Running Head: FLOUTING ON CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS

Flouting On Conversational Maxims: 1st Presidential Debates 2016 in Cagayan de Oro

Jocine A. Tanqui-on

Farrah Mie C. Felias

Eastern Samar State University

FLOUTING ON CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS

Table of Contents

I. CHAPTER I

i. Introduction ……………………………………………………….. 3 – 4

ii. Objectives of the Study …………………………………………… 4

iii. Significance of the Study …………………………………………. 4

iv. Scope and Delimitations ………………………………………….. 4

v. Definition of Terms ………………………………………………. 4

II. CHAPTER II

i. Review of Related Literature …………………………………….. 5 - 7

III. CHAPTER III

i. Research Design ………………………………………………… 8

ii. Research Instruments ……………………………………………. 8

iii. Data Gathering Procedure ………………………………………. 8

iv. Analysis of Data ………………………………………………… 8 - 10

IV. CHAPTER IV

i. Results & Discussion …………………………………………… 11 - 15

V. CHAPTER V

i. Conclusion & Recommendation……………………………….. 16

VI. REFERENCES ………………………………………………………… 17 - 18

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Chapter I

Introduction

Communication has a very much vital role in the daily lives of individual. It is

used to express thoughts and feelings, and make connections with people, yet it tends to have

lots of misunderstandings and misinterpretations between the speaker and hearer or the

sender and the receiver.

As phrased by Grice (1975), “Make your 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.” (p.45). In connection to this, he presented a theory that sums up this

statement which is called the “cooperative principle” with four subtypes called the

conversational maxims namely: Maxim of Quality, Quantity, Relevance and Manner.

Violations on these maxims are highly observed on people. Especially those who

don’t like it that “formal”, they often paint their conversations to give it life, excitement, thrill

or to hide something by adding “colors”.

However, it has been noticed that there are limited studies on the flouting of Grice’s

maxims in the political context. There were more on flouting of maxims on movies and

casual conversations like “Flouting Grice‟s Maxims at Dinner” (Rundquist, 1990); “Some

Instances of Violation and Flouting of the Maxim of Quantity by the Main Characters (Barry

and Tim) in Dinner for Schmucks” (Khosravizadeh and Sadehvandi 2011); “The Flouting of

Conversational Maxims by the main characters in Titanic Movie” (Purwanto, 2008) and “The

Flouting and Hedging Maxims in the English Translation of Surah Yasin” (Mashudi, 2007).

Among the few studies on flouting on conversational maxims on political debates, no

studies have been found that focuses on the Philippine Presidential Debates. Accordingly, this

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inspired the researchers to study and focus on the violations of conversational maxims among

the candidates of the 1st Presidential Debates 2016 in Cagayan de Oro.

Objectives of the Study

1. To determine the violations on conversational maxims of the presidential candidates on

the 1st Presidential Debates 2016 in Cagayan de Oro.

2. To determine the frequency of the violations on the conversational maxims the

presidential candidates made on the 1st Presidential Debates 2016 in Cagayan de Oro.

Significance of the Study

This study contributes to the awareness of every individual who are used to violate the

conversational maxims. It is also for them to observe the proper flow of a conversation

without violating the Grice Maxim Principle namely: Maxim of Quality, Quantity,

Relevance, and Manner.

Scope and Delimitaions

This study focused on the violations on conversational maxims the presidential

candidates made on the 1st Presidential Debates 2016 in Cagayan de Oro.

Definition of Terms

Conversational Maxims – is any of four rules which were proposed by Grice (1975) namely:

maxim of quantity, quality, relevance, and manner

Flouting – is to intentionally disobey a rule or law

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Chapter II

Review of Related Literature

Flouting on Conversational Maxims

The conversation as a reciprocal act retains specific rules and regulations (Markee &

Kasper, 2004). On the other hand, to convey the meaning through the means of

communication, the speaker should follow certain strategies or what the language philosopher

H.P. Grice (1975) has named as Cooperative Principle (CP). The principle consists of four

maxims: quality, quantity, relevance, and manner, which represents how people are expected

to perform in a conversation. Schiffrin (as cited in Ayasreh & Razali, 2018) explained these

four maxims as the following:

 Maxim of Quality: One should not say anything about a topic in which he/she lacks

adequate evidence of; one is not allowed to lie or say what he/she does not believe;

the key word of this maxim is truth or instatement.

 Maxim of Quantity: one should not make the contribution to the conversation less or

more informative that is required. In other words, make the contribution as precise as

required for the purpose of the conversation;

 Maxim of Relation/Relevance: one is required to say something relevant to the topic;

 Maxim of Manner: one should avoid uncertainty and unimportance of expression and

he/she should be brief and orderly.

In reality, not all communication fulfills the cooperative principle. People often fail to

observe the maxims in many contexts of everyday life and on many occasions. There are

many reasons of why this happens, for instance, some people are incapable of speaking

clearly because of nervousness, disappointment, anxiety, not having the culture awareness of

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the context of their communication, not fluent in communicating a particular subject, or

simply because they want to hide an information on purpose. On the other hand, hearers are

also responsible during communication as there are possibilities that a hearer might fail to

understand what a speaker intends to convey (Cheirchia & McConnel-Ginnet, 1990;

Gumpers, 1982).

According to Davies (2007) and Thomas (1997), when a hearer listens to a speech,

what is expected of the speaker is to follow the four maxims. However, when the speaker is

noticed to not following the maxims, the hearer needs to put on extra effort to understand the

real meaning behind the speaker’s speech.

Grice was particularly interested in how a speaker intentionally chooses not to comply

with the maxims – a process which he defined as ‘flouting of a maxim’. According to Grice

(as cited in Khosravizadeh & Sadehvandi, 2011), violation takes place when speakers

intentionally abstain to apply certain maxims in their conversation to cause misunderstanding

on their participants’ part or to achieve some other purposes.

Grice (as cited in Thomas, 1997), perceived that there are situations where a speaker

purposefully flouts a maxim especially when he or she intends the hearer to receive a

meaning that goes beyond or different from the expressed meaning. This additional meaning

is what Grice conceptualized as an implicature (Thomas, 2014). One type of implicature that

will be explored in this article is conversational implicature. This type of implicature is

contextual in the sense that it only occurs in certain contexts. Brumark (2006), pointed out

that having the same background knowledge as a speaker is helpful for a hearer to understand

what the speaker intends to convey. The background knowledge is not just limited to the rules

for understanding linguistics items, but also to the knowledge of the world or context of the

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speech in concern. This knowledge is helpful according to Coulthard (1977) for the speaker

can refer to make implications.

Flouting of Maxims of Political Leaders

The speaker sometimes delivers an implicit meaning to the other person in what

he/she says; a situation Grice (1975) describes as a difference in meaning in what people say

and what they mean, called implicature (Ambele, 2014; Novianingrum, 2015). According to

Merriam Webster Dictionary, implicature is an aspect of the meaning in what is meant in the

speaker’s utterance without being part of what the speaker said.

Ayasreh & Razali (2018), alleged that it can be implicated that political leaders flout

maxims to produce particular shades of meanings which may not always be conceivable to all

parties in order to gain the support from masses or to conceal certain confidential issues. This

is why truthfulness, sufficiency, or insufficiency of any piece of information cannot be

readily understood because politics, most often, requires certain considerations in

communicating any piece of information. It is undoubtedly obvious, however, that in real life

people usually break the cooperative principle in casual or formal conversations; even much

more in political debates which is not gaining such attention or interest.

Politicians display uncooperativeness, in addition to being untruthful and secretive in

their conversations; consciously or unconsciously do not observe these maxims by violating,

flouting, clashing or deciding out of the conversational rule (Ambele, Boonsul & Buddharat,

2017).

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Chapter III

Methodology

Research Design

This study used the Qualitative Content Analysis to determine violations on

conversational maxims the candidates made on the 1st Presidential Debates 2016 in Cagayan

de Oro.

Research Instruments

The instrument used was the video replay and the transcript of the 1st Presidential

Debates 2016 in Cagayan de Oro.

Data Gathering Procedure

The researchers watched the video replay and read the transcript of the 1st

Presidential Debates 2016 in Cagayan de Oro and jot down the violations on conversational

maxims the Presidential Candidates have made and determined what kind of conversational

maxim/s were violated.

Analysis of Data

The data gathered were analyzed and categorized to the four conversational maxims

(Quantity, Quality, Relevance, and Manner) through the basis codes built upon Grice’s

analogies which are “relevant to what he regards as a fundamental question about the

Cooperative Principle and its attendant maxims” (as cited in Buddharat, Ambele & Boonsuk,

2017). They are elicited as:

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Quantity violation characteristics:

Q1: If the speaker does circumlocution or not to the point

Q2: If the speaker is uninformative

Q3: If the speaker talks too short

Q4: If the speaker talks too much

Q5: If the speaker repeats certain words

Quality violation characteristics:

QL1: If the speaker lies or says something that is believed to be false

QL2: If the speaker does irony or makes ironic and sarcastic statement

QL3: If the speaker denies something

QL4: If the speaker distorts information

Relevance violation characteristics:

R1: If the speaker makes the conversation unmatched with the topic

R2: If the speaker changes conversation topic abruptly

R3: If the speaker avoids talking about something

R4: If the speaker hides something or hides a fact

R5: If the speaker does the wrong causality or connection

Manner violation characteristics:

M1: If the speaker uses ambiguous or unclear language

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M2: If the speaker exaggerates thing

M3: If the speaker uses slang in front of people who do not understand it

M4: If the speaker’s voice is not loud enough

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Chapter IV

Results & Discussion

The violations cited from the transcript of the rounds one to three of the 1st

Presidential Debates 2016 in Cagayan de Oro are identified according to the maxims flouted.

Round 1: Track Record of the Candidates and Issues

Mike Enriquez: …if you can remember, you explained on DZBB that you inherited the

majority of your real estate properties from your parents. But in your SALN, you only listed

two of your thirteen real estate properties. Mr. Vice President, the question that’s still left

hanging is, if it wasn’t inherited, where did the other eleven came from and how did your

wealth progress within the three decades of being a government official?

VP Jejomar Binay: You know, Mike, it’s three decades, okay? It’s a very long time. But I

didn’t remember saying that I inherited all of the land I own. We just bought some of those,

besides we have the capability to buy some. Just because I am in the government, does not

mean that we cannot do anything to buy some real estate properties. It is not true that I have

a lot of land properties. It’s either I inherited them or I bought them. And it was not just my

mother’s, it was both my parent’s.

In the above conversation, the quality (QL1, QL3) and quantity (Q4) were not

observed.

QL1 and QL3, because it is clear that VP Binay is lying when he said that he didn’t

remember himself saying that he inherited the majority of the land he owns. In the first place,

the media (DZBB) wouldn’t have the record of that statement if it wasn’t truly uttered by

him.

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Q4, because he was only asked where did the other eleven of his real estate properties

come from, but he added something about him being in the government which was not an

appropriate answer to the question given.

Mike Enriquez: …do you think that you should be imitated by the Filipino youth, Mayor?

Mayor Rodrigo Duterte: No, extrajudicial killing? Of course not, it never happened. But

killings, yes. If I become president, it will be bloody because I will order the killing of all

criminals, the druggist and drug lords.

The maxim violated on this conversation is Q1, because the question given to Mayor

Rodrigo Duterte was answerable by yes or no only, yet he added about the extrajudicial

killing and of him becoming the president which was not being asked.

Jessica Soho: Do you think that you already proved yourself in the industry of public service

for you to be the President of the Republic?

Sen. Grace Poe: Jessica, I know that I am the newbie here, but for our youth, I know that

you are aware of Gloc9’s songs. “Kayong mga naka-upo, subukan nyo naman tumayo para

maramdaman nyo ang aming kalagayan, ang kinalalagyan ko.” I think from all of them, I

have the least experience, but as a mother I can see all the needs of a family. In my short

experience in the government, I had an executive position that has a management

requirement that even Senator Miriam said that senate can be harder if you are really doing

your job. I am given the privilege to have a debate with Senator Miriam that’s why we were

able to submit to senate the Freedom of Information…

The violated maxims here were Q1 and Q4 because the question was answerable by

yes or no but Senator Grace Poe said too much and did not go directly to the point.

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Round 2: Poverty

Mike Enriquez: A lot of farmers are full of debt because of paying the cost they spend in

buying for the fertilizers and for the lot rent and transportation fees, but then we still

continue importing low price rice and vegetables that makes our farmers suffer. Do you have

a plan in helping our farmers that will not affect our costumers?

Vp Jejomar Binay: We will modenized our agriculture. Our agriculture has a low

contribution to our GDP. To our famers lets get first our CARP. The CARP has a good

intention. But among others, that is to make the lands productive. Covering the farmers that

you said that are suffering, the CARP will help them subsidized and our goverment will also

assest them interms of the fertilizers and other post-harvest requirements. Secondly, the

irigation fee it must be remove and thirdly the post-harvest problem. Do you know my fellow

countrymen that their is a greater lose rather than the income? Thirdly, we must still

incourage people who will fund us so that their will be someone who will help us interms of

the infrastructure requirements. Thats what we did in makati to skip from poverty.

VP Binay violated the Q1 maxim because the question was answerable by yes or no

but he did not mention any yes or no, he immediately went to the plans which was not asked.

Round 3: Issues in Mindanao

John Nery (editor-in-chief of Inquirer.net): You are the candidate coming from Mindanao.

Here’s your question. Someone sent us on social media a picture of a muddy road and a river

without a bridge in Zamboanga. People like Ken Sharif are now angry because they have

been asking for the bridge and the road to be fixed for quite a long time. If you will be the

president, how will you respond to Ken’s complaint and how will you avoid the irregularities

in the infrastructures?

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Mayor Rodrigo Duterte: yes, sir. I will have to tell you that 65% or 64% of the

infrastructure projects are here in Manila. I’m not – also want you to know that only 19%

was given to Region 19. Well, of course, that is the disparity and that is why the

Mindanaoans asking you now if Allah is extremely angry because we do not give our lawful

share in the taxes. Remember that Mindanao contributes to the country’s coffers 54% of the

total export earnings in dollars. How much is that? Well, it would depend on (inaudible) but

Mindanao is the one giving to the agricultural products to this country. Nineteen billion

(19,000,000,000) only for Region 11? I don’t know how much the others are getting. There it

is. It is this disparity and that is why people are clamoring for a federal government. Let’s

first dissipate the central powers for, after all, that is a symbol of our being oppressed as a

people a long time ago. You have to give us our share and we will – and, of course, you have

to restore law and order.

The violated maxims were Q1 and Q4 because Mayor Duterte said too many things

and did not answer the question directly.

Table 1. Frequency of the Maxims Violated

Legend: Q – Quantity QL – Quality R – Relevance M – Manner

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 QL1 QL2 QL3 QL4 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 M1 M2 M3 M4

Round
II - - II - I - I - - - - - - - - - -
1
Round
I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
2
Round
I - - I - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
3

Total: 4 0 0 3 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

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The above table shows that on the first round, Q1 was violated two times as well as

Q4, and QL1 and QL3 were both violated one time. On the second round, only Q1 was

violated one time. Lastly, on the third round, Q1 and Q4 were violated both one time.

The on the three rounds, Q1 was violated four times, Q4 was violated three times, and

QL1 and QL3 were both violated one time.

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Chapter V

Based on the gathered data, it turns out that most of the candidates flouted the maxim

of quantity Q1: speaker does not go directly to the point, and Q4: the speaker talks too much,

quality QL1: the speaker lies or says something that is believed to be false and QL3: the

speaker denies something. Though it is understandable to talk too much or to say anything

that will help the candidate persuade the audience to be in favor with them, still, the

Cooperative Principle of Grice exists, and it was clear on the conversations that some of them

violated a couple of maxims.

Conclusion

Therefore, the researchers conclude that, the candidates intentionally or

unintentionally flout conversational maxims especially on debates to show their audience that

they are of good records and deeds, and this is because politicians have to be careful with

their responses knowing it is what determines their candidacy into power.

Recommendation

The researchers recommend to the next set of researchers that they continue to give

attention to this study in the upcoming elections because this can be a key to determine some

issues that are being kept by some politicians. This can serve as a basis of knowing who is

loyal to their own country and who is capable to be devoted to the position they are running.

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