The Violated Maxims and the Illocutionary Act Types Found in the Humor Comic of Master Q

ABSTRACT

Sugiharto, Hantoro. 2004. The Violated Maxims and the Illocutionary Act Types Found in the Humor Comic of Master Q. Thesis. Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni, Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni, Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan. Universitas Katolik Widya Mandala Surabaya.

Advisors:

Drs. Hendra Tedjasuksmana, M.Hum.

V. Aniek Setiawaty, S.Pd

      Language has a very important role in people’s life. They communicate with others through language, in both direct and indirect ways. In a direct way they communicate orally, while in indirect way they express their ideas through literature such as poem, prose, play, or comic. In this study, the writer chose humor comic to be analyzed since he observed that there was something wrong in the conversation between the characters of the comic book so that it made the readers burst into laughter. Renkema (1993:9) said that there should be a cooperative between a listener and speaker in the dialogue so that the dialogue is understandable and successful. That the dialogue is understandable and successful is based on the four maxims: Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Quantity, Maxim of relevance, Maxim of Manner. Attardo (1993: 538) stated that if the speaker violates Grice’s maxim principle in a dialogue, it might be able to be a humor.

             As this is a qualitative study, the writer is interested in analyzing humor, which is taken from the comic of Master Q Millenia series number 1 to 7 and chosen based on simple random sampling, using two major theories Grice’s Maxim and Speech Act Theory and other theories such as Theory of Humor, Written and Oral Discourse, and Ambiguity theory. Comic Master Q was selected since it is the easiest access for him to do some observations and collect the data. Besides, as the writer observed, the story in this comic is adopted from daily life and the language which is used is daily language so that it can be understood easily.

            The first result indicates that the maxim which is mostly violated is maxim of Quantity (50.00%) followed by maxim of Quality (35.71%), maxim of Relevance (14.28%) and the last is maxim of Manner (00.00%).

            The second result indicates that the type of illocutionary act which mostly occurs in humor situation is Representatives (100.00%), Expressive is in the second place (14.28%), Directive is the third place (7.14%) while Commissives, Verdictives, Declaration, and Phatic are 00.00% for each.

            The third result indicates that the most reasons for being humorous are giving more or lacking information, saying false things, and not being relevant.

            The writer concludes that humor in comic Master Q at least violates one of the maxims. Furthermore, it can also be stated that the illocutionary act types which frequently appears in the humor comic of Mr. Q is Representative. It can be concluded that the characteristic of the comic of Master Q is that the speaker (in the comic) gives too much information and that information is mostly false.

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