A Pragmatic Study: An Analysis Of Flouting Maxims in The Dictator Movie

Abstract

This research concerned with Grice’s cooperative principle theory (1975) and Lindskold and Walters’ theory (1983) as the main tools to analyze the utterances produced by Aladeen, the main character in The Dictator Movie. This research aimed to find out what types of maxims that were flouted by Aladeen, the main character, and the reasons behind his utterances. The utterances were analyzed with the cooperative principle theory proposed by Grice (1975) and theory of context of situation by Brown and Yule (1996), along with the theory of categories for acceptability of lies by Lindskold and Walters. This research used a qualitative method as the main approach. The approach was combined with documentary research strategy. The primary data of this research were utterances of Aladeen from The Dictator movie in the form of video which were collected from http://103.194.171.205/the-dictator-2012/. The secondary data, to support the primary one, were written conversation in the form of English subtitle which were collected from https://www.subscene.com/subtitles/the-dictator/english/609634. The utterances which flouted the maxims were analyzed by using the cooperative principle theory and theory of context of situation to classify the types of each utterance. Then, Lindskold and Walters’ theory (1983) was used to reveal the possible reasons of the flouting maxims by the main character of The Dictator movie. The analysis of this study showed that there were 20 utterances that flouted 4 types of maxims. Those types were maxim of quality, maxim of quantity, maxim of relevance, and maxim of manner. The most dominant type of flouted maxim was the maxim of relevance (found in 10 data). Aladeen often flouted this maxim to distract the topic he wanted to avoid. The reasons of why Aladeen flouted the maxims were classified into 6 categories. Those categories were telling a lie to save others from minor hurt, shame, or embarrassment; telling a lie to protect yourself or another from punishment or disapproval for a minor failing or blunder which hurts no one; telling a lie that will influence others in an official position in such a way that you will gain by their response to you, but they will not be harmed; telling a lie to make yourself appear better than you really are or to protect some gain, acquired some time ago, to which you were not really entitled; telling a lie that, if successful, could cause others to do something that benefits you while, at the same time, harming themselves or causing themselves a loss; telling a lie that hurts someone else so that you can gain. Aladeen’s most dominant reason is to protect himself or another from punishment or disapproval for a minor failing or blunder which hurts no one.