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Library's collection Library's IT development CancelThe Cooperative Principle is the principle that should be obeyed by a speaker and
a hearer so that their conversations can become smooth. The principle is implied
in the fulfilling of the Conversational Maxims. There is an assumption, however,
that the flouting of the Conversational Maxims may not bring the communication
to an end, but it may instead cause humour. Based on the assumption, this thesis
was then written to find out the relationship between the humour in comedy and
the flouting of the Conversational Maxims. As the objects of her study, the writer
used the comedy entitled "The Nanny", which was broadcasted by SCTV in
January and February 1999. There were three episodes chosen by the writer to be
analyzed. They were "The Kibbutz", "Is Fran Looking Old?", and "The Cantor
Show". The analysis was based on the theory of Grice (1975) about The
Cooperative Principles and some theories about humour from Raskin (1985),
Norrick (1986), and Attardo (1993). After analyzing the data, the writer found out
that there were indeed the floutings of maxims in the comedy, and that the
flouting could cause humour. Moreover, the maxim that was flouted the most
often was the Maxim of Manner, then the second most flouted maxim was the
Maxim of Quality. The Maxims of Relevance and Quantity were not frequently
flouted, but their floutings had also the humourous results. The flouting of
maxims showed that in a conversation, people might flout the maxims to cause
humour. Moreover, by flouting the maxims, the characters showed their close
relationship. From the findings and implication, the writer concluded that the
initial assumption about the flouting of the Conversational Maxims was found out
to be true. It meant that the flouting of the maxims in a conversation does not
always break tire communication, but it might be used to cause humour.