Violated Maxims: a Study of Sarcastic Humor in the Clique Movie Script

Abstract

study discusses about the sarcastic humor utterances in The Clique movie conveyed in violated maxims. The objective of this study is to develop understanding about how sarcastic humors work in violated maxims that concentrate on sarcastic humor data. To reveal the relationship between violated maxims and sarcastic humors, the theory of Grice’s maxims, the sarcasm cues theory based on Grice’s Maxims, the linguistic theories of humor, and theory of context are used to analyze the data. This study applies qualitative method to describe the types of violated maxims in sarcastic humor utterances, the relationship between violated maxims and sarcastic humors, and the implied meaning of sarcastic humors. The data are taken from the movie script sorted to the violated maxims which contain sarcastic humor utterances only. As a result, 17 data of 1465 utterances are picked to be analyzed. The result shows that the four of violated maxims can create sarcastic humor and have their own ways to create the utterances. They are 2 violated maxims of quality, 8 violated maxims of quantity, 1 violated maxim of relation, and 6 violated maxims of manner. Furthermore, the utterances can be perceived as funny if they fulfill the condition of the theory of humor, the casts use 15 incongruity theories and 2 superiority theories. Moreover, in terms of the sarcasm sign, it is found that the characters use 8 self-contradictions, 3 hyperboles, 6 manner-violations. Overall, incongruity dominates to trigger sarcastic humors in violated maxims. Moreover, it is also revealed that sarcastic humor is created to fulfill various intentions. In this movie, sarcastic humor is used more to bully by saying mean things to exclude someone from a group. In conclusion, these sarcastic humors in this movie are interesting because these utterances are originally from violated maxims where they are not conveyed in the straightforward point. Violated maxims are the factors which create wordplay, ambiguity, etc. They are the part of what makes these sarcastic humors so interesting.