Aninda Pratiwi, 2018002031

An analysis of Flouting Maxim in a story of Regret by Kate Chopin

Abstract

This research discusses on finding the Flouting maxim in one of Kate Chopin's short
stories entitled Regret and finding implicature caused by violation of maxims. The researcher
tried to observe this research using critical analysis through a qualitative descriptive method.
Every conversation in the story is observed whether there is a maxim violation in the
conversation either maxim quality, quantity, relationship, or manner according to Grice's
theory of maxims. The conversation setting section of the story will also take part in the
flouting maxim analysis asproof if it violates maxim's principles. The researcher found that in
this short story there is one in conversation that has a violation of maxims, namely maxim
quantity, and manner.

Keywords: Cooperative principles, flouting maxim, implicature, pragmatics.

1. INTRODUCTION
a. Background of the research

In daily life, we need language to carry out interpersonal communication. Meanwhile

in life, people usually communicate language not only in spoken form, but also in writing. In
communicating both written and oral, language is an essential tool for humans (Ekah and
Akpan (2018). As humans, we really need a good way of communication to make
interactions run smoothly and effectively. Commonly, people use the spoken form when they
want to interact directly with others to build good communication. To achieve a good
communication is not easy because it requires an equal understanding and higher
understanding of the information provided by the speaker or listener.
 Paul Grice in Grundy (2000:73) argues that "the speaker intends to work together is
for the speaker to provide as much information as is expected”. This means that in
communicating they have to run the rules to understand implied meaning of the speech or
information conveyed. In a communication, speakers usually convey messages through
language, then listeners will grasp the meaning of the message conveyed. However, often the
speech intent conveyed by the speaker cannot be understood by the listener because of
several things, for example, it is too convoluted, ambiguous, or unclear. Therefore, it is
necessary to apply effective communication between the two people involved in the
conversation which is usually called the principle of cooperation.
As stated by Paul Grice in linguistics, good communication can be done by following
the "Principles of Cooperation". The principle of cooperation is defined by making your
contribution as needed, at the stage at which it occurs, with the goal or accepted direction of
the conversation in which you are involved. It is explained in the cooperative principle that in
communication, every participant involved must contribute well, which means that each
speaker provides sufficient information to the listener correctly, clearly, and relevant
information. In the communication principle, there are four maxims that must be applied to
create a good communication procedure, namely the maxim of quality, maxim of quantity,
maxim of relevance, and maxim of manner.
As humans, people will make some misunderstandings during intentional or
unintentional communication which then lead to non-compliance with the four maxims. This
can be caused by several factors, such as differences in culture, language, point of view, and
so on. The term non-compliance with maxims in a communication is called "Flouting
Maxim" or Violation of Maxims. Flouting can occur because the speaker's condition cannot
apply certain rules in his conversation and causes misunderstanding in the conversation. In
addition, flouting maxim is often done through figurative language which is implied and the
listener must find its meaning. The flouting maxim includes of violating the maxim quantity,
quality, relevance, and manner.
In Jenny Thomas' book, he said that “when flouting a maxim, the speaker does not
intend to mislead the hearer but wants the hearer to look for the conversational implicature,
that is, the meaning of the utterance not directly stated in the words uttered. Therefore, when
the speaker intentionally fails to observe a maxim the purpose may be to effectively
communicate a message”. From Thomas' statement, it can be concluded that when the speech
participant violates the maxims in communication, he hopes that the listener can catch the
meaning of his words because what he wants to convey cannot be stated explicitly. Thus, the
violation of maxims causes implicature or a hidden meaning from the utterance that is
conveyed. Actually this strategy is often found in our daily conversations, but sometimes we
don't realize it because people tend to want to express directly what is on their minds without
thinking about the rules, and let alone the principles of cooperation.

Many flouting maxims can be found in various print and mass media. In this research,
the researcher focused on the study of the flouting maxims considering that maxims are very
important to make good and effective communication both written and spoken. This research
was conducted to find out the flouting maxim and implicature that exist in the conversations
between characters in the story. The researcher are interested in using a short story entitled
Regret by Kate Chopin as an object of analysis because of the uniqueness of the story. This
story contains conversations with figurative language which is one of the causes for the
violation of maxims. Thus, the researcher is enthusiastic to analyze this short story.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
a. The Cooperative Principle and Grice’s Maxims
Grice has a theory that has been known as the theory of the cooperative principle. The
purpose of the principle of cooperation is to communicate something with the right
contribution. Grice argues (as quoted in Jafari, 2013) that basically people try to work
together in conversations in order to build meaningful and effective conversations. This
principle of cooperation has been described by Grice into four sub-maxims called maxims.
Levinson (1983) states that "the interlocutor must speak maximally efficiently, rationally and
cooperatively, namely speaking sincerely, relevant, and clearly". Thus it is concluded that in
conversation, the interlocutor is expected to provide accurate, honest, relevant information,
trying to be clear and unambiguous.
The four sub-principles proposed by Grice (Yule, 2003) are maxims of quantity,
quality, relevance, and manner. For the first, maxim quantity explained by Cutting (2002)
that the maxim quantity is related to the amount of information conveyed. A speaker needs to
be informative and no more informative than necessary. Second, maxim of quality explained
by Cutting (2002) that "speakers are expected to be sincere and believe what they say is in
accordance with reality" (p. 35). In this maxim a speaker must provide correct information to
listeners, ensure the correctness of the information, and avoiding information that cannot be
justified. The third is the maxim of the relationship described by Cutting (2002) that "in the
maxim of the relationship, information or comments must be relevant to the topic of
conversation" (p. 35). In this maxim. the speaker must provide a relevant say between the
comment and the topic of conversation which means that it does not deviate. The fourth is the
maxim manner explained by Cutting (2002) that "speakers must avoid ambiguity and
ambiguity and be brief and orderly in providing information" (p.35). In a maximized manner,
the order of information is the most important thing to be clear.

b. Flouting maxim
In the process of interaction, building information requires a difficult process for
information to be successfully conveyed. Speakers and listeners will face some mistakes or
misunderstandings that usually happen even without realizing it in speaking. This term is
known as the floating maxim. According to Thomas (2013) flouting occurs when “the
speaker blatantly fails to obey the maxims at the level of what is being said, with a deliberate
intention to produce implicatures” (p. 65). In flouting, speakers do not convey information in
accordance with the maxims, but listeners can still achieve meaning because of the
implicature. Flouting can occur in four sub-principles of maxims, namely flouting maxim of
quantity, flouting maxim of quality, flouting maxim of relevance, and flouting maxim of
manner.
1. Flouting maxim quantity
Flouting maxim quantity occurs when a speaker conveys too little or too much
information to the other person. Thomas (2013) states "violation of the maxim of
quantity is a situation when a speaker openly provides more or less information than
is required by the situation" (p.69).
2. Flouting maxim quality
Flouting maxim of quality occurs when an utterance cannot be confirmed literally.
According to Cruse (2000) floating maxim of quality is an utterance that is not
literally true, but does not tend to mislead the listener because of the context of use in
the utterance. There are several strategies that cause the quality maxim to occur. First
is the hyperbole strategy. According to Wales (2001) "hyperbole is often used to
emphasize something (a word) or as a sign of great expression or passion" (p. 190).
The second is a metaphorical strategy. According to Wales (2001) "when words are
used with a metaphorical meaning, the domain of reference is brought to another on
the basis of the same perception of the same" (p. 250). The third is a strategy of irony.
Wales (2001) argues that irony is contradictory and even generally sarcastic.
 3. Flouting maxim relevance
Flouting maxim relevance occurs when a speaker changes the initial topic of
conversation, but still expects a listener to be aware and aware of the change.
According to Cutting (2002), the flouting maxim of relevance is considered as a topic
of exchange by using irrelevant comments, but expects the listener to know its
meaning by connecting the current topic with the previous topic.
4. Flouting maxim manner
Flouting maxim manner occurs when the speaker says something in a vague,
ambiguous, and vague manner. Cutting (2002) states that the fluting maxim manner
occurs when the speaker speaks unclearly and tends to be ambiguous.

c. Implicature
In a conversation there are often implied words conveyed by the speaker. In
linguistics, there is a term from the implied utterance known as implicature. In general,
implicature is something that is implied by the speaker with an utterance, even though it is
not expressed literally. However, implicatures are useful for helping to communicate more
efficiently than explicitly saying everything we want to say. Implicature can also be
interpreted as the study of the structure of conversation.
Levinson (1983) explains “the idea of implicature provides some explicit explanation
of how it might mean more than what is actually said” (p. 97). This means if the meaning of
an implied utterance goes beyond the literal meaning but makes the utterance rational to be
interpreted. According to Grundy (as quoted in Bedraoui, 2012), "implicatures are all
meanings conveyed indirectly, but through signs". Considering that statement, it can be
interpreted that even though the utterance is conveyed indirectly and sometimes the speaker
hides a meaning in an utterance., the interlocutor will still understand the meaning conveyed.
Therefore, implicature learns about how to understand the implied meaning.
There are two types of implicature according to some experts; Conventional
implicatures are situations in conversation, where the meaning of an utterance does not
depend on a particular context (Yule, 2003)) and conversational implicatures are used when
someone speaks with additional meaning (Yule, 2003). ) )). Furthermore, conversational
implicatures are divided into general conversational implicatures, namely additional meaning
in speech that does not require special background knowledge of the context of the speech
(Yule, 2003)) and special conversational implicatures, namely special knowledge about
special contexts needed to recognize additional meanings (Yule, 2003). . 2003)).
d. Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a language study of how context affects meaning, such as how to
understand a sentence so that it can be interpreted according to certain situations. Kreidler
(2002) states "pragmatics is the study of a person's ability to derive meaning, from certain
types of speech situations to recognize what the speaker's utterance means, from what was
said before, and then take interpretations" (p.19). Meanwhile, Yule defines pragmatics as:
"the study of the meanings communicated by speakers or writers and interpreted" by listeners
or readers” (1996). Pragmatics involves interpretation about what is meant in a given context
and how that context can affect what is said.

e. Context
Context has various definitions.. An utterance deals with physical context and
situational context where some situational context utterances are usually more complex to
interpret. This is caused by several factors involved in speaking according to the context of
the situation. Hymes (as quoted in Noertjahjo, et al, 2017) states that the setting and scene,
participants, ending, sequence of actions, keys, instrumentality, norms, and genres are part of
the context of the situation and relevant factors to understand certain communication goals.

3. RESEARCH METHOD
a. Research design
Qualitative descriptive method is a type of research method that is included in the
type of qualitative research. This method interprets and describes data relating to the
current situation, attitudes and views that occur in a society, conflicts between two or more
circumstances, relationships between variables that arise, differences between existing
facts and their effects on a condition, and so on. Qualitative descriptive method aims to
create a systematic, factual, and accurate description, picture, or painting of the facts,
characteristics, and relationships between the phenomena being analyzed. Sugiyono stated
that the descriptive method is "a method used to describe or analyze a research result but is
not used to make broader conclusions" (2005). The researcher conducted a floating maxim
analysis using a qualitative descriptive method because the data collected were in the form
of words and sentences in a short story entitled Regret and analyzed descriptively through
words, not numbers.
 b. Data and Source of Data
Subroto (as quoted in Noertjahjo et al, 2017) explains "data can be in the form of
discourse, sentences, clauses, phrases, words, or morphemes" (p.31), while Arikunto (as
quoted in Noertjahjo et al, 2017) suggests "data sources show the subject from which the
data were obtained” (p.31). The data in this research were in the form utterances that
contained flouting of maxim in the short story and the source of the data for this analysis is
a short story entitled Regret by Kate Chopin.

c. Instrument
The instrument of this research is the researcher herself. Researchers plan research by
collecting data, analyzing and providing conclusions from research using qualitative
descriptive method. As stated by Lincoln and Guba (as quoted in Nurtjahjo et al, 2017)
that the key instrument of qualitative methods is the researcher herself.

d. Data Collection Technique

In collecting data, the researcher did several things, namely downloading a short story
entitled Regret by Kate Chopin, reading the story, choosing utterances containing fluting
maxims and analyzing them based on the collected data.
e. Data analysis
According to Miles and Huberman, there are three main components in the data
analysis, namely data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions in data
analysis (1994). In analyzing this story, the researcher chose the data that contains a
maxim violation, while data that unappropriate to the criteria or which means that there is
no violating will be eliminated. In presenting data, it includes organizing, compressing,
and assembling information. The researcher organize data to be analyzed in the form of
narration for the types of maxims that have been violated and the character's reasons
violates this maxim. Then, the researcher will give a conclusion based on the presentation
of the data and after the data is analyzed in the discussion.

4. FINDING AND DISCUSSION