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Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018, pp. 106-114 
E-ISSN: 2621-6485  

  
 
 

A Study of Implicature in Daredevil Web Series Movie 

1Isnaini Jalu Rakhmat Prakoso, 2Fauzia 
Universitas Ahmad Dahlan 

1jalurp22@gmail.com, 2fauzia@pbi.uad.ac.id 

 
Abstract 

People especially them who use English as foreign language tend to feel difficult to 

understand the implicature, they need to infer the implicature in order to get what the actors 

mean in a movie. This study is aimed to identify the implicature and their maxim violation 

and find out how the violating maxims occur in Daredevil web series movie.  

 

The study is conducted by using a mixed (qualitative-quantitative) method. The 

research object of this study is about implicature and the violation of the maxim. The subject 

of this study is a web series movie script entitled Daredevil, the scripts are taken from season 

1 episode 1 until 3. To collect the data, the writer uses note taking technique. The writer uses 

pragmatic referential method (metode padan pragmatis) to analyze the data qualitatively, and 

then count the frequencies of the data quantitatively. 

 The result shows 25 implicatures in Daredevil web series movie that occur because 

of its violation of the maxim.  There are 20% implicature by violating the maxim of quantity, 

36% implicature by violating the maxim of quality, 26% implicature by violating the maxim 

of relation, 18% implicature by violating the maxim of manner. By violating the maxim, the 

characters produce some implied meanings which can be used to misleading the hearer. The 

implied meaning of the utterances refers to an expression of agreement, denial, refusal, 

acceptance and indirect sentence, it depends on how the character uses the implicature. 

Keywords: Pragmatics, Context, Cooperative Principle, Implicature, Violating Maxim 

 

 

How to Cite: Prakoso, I.J.R. and Fauzia, F. (2018). A study of implicature in daredevil web 

series movie. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 1(1), 106-114. 

 

 

INTRODUCTION 

People communicate with language. Crystal (2008) has written in his 

book that ‘‘language is an act of speaking, writing or signing in a given situation 

– the notion of parole, or performance’’. Thus, language is a system which is 

used by human to communicate, share feelings and ideas through verbal and non-

verbal activities. When people talk using language, there are times when humans 

say (or write) precisely what they mean. However, in some cases, people tend to 

say (or write) far from the words meaning or something entirely different from 

the phrase means. Something above is covered in linguistics. Linguistics ‘‘may 

be defined as the scientific study of (Lyons, 1968). Linguistics concerns about 

the nature of language and communication. In linguistics contexts are studied in 

pragmatics. Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning, contextual meaning and 

it is a study of how more communicated than it said also a study about the 

expressions of relative distance (Yule & Stalnaker, 1996). 

mailto:1jalurp22@gmail.com
mailto:fauzia@pbi.uad.ac.id


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The language which is studied by pragmatics not only about a written 

language however, a conversation is concerned too. Where conversation happens 

it means that there is communication. Communication involves two participants 

who are speaker and hearer. Leech (1983) explains that speaker is someone who 

receives and interprets the message while hearer is the one who gets or becomes 

the target of the message. Language is used in communication and produces 

utterances in a particular context. To make an efficient and accurate 

communication the speaker and the hearer should co-operate each other for 

misunderstanding may occur in a conversation. 

People tend to misunderstood in understanding the implicature because 

of lack of knowledge about it. Moreover implicature has many types and rules. 

Grice (1975) in Thomas (1995) said that there are two types of implicature: 

conventional and conversational implicature. Conventional implicature occurs 

when there is no need of special knowledge and special background of 

knowledge to make the necessary inferences. Conversational implicature; 

positive response is agreement and acceptance, negative response means denial, 

refusal, mockery, complaint, and lie. There are four maxims in conversational 

implicature which are quantity, quality, relation, and manner. When a speaker 

observes all the maxims and precisely said what they mean, they generated no 

implicature. However, many occasion when people fail to observe the maxims. 

There are five types distinguished by Grice (1975) in Thomas (1995) that the 

speaker is not able to observe a maxim; they are floating, violating, Infringing, 

opting out, and suspending. 

The problem arises when people realize that actually implicature has 

many type and rules as mentioned above. People need to observe the context and 

pay attention to the maxims which is broken in order to get the actual meaning 

without any miscommunication. 

The writer will focus on the violating a maxims in the Daredevil web 

series movie implicature. The main reason is because people tend to use the term 

‘violate’ to generate the implicature. However the violating maxims itself has its 

own rules to occur. That is the reason why the researcher only focused on 

violating of the maxim implicature.  

The subject of this study is an American web television series created for 

Netflix by Drew Goddard called Marvel's Daredevil, or simply Daredevil, is a 

movie based on Marvel's Daredevil comic by Stan Lee and Bill Everett, while 

the object of the research in this study is violating a maxim in an implicature. 

 

Implicature 

(Thomas, 1995) argues that an implicature refers to anything that infers 

from an utterance but that is not a condition for the truth of the utterance. There 

is a hidden message from speakers that they want to tell.  

People use implicature for some reasons. For example, implicature 

applied to sarcastic, implying humor, or delivering the different intention from 

the speech act usage. Grice (1975) as cited in Thomas (1995) distinguished two 

different short of implicature: conventional implicature and conversational 

implicature. Conventional implicature occurs when there is no need of special 



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knowledge and special background of knowledge to make the necessary 

inferences. In the case of conventional implicature the same implicature is always 

conveyed, regardless of the context whereas in the case of conversational 

implicature, what is implied varies according to the context of utterance 

(Thomas, 1995). There are two basic conjunctions of conventional implicature: 

but, therefore (Levinson, 1983). 

However the conversational implicature is not as simple as it is, the 

example above is just an example of an introduction of how an implicature 

works. Because there is so many factors which make the implicature occur. 

Conversational implicature needs context in order to understand what is the 

meaning carried by the implicature. The positive response is agreement and 

acceptance and the negative response means denial, refusal, mockery, complaint, 

and lie. This kind of phenomenon is discussed by Thomas (1995) that implicature 

occurs when the speaker is breaking the rules of a good conversation. The rule is 

called as cooperative principles, in order to get a meaningful conversation 

speaker should fulfill the maxim, and there are four maxims in conversational 

implicature which are quantity, quality, relation, and manner. If the speaker 

fulfills the maxim, there will be no implicature. On the other hand, if the speaker 

is not able to fulfill the maxim, conversational implicature arises only in a 

particular context of utterance. 

 

Cooperative Principle 

The cooperative principle is a rule of conversation when the participants 

expect that each will make a “conversational contribution such as is required, at 

the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk 

exchange” (Thomas, 1995). The cooperative principle is a cooperative activity 

which is done by the speaker and the hearer. As a cooperative activity which is 

done by the both speaker and hearer.  

The principles are called maxims. The maxims are divided into a maxim 

of quality, a maxim of quantity, a maxim of relevance or relation, and the maxim 

of manner. However, there is a situation that the speaker or the hearer does not 

behave cooperatively. Which mean the cooperative principle is observed or non-

observed. When the speakers can fulfill the maxims of Cooperative Principle, it 

indicates that the observed cooperative principle is done and the speaker will be 

considered as cooperative in a conversation. However, when the speakers are not 

able to fulfill the maxims, there will be a non-observed cooperative principle and 

the implicature will arise. 

 

a. Observed Cooperative Principle 

Observed cooperative principle occur when the speakers can fulfill the 

maxims of Cooperative Principle, it indicates that the speaker will be considered 

as cooperative in a conversation. Grice (1975) as cited in Thomas (1995) has 

formulated the maxims as follow: 



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1) Maxim of Quantity: The speaker must make a contribution as 

informative as is required (for the current purpose of the exchange). 

The speaker is not permitted to make more informative information 

than is required. 

2) Maxim of Quality: The speaker is not allowed to not say what you 

believe to be false. It requires the speaker to be honest to the hearer. 

3) Maxim of Relation: The speaker should be relevant. The speakers 

should say something which is relevant to the previous saying in a 

conversation.  

4) Maxim of Manner: The speaker must avoid obscurity of expression, 

ambiguity. The speaker must be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) 

and orderly. 

b. Non-observed Cooperative Principle 

Based on Thomas (1995) book, non-observed Cooperative Principle is a 

condition when speakers cannot fulfill the maxims of Cooperative Principle. 

When saying something people fail to observe the maxims. There are five of 

implicature that occur because the speaker is not able to observe a maxim; they 

are floating, infringing, opting out, suspending, and violating. 

1) Floating the maxims  

    Floating maxim quantity is known when the speaker is giving less or more 

information than is needed. Floating maxim quality is interpreted as giving some 

information that does not represent what they think. In floating maxim relation, 

the hearer is expected to imagine the utterance which is not said as the answer to 

the question. The last type is floating maxim manner. It is done by being obscure 

and often excludes a third party.  

2) Infringing the maxim  

Another type of non-observed maxim is infringing the maxim. It can be 

considered as a failure of observing the conversational maxims, for the 

imperfection of the linguistics performance for several reasons. Infinging of the 

maxim can be seen in the baby’s talk or foreign language learner who is not able 

to speak clearly, nervous, drunk, scared and cognitive impairment people. 

 

3) Opting out the maxim  

Opting out the maxim means that the speaker is unwilling to cooperate 

because of certain reasons. 

4) Suspending the maxim  

This maxim is failed to be observed and occurs when there are few words 

or sentences are inappropriate or taboo to say. Usually, this condition happens in 

the case of the mention of the name, place or thing. Then culture, place, time, 

and the situation will also affect the violation of this maxim. The audience also 

did not expect the speaker clarifies what the speaker meant because the listener 

already knew the meaning. To make the interlocutor understand, the speaker will 

be looking for the pronouns such taboo words. 

5) Violating maxims  



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             The last type of the Non-observance of the Conversational Maxims is 

violating maxims. Speaker violated the maxims when the speaker gives the 

wrong information intentionally, that the hearer will know the literal meaning of 

the utterance only. There are four types of violating maxims. They are violating 

quality, violating quantity, violating relation, and violating manner. 

 

RESEARCH METHOD 

In this study the writer uses a mixed (qualitative-quantitaive) method. 

The writer uses pragmatic referential method (metode padan pragmatik) to 

analyze the data qualitatively. Referential method is a method which is used to 

identify the rule in the analyzing step (Sudaryanto, 2015). And then to count the 

frequencies of the data, the writer uses quantitatively method. Vanderstoep and 

Johnson (2009) state in general that, quantitative research specifies numerical 

assignment to the phenomena under study. 

The data of this study is dialogue in the script of the Daredevil web-series 

movie containing implicature especially about violating maxims. The subject of 

this study is an American web television series created for Netflix by Drew 

Goddard called Daredevil. The object of the research in this study is violating a 

maxim in an implicature. 

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

1. Description of the Non-Observed Cooperative Principle Occurs in 

the Conversation in Daredevil Web Series Movie 
After identifying the data, the writer finds twenty-five (25) implicature 

utterances uttered by the characters. The writer classify those 25 implicature 

utterances, the data based on the non-observed cooperative principle that is 

produced by violating the four maxims. The findings which the writer finds based 

on the frequency of the occurrences of the maxis that produce implicature are 

presented in the table below: 

 

Table 1. Frequency of the Implicature Occurrence 

No 
The Non Observed Cooperative 

Principle 

Number of 

Frequency 
% 

1 violating of the maxim quantity 5 20% 

2 violating of the maxim quality 9 36% 

3 violating of the maxim relation 7 26% 

4 violating of  the maxim manner 4 18% 

 

Speaker violated the maxims when the speaker gives the wrong 

information intentionally, that the hearer will know the literal meaning of the 

utterance only. The implicature which happens because of the violation of the 

maxim is divided into four types which are explained above. Those are the 



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violating of the maxim quantity, violating of the maxim quality, violating of the 

maxim relation, violating of the maxim manner. 

a. The Implicature Generated by Violating the Maxim of Quantity 

The speaker must make a contribution as informative as is required (for 

the current purpose of the exchange). The speaker is not permitted to make 

more informative information than is necessary. The implicature in Daredevil 

web series movie has violated the principle, here is an example 

   (1) Matt    : Here's how this is gonna work. I'm gonna ask you  

                       some questions. You're gonna answer them. If you're  

                       lying to  me, trust that I will know, and I will be    

                       unhappy. Where's the boy? 

         Foster  : He's dead. 

After in the last scene Foster feels that Claire hides something to him, he 

decided to call his Russian’s gang to catch Matt. However Matt realizes, he 

attack Foster and brings him to the roof and interrogates him. After Matt asks 

questions, here Foster violates the maxim of quantity by saying He’s dead. 

Since he only gives less information that is needed by Matt the Daredevil 

about the boy that they kidnaped on the last episode. 

 

b. The Implicature Generated by Violating the Maxim of Quality 

The speaker is not allowed to not say what you believe to be false. It 

requires the speaker to be honest to the hearer. Some implicatures in 

Daredevil web series movie are violating the maxim. It can be analyzed 

through the example below: 

(2) Claire   : (Whispers) Please. (Knocking continues). Who is it? 

      Foster  : NYPD, ma'am. Please open the door. 

Foster answer indicates that he has violated the maxim of quality. In order 

to capture Matt Murdock he has lied to Claire by saying ‘‘NYPD, ma'am’’, 

however he is not a real NYPD (New York Police Department) officer. He 

does that because he does not Claire know that he is one of the members of 

the Russian gangster which wants to capture Matt.  

 

c. The Implicature Generated by Violating the Maxim of Relation 

In the rule of Maxim of Relation, the speaker should be relevant. The 

speakers should say something which is relevant to the previous saying in a 

conversation. Some dialogue in this movie has generates implicature that 

occur because the actors has violated the maxim of relation, here are some 

examples: 

(3) Matt   : You find anything? 

     Claire : (Holding Foster’s phone). You smashed the hell out  

                   of it with that extinguisher. He had a badge.   

                   What if you're wrong?  

In this conversation, Claire is violating the maxim of relation. She gives 

irrelevant answer by saying ‘‘(Holding Foster’s phone). You smashed the 

hell out of it with that extinguisher. He had a badge.  What if you're wrong?’’ 



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her response is not relevant with Matt’s question. She disobey the rule of 

‘‘be relevant’’ by saying that statement. 

d. The Implicature Generated by Violating the Maxim of Manner 

The speaker must avoid obscurity of expression, ambiguity. The speaker 

must be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) and orderly. Some dialogues have 

brought up the implicature by violating the maxim of manner can be seen 

from the dialogues as follow: 

 (4)  Matt     : This is what unhappy looks like. Where's the boy? 

        Foster  : What do you care? If he's not dead yet, he will be. 

The conversation happens between Matt Murdock or Daredevil and 

Foster the member of Russian gang who is interrogated by Matt. Foster is 

violated the maxim of manner, because the rule of this maxim is ‘‘avoid the 

obscurity expression’’. And Foster answer generates the implicature by violating 

the maxim of manner because by saying ‘‘What do you care? If he's not dead 

yet, he will be.’’ He seems obscure. He should give answer not question.  

 

2. Description of Implied Meaning of Utterances Uttered by the 

Characters Containing Implicature in Daredevil Web Series Movie 

The implied meaning generates the reason why the characters use the 

implicature. The conversation which violate the maxim and generate implicature 

will have implied meaning. The implied meaning can be seen in the form of yes 

no question which uttered by the character in the Daredevil web series movie 

dialogues. 

Some kind of expression can be seen in the Daredevil web series movie 

implicature implied meaning. They tend to use indirect answer to say yes or no 

rather than say it explicitly. Some kind of examples which show the agreement 

expression can be seen from the dialogues as follows: 

 (5)  Urich : So that's it? That's all I get? 

              Man : You know, when I went away to do my 10, every  

                           newspaper in town dragged my name through the  

                           shit. You were the only one who did it without  

                           mentioning my kids. Always grateful for that. 

 

This conversation happens between Ben Urich and his friend, Urich want 

to get information but cost of something which can threaten their life but, the 

man does not want to give the information because he thinks that it is the way 

too dangerous for him. By saying ‘‘You know, when I went away to do my 10, 

every newspaper in town dragged my name through the shit. You were the only 

one who did it without mentioning my kids. Always grateful for that.’’ The man 

already violates the maxim of relation. Moreover by saying his answer, he also 



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gives example of the agreement expression that means he refuse to give the 

information, because back in time he got problem and Urich is the only one who 

helped him. He does not give yes answer because his utterance has already 

implied that he will stop giving information. 

 

CONCLUSION 

After analyzing the data in Daredevil web-series movie, the writer has 

found that there is implicature occurs by violating the maxim in this movie. There 

are 25 implicature utterances uttered by the characters in this movie episode 1 

until 3 in the first season. From the 25 utterances is classified into the maxim 

which is violated by the characters. Those maxims are violating of the maxim 

quantity, violating of the maxim quality, violating of the maxim relation, 

violating of the maxim manner. The final result of the data analysis found that 

there are five (5) implicature utterances generated by violating maxim of 

quantity, nine (9) implicature utterances produced by violating maxim of quality, 

seven (7) implicature utterances produced by violating maxim of relation, four 

(4) implicature utterances generated by violating maxim of manner. The most 

often appear implicature is implicature which occurs by violating the maxim of 

quality which is 36% while the least is the violation of the maxim of manner 

which is 18% by the frequency of appearance. 

The writer also finds more findings that the implicature in Daredevil Web 

Series Movie by violating the maxim utterances uttered by the characters has 

implicit meaning. To understand how the implicature occurs the writer identifies 

the context of the utterances. The characters on the Daredevil web-series movie 

tend to use the indirect response to deliver their answer because of a certain 

reason. In this study, the implied meaning in the implicature that occurs because 

of the violating of the maxim is usually a refusal or agreement in the form of yes 

or no question. 

 

REFERENCES  

Crystal, D. (2008). Dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. New Jersey: 

Blackwell Publishing. 

 

Daredevil Web Series Movie Script. (2015). Retrieved April 27, 2017, from 

https://genius.com › D › Daredevil 

 

Daredevil. (2015) Retrieved March 2, 2017, from 

www.netflix.com/title/80018294 

 

Daredevil Web Series Movie Script. (2015). Retrieved April 20, 2017, from 

www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/episode_scripts.php?tv-

show=daredevil-2015 

 

Daredevil Web Series Movie Script. (2015). Retrieved May 1, 2017, from 

www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/DAREDEVIL-PILOT.pdf 

 



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