#violatingmaxims

I.       Background

The Cooperative Principles are things which we experience every day in our daily conversation. They are commonly correctly followed or sometimes they can be violated. According to George Yule, there are 4 types of Cooperative Principles.

           The Cooperative Principles are made to know whether a speaker knows how to answer someone’s question properly or not. Sometimes when we talk, we tend to make our answer become just as we wish, not thinking about what does the interlocutor expect us to answer. This proves that people have their own preferences to express and convey what they have in mind. The Cooperative Principles are here to analyze the structure of people’s responses when they are having a conversation. The violence in speaking doesn’t only happen to people who don’t learn language, but to those who learn the language itself as well (the linguistics parts). By observing the society which shows that language is sometimes violated, proves that The Cooperative Principles are very helpful.

           In analyzing the structure of conversations, we firstly need to understand The Cooperative Principles. The function of getting The Cooperative Principles perfectly understood is to avoid mistakes we’re going to make.

 II.      Theory

The Cooperative Principle: Make your 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 you are engaged (George Yule).

The maxims

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 expressions.

2. Avoid ambiguity.

3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).

4. Be orderly.

 III. Method of Analysis

The Data

           The data were taken from the conversations in the advertisement “Mother’s Love, Runaway Daughter”. The summary of the advertisement:

           The advertisement is about a daughter who was really sick of her mother because she thought that her mother always bothered her. Her mother is so picky, didn’t take care of herself, and always nagged. One day, when she came home very late, her mother was so worried and tried to call her, but her phone was off. Her mother nagged and asked why was her phone off, but instead of telling the answer, she just said that she hurried home and she was already home. Nothing to be worried about anymore. Because she got really annoyed, she ran away from home. It made her mom became so worried, looking for her and asked people at the crossroads that if they happened to meet her, take care of her and tell the daughter to call her.

 IV. Discussion and Analysis

1.       Thai Advertisement

A.

Lady: “Do you want something to eat?”

Girl: “I don’t have any money.”

In this conversation, the girl violates maxim of relation because when the lady asked whether the girl wanted to eat or not, she answered that she didn’t have any money. It should be simply answered with only yes/no to follow the maxim of relation.

B.

Mom: “Why was your phone off when I called?”

Girl: “I hurried home, didn’t I?”

Mom: “At this hour? You call that hurrying?”

Girl: “I’m home, aren’t I?”

Mom: “I was so worried.”

Girl: “Mom, you need to give me some space!”

The conversation above is an example of maxim of relation. From what is stated above, the girl violates maxim of relation because her mom asked her why her phone was off when her mom called, but the girl answered that she hurried home which doesn’t answer her mom’s question. The girl’s answer is supposed to be explaining about what happened to her phone, why it was off. Followed with the mom asked her about hurrying which was very late in the video (it was midnight), but the girl’s answer stated that she was home. Her mom also told her that she was worried, but the girl replied that she needed some space for herself, without any interference from her mom.

The reason why the girl violated the maxim of relation is because she didn’t want to answer her mother’s questions directly. That’s why she violated it several times as we can see in the video above.

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkbNvJhGAJk

   V. Conclusion

           According to the analysis, the advertisement violates maxim of relation. If we look at the conversations above, the main cause is because the girl didn’t want to answer her mother’s questions directly. The girl was previously known to be very ignorant and she was really annoyed by her mom, being so mean and impolite towards her mom.