| Grice (1967) outlined an approach to what he termed conversational implicature - how hearers manage to work out the complete message when speakers mean more than what they say. In addition to the cooperative principle, he also derived a set of maxims concerning what should be said in a conversation and how it should be said by using the maxims of quantity, quality, relevance, and manner. These maxims are not always fulfilled; a speaker may intentionally violate a maxim. In such a case, Grice calls it "conversational implicature." This study is conducted to discover the role of conversational implicatures in creating humorous effects in a sitcom. The turn-takings to be analyzed are collected from "Friends" scripts, a weekly 30-minute length sitcom, top rated series that has appeared on NBC for six seasons. The data are collected from 24 scripts taken from the first season in which the story was built and each character was introduced. The turn-takings have been transcribed from the show by a not-for-profit internet site for entertainment purposes. The data collection starts with collecting corresponding sets of potential inferences that come about either from the speaker observing or flouting the maxim. Grice's approach is used to discover the conversational implicature. From the 24 episodes, 70 conversational implicatures have been found which are distributed among the four maxims. Flouting the maxim of quantity has the highest occurrence (54%); next is the maxim of quality (23%), the maxim of relevance (19%), and finally the maxim of manner (4%). The conversational implicatures are classified into the categories of speech acts by Austin. Out of the 70 conversational implicatures, it has been found that 15 kinds of illocutionarv acts are based on four speech act categories: assertives (56%), expressives (34%), directives (7%), and commissives (3%). The illocutionary acts under the declarations category are not found in the data. The topics found in the uses of conversational implicatures are friendships, man-woman relationships, behavior, work, irrelevance, family, love, ethics, community, and sex. In addition to the conversational implicatures, it has been found that certain kinds of conversation help generates humorous effect. The most often occurrences are unfinished thoughts, interruptions, and misunderstandings. These kinds of conversation appear to fill the background of the story. In addition, the characters' expressions and gestures are elements that are able to support the characters to be themselves and funny. It can be concluded that a conversational implicature has one significant role in creating humorous effect in a sitcom. The concept of uttering conversational implicatures naturally, or without planning, is potential to create humorous effects, especially if it is combined with other potential humorous elements such as uttering something impossible, senseless or absurd, and humiliating. |