Flouting and hedging maxim portrayed in Michelle Obama's interview

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Kanaza, Fauzi Usrya (2021) Flouting and hedging maxim portrayed in Michelle Obama's interview. Undergraduate thesis, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya.

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Abstract

Obeying the cooperative principle is very important in defining the interpretation of meaning in communication, especially in real-life conversation. Yet, sometimes there will be many factors that push the speaker to disobey the maxim. Some of the ways for disobeying are flouting and hedging the maxims. Grice's theory is chosen to examine the flouting and hedging maxim. There are three problems to be solved in this study: (1) the types of flouting maxim done by Michelle Obama in her interview with Oprah Winfrey, (2) the types of hedging maxim done by Michelle Obama in her interview with Oprah Winfrey, and the last is (3) the reason why Michelle Obama flouted or hedged the maxim in her interview with Oprah Winfrey. This study uses a descriptive qualitative method to analyze Michelle Obama's utterances as data of the study. As the main instrument, the researcher collected the data by searching, downloading, and identifying the transcript. After identifying the utterances, the researcher classified the types of flouting and hedging maxims done by Michelle Obama. Then, she counted the percentage of each type. The last step is identifying the reason why Michelle Obama flouted or hedged during her interview with Oprah Winfrey. The result of this study shows that there are three types of flouting maxims found in 16 utterances. They are flouting the maxim of quantity (12), flouting the maxim of relation (2), flouting the maxim of manner (2). Flouting maxim of quality was not found in this data. Meanwhile, for the hedging maxim, all types of maxim were found in this study. There are hedging maxim of quality (7), hedging maxim of quantity (5), hedging maxim of relation (1), and hedging maxim of manner (1). Flouting maxim of quantity and hedging maxim of quality become the most dominant type found in the data. It represents that the speaker wants to avoid misinterpretation between the speaker and the hearer. This study also reveals the reasons for flouting and hedging maxim by Michelle Obama. There are giving a deeper explanation, giving an illustration, and showing something hard to explain. Giving a deeper explanation becomes the most frequently used reason by Michelle. It indicates that Michelle wants to be a very informative speaker in this interview.