Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) Movie Analysis Based on Grice Cooperative Principle and Its Contribution to English Learning Material Development

Abstract

Paul Grice introduced The Cooperative Principle on 1975. Grice said that when we communicate, we assume, without realising it, that we and the people we were talking to, will be conversationally cooperative – we will cooperate to achieve mutual conversational ends. According to Grice (1975), people will have a successful conversation if they achieve the Cooperative Principles which are explained in four sub-principles called maxims. They are the maxim of quantity, quality, relation, and manner. These four maxims establish how the participants should participate in a conversation such as telling the truth, being relevant, and trying to be as clear as they know how to make the conversation runs smoothly. Cooperative principle can be found not only in the real-life communication but also in a movie since it reflects human’s real life. The movie provides real life language input which may be difficult to get in a country which consider English as a foreign language. Sherman in (Khan, 2015) states films are a shift from conventional and offers students realistic learning environment. By watching movies, the students can have entertainment and learn the examples of how language is used to communicate which they cannot find in their textbook.