The Implicatures of the headlines used in The Jakarta Post

ABSTRACT

This study was focused on analyzing the headlines of The Jakarta Post using Grice’s theory of implicature. Implicature is part of discourse analysis study and concerns with anything that is inferred from an utterance/sentence but that is not condition for the truth of that uttcrance/sentence. The headline as the core of information in the newspaper is written in the form of sentence or utterance and the messages are often conveyed implicitly. Based on that background, the research about the implicature used in the headlines of The Jakarta Post was conducted with the following problems: (1) how are the hnplicatures used in the headlines of The Jakarta Post?, (2) how are the maxims flouted or hedged in the headlines of The Jakarta Post?,

This research was conducted using descriptive qualitative method based on Grice’s theory of implicature. The data were in the forms of sentences from the headlines of the Jakarta Post. The data were selected from the headlines of The Jakarta Post published from March 1 to June 30, 2002.

Data analysis revealed some findings covering the formulated research questions. First, the implicature used in the headlines of The Jakarta Post could be generalized and particularized implicature. Generalized implicature was used when the information being conveyed was clear, brief, in chronological order and no context was required by readers to understand the information in the headline. In addition, particularized implicature was used when the clarity, brevity and sufficiency of information did not be given by the journalist to the readers. So, the context was required by the readers to understand the journalist’s intended messages.

Second, the maxims in the headlines of the Jakarta Post could be flouted or hedged. The maxims were flouted when the maxims were overtly broken by journalist and the headlines were written by using rhetorical strategies, namely; metaphor, rhetorical question, hyperbole, irony, tautology and understatement. In addition, the maxims were hedged when the information was not totally accurate but it seems that it was informative, ١vell founded and relevant. So, the words like by the way, well, just about, any way were often used. Further, the journalists often quote the information from other sources.

Based on those findings, it is recommended for the journalists to consider or comprehend the implicature particularly the generalized implicature when they write the headlines. In addition, it is also recommended for the next researchers to conduct researches on the daily conversation occurred naturally in certain society. Furthermore, Sperber and Wilson’s relevance theory is also suggested to be used in conducting the researches on the same area.