The Flouting and Hedging Maxims Used by The Main Characters in William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker”

ABSTRACT

This study is focused on analyzing the flouting and hedging maxims Used by The Main Characters in William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker”. Maxims are the rule of cooperative principle, one part of discourse analysis study which is distinguished into four categories; maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relevant, and maxim of manner. If these maxims are used in conversation, it can go on smoothly, but when people make conversation they often break the maxim overtly (flouting the maxims) and sometimes they break the maxims secretly (hedging the maxims). Main character is one of the examples who often flout and hedge the maxim in their conversations based on that the background, the research about flouting and hedging maxims of utterances used by the main characters in William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker” was conducted with the following problems: (1) How are the maxims flouted by the main characters in William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker”? (2) How are the maxims hedged by the main characters in William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker”?.

This research is conducted using a descriptive qualitative method based on Grice’s maxim. The data are in the form of conversations produced by the main characters in William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker”.

Data analysis revealed some findings covering the formulated research questions. The maxims could be flouted or hedged by the main characters in William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker” such as by producing the utterance in the form of rhetorical strategies, namely; tautology, metaphor, overstatement, understatement, rhetorical question, and irony. On the other hand, maxims were hedged when the information was not totally accurate or not clearly stated but seems informative, well founded and relevant.

Based on the findings mention above, it is recommended that this research will be the additional reference in the field of discourse. In addition, it also recommended next researches can be using Grice’s maxims to conduct he research on the literary work. Furthermore, other relevant theories are also suggested to be used in conducting the researches on the same area.