlocutor by clarify the second maxim, it is
maxim of Quantity.According to Grice (as cited in Yule, 1996:36), maxim of
Quantity consists of two categories, the first is to make the contribution as
informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). And the
second one is do not make the contribution more informative than is required.
By observing the intention of the speaker violated the first maxim, it could be
simply drawn about the purpose and tendency of the speaker that trick and to
divert the listener by providing falsehood information.
The clash between maxim of
Quantity with maxim of Quality and maxim of Manner
In the maxim clash between maxim of Quantity
with maxim of Quality and maxim of Manner, the speaker violated the maxim of
quantity as the first maxim.It could be simply concluded that this maxim clash
contained the excessive information which was gone beyond from the context of
the conversation. The point that needed to be paid more attention in clarifying
the maxim clash is the first maxim that was being violated by the speaker. In
this maxim clash, the speaker violated the maxim of quantity as the first
maxim. According to Grice (as cited in Yule, 1996:36), maxim of Quantity
consists of two categories, the first is to make the contribution as
informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). And the
second one is do not make the contribution more informative than is required.
By observing the intention of the speaker violated the first maxim, it could be
simply drawn about the purpose and tendency of the speaker to be comprehended.
In this case, most of the purpose and tendency in the maxim clash
indicated that there were strong inference between the interlocutor and the
speaker. Then, while the speaker say “A” and required “B” the interlocutor
directly delivered “C” or even “D” as the efficiency of time. The interlocutor
could infer that the real information that was needed by the speaker is C or D.
so that he/she provided C or D instead of B.
By considering the reason of why people were trapped in the maxim
clash, it can be concluded that there were several reason which caused the
maxim clash in conversation. It could be explain briefly in the next
paragraphs.
People gave information more informative than was required because they
need to make sure that the participant understands about what on his/her mind
was. This could also be concluded as a conceited attitude when the speaker
would like the audience to know about the thing that was admired by the
speaker.
People give information that was incorrect because there was a hidden
purpose. The hidden purpose could be to trick the audience deliberately, or to
avoid of being seemed ignorant of fool.
People give the information that was not relevance to the context
because they could infer from the speaker that there was a hidden meaning. In
this case, both of the speaker and audience already understand about the
context.
By considering the draw of the
conclusion, it can be generally concluded that maxim clash will always occurred
in conversation. When the maxim clash occurred, there must be something behind
it.
Conclusions and Suggestions
Conclusion
After conducting the research and exploring the research questions
about the maxim clash that occurred in “Titanic Movie, it had been found that
there were 21 data which contained maxim clash. The first is the maxim clash
which is singular characteristic. Most of the maxim clash occurred between
maxim of Quantity and maxim of Quality. The data of maxim Quantity clash to
maxim of Quality are 9 data. They are conversation 4, 6,7,9,14,15,16,17 and 19.
This type of maxim clash is the most commonly occurred in the movie.
Furthermore, there were only one data of maxim clash between maxim of Quality
and maxim of Quantity. It is conversation 21. The next data is maxim clash
between maxim of Quality and maxim of Manner which is found in conversation 11.
The next data is maxim clash between maxim of Quality and maxim of Relation
which is found in conversation 13 and 18. The next data which is maxim clash
between maxim of Relation and maxim of Quality that are found in conversation
10 and 12. And the last is the clash between maxim of Relation and maxim of
Manner which is found in conversation 5.
The next two data are maxim clash which have
plural characteristic. Plural characteristics mean one or more maxims clash to
one or more maxims in the opposite. The first data is maxim of Quantity and
Quality clash to maxim of relation. These data were found in conversation 2, 3
and 20. The last data is maxim of Quantity clash to maxim of Quality and
Manner. This data was found in conversation 8.
By concerning the reasons of why people did the maxim clash, it can be
concluded that there were several reason which caused the maxim clash in
conversation. The first and the major fact in the movie is when people gave
information more informative than was required, it is because they need to ensure
that the participant understands about what on his/her mind was. This could
also be concluded as a conceited attitude when the speaker would like the
audience to know about the thing that was admired by the speaker.
Another reason of why people did the maxim clash is because people give
information that contained a hidden purpose. The hidden purpose could be to
trick the audience deliberately, or to avoid of being seemed ignorant of
fool.People also give the information that was not relevance to the context
because they could infer from the speaker that there was a hidden meaning. In
this case, both of the speaker and audience already understand about the
context.By considering the draw of the conclusion, it can be generally
concluded that maxim clash will always occurred in conversation. When the maxim
clash occurred, there must be something behind it.
Suggestion
Based on the finding and result of the research, there are some
suggestions that can be beneficial for the next researchers who are interested
to do similar research or even a research that has relevance to this research.
This research will give contribution to comprehend the maxims of cooperative
principle and the maxim clash that always occurred in daily conversation.
Hopefully, the research could give inspiration and guidance for the further
researchers to be more careful in doing research, so that, the result is going
to be better than this research
For the university students who want to know
more about the maxim clash of cooperative principle, this research could be
used as a guidance and reference to know about the maxim clash and
conversational maxim which is proposed by Grice. This research will be more
useful for the university student to be more easier in order to master the
cooperative principle which exists in our daily life.
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