Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 4 No.2, November 2016

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AN ANALYSIS OF GRICE’S MAXIMS VIOLATION IN DAILY
CONVERSATION

Rizal Fahmi
FPBS IKIP Mataram, Kota Mataram, NTB

rizalfahmi18@gmail.com

Abstract
This research were aimed at finding out what factors that cause the violation of Gricean
maxims and which one of Gricean maxims that is often violated in daily conversation of
EZC students of FPBS IKIP MATARAM. There were 15 active EZC students were taken
as subject of the study. In deciding samples, purposive sampling technique was used. The
samples were 4 male students and 5 female students. In the data analysis, descriptive
qualitative method was used. For collecting data, there were 2 techniques used: observation
and interview. After the data were collected, the recorded conversations (the length of each
conversation is about 5 until 10 minutes) were sorted and translated. The result showed that
the maxims violated were maxim of quantity (30 times), maxim of quality (20 times),
maxim of manner (10) and maxim of relevance (5 times). The reason for violating the
maxims approved to be caused by cultural factor and social distance factor. In conclusion,
the maxim that dominantly being violated was maxim of quantity.

Key Words: Grice’s maxim, Violation, Daily Conversation

Abstrak
Penelitian ini umumnya bertujuan untuk menemukan faktor apa saja yang menyebabkan
pelanggaran Gricean maxims dan maxim apa yang sering dilanggar didalam percakapan
sehari hari mahasiswa/i anggota EZC FPBS IKIP MATARAM. Terdapat 15 mahasiswa
EZC aktif yang diambil sebagai subjek penelitian. Didalam menentukan sampel,
menggunakan teknik purposive sampling. Jumlah sampel sebanyak 4 mahasiswa pria dan 5
mahasiswi wanita. Di dalam analisa data menggunakan metode deskripsi kualitatif. Untuk
mengumpulkan data menggunakan dua cara yaitu observasi dan wawancara. Setelah data
dikumpulkan, data rekaman percakapan (durasi percakapan minimal 5 sampai 10 menit)
kemudian dipilah dan selanjutnya diterjemahkan. Hasilnya adalah terjadi pelanggaran
maksim kuantitas sebanyak 30 kali, maksim kualitas sebanyak 20 kali, maksim cara
sebanyak 10 kali, dan maksim relevansi sebanyak 5 kali pelanggaran. Ada dua faktor yang
menyebabkan pelanggaran Gricean Maxim, yaitu faktor budaya dan jarak sosial.
Berdasarkan jumlah pelanggaran yang telah disebutkan diatas menunjukkan bahwa maksim
kuantitas merupakan maksim yang paling sering dilanggar didalam percakapan sehari hari
oleh mahasiswa/i anggota EZC FPBS IKIP MATARAM.

Kata Kunci: Grice’s maxim, Pelanggaran, Percakapan Sehari-hari

INTRODUCTION
Language is a tool for

communication in the world. It is
important for social life. Language is used
for many purposes, it can be for expressing
feelings, asking questions, protesting,
criticizing, making request, promising,
thanking, insulting, apologizing, and say
hello and goodbye (Kamarudin, 2016: 13).
In other word people usually use language
in their daily life for communicating with

the others in order to inform, to express
their ideas, and to build up their social
relationship. In order to communicate
successfully, human beings are supposed
to obey to a certain mode of interaction. In
line with Grice, Cutting (2002: 1) stated
verbal exchange, whether interviews,
conversations or service encounters, tend
to run more smoothly and successfully
when the participants follow certain social
conventions. For this reason, the Linguist,



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92

Herbert Paul Grice, develoved a mode of
interaction for successful communication
called the Cooperative Principle (CP)
“Make your conversational contribution
such as is required, at the stage at which it
occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange in which you
are engaged.Then the principle generated
four maxims as a criteria of successful and
meaningful conversation.

Grice (1975) formulates four major
norms to be fulfilled when people
communicate to one another. Grice
proposed four conversational maxims that
arise from the rational considerations.
Grice assumes that people are intrinsically
cooperative and aim to be as informative as
possible in communication. Those four
maxims are: (1) Maxim of
quantity/information (the participants try to
make contribution as informative as is
required for the current purposes of the
exchange, and do not make your
contribution is more informative than is
required); (2) Maxim of
quality/truthfulness (the participants try to
be truthful, do not give information that is
believed to be false and do not say that for
which you lack adequate evidence); (3)
Maxim of relevance/relation (the
participants try to be relevance to the topic
of the discussion); (4) Maxim of
manner/clarity (the participants try to be as
clear, as brief (avoid unnecessary
prolixity)), as orderly as one says, and
avoid obscurity and ambiguity of
expression).

Those four maxims or co-operative
principles must be obeyed by the
participants in every conversation. These
maxims are as well proposed as criteria for
cooperative communication. It means that
if the participants obey the whole maxims,
they can be said cooperative in
communication or create effective and
efficient communication. However, if they
fail to obey the whole maxims, it can be
said that they create ineffective and
inefficient communication.

But in fact even though the origins of
these maxims based on four logic
analogous/ rational considerations and its
function in making effective, efficient and
rational conversation is clear but the
implementation of these maxims are hard
to be applied, EZC students of FPBS is no
exception, whereas this organization
oftenly conducts many social events by
which the important of making successful
communication among the insider of the
organization is crucial thing but they fail
implementing these maxims. This
phenomenon attracts the writer interest and
curiousity to find out what factors that
make these maxims cannot be fulfilled in a
conversation and to know which one of the
Gricean maxims is oftenly violated.

Review of Related Literature
In general language is a means of

communication. A languageis what the
members of a particular society speak
(Wardhaugh, 2006: 1). It cannot be
separated from our life as human being
who need language as a means of
communication when interact with the
others. The writer can conclude that
language and communication are two
terminologies that cannot be separated
from one another. When the term language
appears, the term communication appears
as well. This case can be analogous with
human beings and air that always take a
breath anytime.

Not only as a means of
communication, language is also as a
device to show oneself-identity. Via a
language people can express their point of
view/ understanding toward certain things,
origin of one’s nation, one’s education
even one’s nature.

As human beings language is
beneficial to maintain good social relations
with individuals and groups- expressions
of praise, sympathy, joy at another’s
success, inquires about health, control the
behavior of others through advice,
warnings, requests, persuasion, discussion
(Kamarudin, 2016: 17). Beside that



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language also can separate people through
unsupportive and divisive message on it.

Finocchiaro (in Kamarudin, 2016:
15) presents six functions of language;
they are: (1) Personal Function:
Language is used to express one’s emotion,
needs, thoughts, desires, attittudes, etc. (2)
Interpersonal Function: Language is used
to maintain good social relations with
individuals and groups – expression of
praise, sympathy, joy at another’s success,
inquiries abouth health, etc. (3) Directive
Function: language is used to control the
behavior others through advice, warnings,
requests, persuasion, discussion, etc. (4)
Referential Function:language is used to
talk about object or events in the
immediate setting or environment or in the
culture. (5) Metalinguistic Function:
language is used to talk about language. (6)
Imaginative Function: language is used to
creatively in rhyming, composing poetry,
etc.

In social science generally and
linguistics specifically, the cooperative
principle describe how effective
communication in conversation is achieved
in common social situation, that is, how
listeners and speakers must act
cooperatively and mutually accept one
another to be understood in a particular
way. As phrased by Grice a British
philosopher of language (in Brown and
Yule, 1983: 31) stated, “Make your
conversational contribution such as is
required, at the stage at which it occurs, by
the accepted purpose or direction of the
talk exchange in which you are engaged.”

The cooperative principle goes both
ways: speaker (generally) observe the
cooperative principle, and the listeners
(generally) assume that speakers are
observing it. When the maxims flouted this
allows for the possibility of implicature.
The term ‘Implicature’ is used by Grice (in
Brown and Yule, 1983: 31) to account for
what a speaker can imply, suggest, or
mean, as distinct from what the speaker
literally says. In line with Grice,( Yule,
1996: 35) defines implicature is something

that more than just what the words mean, it
is additional conveyed meaning. From
those above definition the writer can
conclude that implicature is meanings that
are not explicitly conveyed in what is
someone said. For example, A ask B to
come out tonight by saying, “Do you want
to come out with with me tonight? Then B
answers, “I am busy tonight”. From B’s
answer the possible implicature that arise
is B does not want to come related with
A’s question, Instead of saying no I don’t
B prefer to say I am busy tonight.
However, when people are engaged in a
conversation, people share general
principle that can make them interpret their
utterances that they create each other.

In addition, speaker should create
effective, efficient and rational
communication and can be said
cooperative in communication. If they
obey the four maxims, and if they do not
apply in their daily conversation, that is
called uncooperative in communication.
Speaker will not give information more
than is required and relevant to the topic.
Consequently, the message of the
information must clear and understandable,
and should avoid ambiguity and try to be
truthful people by saying the true
information.

The principle describes how
effective, meaningful, efficient
communication in conversation is
achieved/gained in common social
situation and is further broken down into
the four maxims: (1) Maxim of quantity:
Make your contribution as informative as
is required (for the current purpose of the
talk exchange). Do not make your
contribution more informative than is
required. (2) Maxim of quality: Do not say
what you believe to be false. Do not say
that for which you lack adequate evidence.
(3) Maxim of relevance: Be relevant (4)
Maxim of manner: Be perspicuous (avoid
ambiguity, avoid obscurity of expression,
be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity), be
orderly.



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These arise, it seems, from basic
rational considerations and may be
formulated as guidelines for the efficient
and effective use of language in
conversation to further co-operative ends
(Levinson, 1983: 101). It can be concluded
that when both parties (speaker and hearer)
obey these maxims they can create
effective, efficient and successful
communication also make the conversation
work effectively.

In his viewpoint Grice (1975)
analogize some common situations found
in daily life that underlie his theory of
Grice’s maxim as follow: (1) Quantity: if
you are assisting me to mend a car, I
expect your contribution to be neither more
nor less than is required; if, for example, at
a particular stage I need four screws, I
expect you hand me four, rather than two
or six. (2) Quality: I expect your
contribution to be genuine and not
spurious. If I need sugar as an ingredient in
the cake you are assisting me to make, I do
not expect you to hand me salt; ifi need a
spoon, I do not expect a trick spoon made
of rubber. (3) Relation: I expect a partner’s
contribution to be appropriate to immediate
needs at each stage of the transaction; if I
am mixing ingredients for a cake, I do not
expect to be handed a good book, or even
an oven cloth (though this might be an
appropriate contribution at a later stage)
(4) Manner: I expect a partner to make it
clear what contribution he is making, and
to execute his performance with reasonable
dispatch.

Grice suggests that the maxims are in
fact not arbitrary conventions, but rather
describe rational means for conducting co-
operative exchanges (Levinson, 1983:
103). In maxim quality, Grice proposed it
to be part of conversational behavior
dealing with the originality (what is
believe to be true) of information in each
turn of conversation. In this notion, quality
also refers to the conviction that each
participant will say or write something true
(do not lie).

Example of obeying maxim quality:
Background : two men (Adi and Bambang)
sitting in front of Adi’s terrace. At
particular moment Bambang asks Adi how
old is him:

Bambang: how old are you, Di?
Adi : I am 21 years old.

From the example above Adi give
information that is true ( about his real
age). Adi obeys the maxim of quality
where require someone to give true and
genuine information. Maxim of quantity
demands the speaker’s contribution
informative as is required and no more
informative than is required. Below are the
example of an utterance that obeys the
maxim of quantity and one that violates the
maxim:

Example of obeying the maxim of
quantity

Background: Imam and Komang are
doing a conversation, talking about
football game last night. At a
particular time Komang leave Imam
suddenly then Imam ask him.
Imam : where are you going?
Komang: I am going to canteen.
From the example above Komang
replies Imam’s question properly,
not more nor less about where is he
heading to. Then can be seen that
Komang adheres to maxim of
quantity where this maxim require
the speaker give an informative
contribution as is required ( not
more nor less).

In maxim of relevance or relation
require the speaker to be relevant with the
topic of discussion. Below are the example
of utterances that obeys the maxim of
relevance and that one violates the maxim:

Background: Azim ask Munir about
where is his cellphone .
Azim : bro..where is my cellphone?
Munir: it is on the table.
In the example above Munir give
answer that relate to Azim’s question



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(about his cellphone is). Munir do
not say something else.
Maxim of manner requires the

speaker to avoid obscurity of expression
and ambiguity statements/sentences.
Maxim of manner demands the speaker to
be brief and orderly. Below are the
example of obeying this maxim and that
one which violates it.

Example of obeying maxim of manner
Background: a stranger man ask Azam
where the nearest Bank.
Stranger man : excuse me..may I ask
you something?
Azam : yes. please
Stranger man: how to get to the
nearest bank?

Azam: go ahead until you find
crossroad. Go straight at the crossroad. The
bank is 100 away from the crossroad. It is
in your left side. From the example above
azam’s answer about stanger’s question is
brief, orderly without any abscurity of
expression and ambiguity utterance.

RESEARCH METHOD
This study has been conducted using

descriptive qualitative method. According
to Huberman (in Edi, 2016: 16) Qualitative
research is a research procedure that
produces descriptive data in the form of
words written or spoken about the
properties of an individual, the state or the
symptoms of a particular group can be
observed.

Based on Bodgan & Biklen (in
Sugiyono, 2014: 121) there are five
characteristics of qualitative method. (1)
The natural setting is the direct source of
data, and the researcher is the key
instrument in qualitative. (2) Qualitative
data are collected in the form of words or
picture rather than numbers. (3) Qualitative
researchers are concerned with process as
well as product. (4) Qualitative researchers
tend to analyze their data inductively. (5)
How people make sense out of their lives
is a major concern to qualitative
researchers. Subject of the research was
active EZC students and the object was

Grice’s maxim violation in daily
conversation. Instrument of the study were
recording and interview. In collecting the
data the researcher used 2 different
techniques, namely observation and
interview. While doing obsevation the
researcher recorded the conversation
secretly as to keep the validity of the data.
in interview the researcher asked what the
reason of EZC students violate the Gricean
maxims in their daily conversation. In data
analysis, the researcher used theory
framework of Gricean maxims to answer
which one of Gricean maxims that is
oftenly being violated while to find out
what factor that may cause the violation
the researcher used Miles and Huberman
technique based on the interview result of
the EZC students.

RESEARCH FINDING AND
DISCUSSION

Table 1.
Frequency of Maxims Violations

N
o.

Gricean Maxim Frequency

1Maxim of
Quantity

30 Times

2Maxim of Quality 20 Times
3Maxim of

Relevance
5 Times

4Maxim of
Manner

10 Times

By looking at the result of the
interview and supported with the recording
of the daily conversation of ezc it shows
that cultural value that is adhered by
Indonesian people really influence the way
they treat the maxim in their daily
conversation. As cutting (2002) says
different culture, countries and
communities have their own  way of
observing and expressing maxims  for
particular situation. Then in line with
Cutting, Cline (2006) states cultural values
systems influence discourse patterns and
promote the different communicative
styles. From the violation number of
maxim quantity (30 times) and interview
result of EZC shows that for Indonesian
people being cooperative means giving



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information more than what is required by
the hearer. It contradicts with what Grice
says that being cooperative means giving
the right amount of information needed by
the hearer. According to them by giving
only information that is needed by the
hearer will make them to be consider
unfriendly and impolite. For example:

Yanti : Ada film baru?
(Is there any new movie?)
Diana : Ada. Ada banyak ada

film korea ada film
holliwood

(Yes, there is. There are movies of
holliwood and korean.)

Eky : Hari apa itu?
(What day is that?)
Amar : Hari jum’at, jumat jam

empat
(Friday, Friday at 4.)

By looking at two of the maxim
quantity violation above commonly the
speaker give more information that the
hearer needs. It makes the theory of grice’s
that say when the speaker  apparently gives
more information than the hearer need it
will generate the implicature is not fully
true because they accustom to do it that
make them do not fully realize because it is
considered habitual. As stated before
implicature is something meant, implied,
or suggested as distinct from what is said.
Politeness in Indonesia seems to be placed
in the speaker’s mind from his or her early
childhood on. Therefore, the concept of
communictive politeness represents
indonesian culture. Concerning the maxim
of quantity cross-culturally, Keenan (2000)
states that in testing the maxim “Be
informative” cross-culturally, we do not
expect to find that in some societies the
maxim always holds and in some societies
the maxim never holds. It is improbable for
example, that there is some society in
which being informative is categorically
inappropriate. Differences between
societies, if there are any, are more likely
to be differences in specification of
domains in which the maxim is expected to

hold and differences in the degree to which
members are expected to conform to this
maxim.

The second factor of violating the
maxims is because of social distance where
according to EZC member they assume
that there are no rule in conversation. It
makes them when they speak with their
friend they tend to speak freely and
arbitrarily without thingking twice in
producing their utterances though it is in
unclear, ambiguous or even unrelated
utterances.

Uci : Eeee anuk ni ee apa namanya
eee obat segala macam
penyakit

(Eeee what?? Oil for all disease)
Eky : Pegel linu itu
(For pain)
Uci : Kamu tu jal obat jomblo juga
(You can use it to get girl)
Fairul : Udah seminar?
(Have you done seminar)
Nur : Udah donk
(Yes, done)
Matla : Aee yang udah seminar
(Aee you have done seminar)
Nur : Belum (ketawa)
(Not yet (laughing))
Yanti : Tapi kalo dia kan make ini

dia baru mesen lo belum
dia make dia negatif lo
hasilnya

(But he consume it while he just
order, did not consume it
yet the test said he is
negatif)

Fairul : O ya negatif berarti belum
hamil

(O ya negatif means he is not
pregnant yet)

Diana : Belum jadi tersangka sih
kalo masih negatif kan

(He is not suspect yet because he is
negative, right?)

Diana : Belum jadi tersangka sih
kalo masih negatif kan ya

(He is not suspect if his test still
negatif)



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97

Yanti : Udah tersangka. Berarti
hipotesisnya ketolak dia
negatif (ketawa)

(He is suspect. Meaning his
hyphothesis is rejected
because of negative
(laughing))

From the violation data above it
shows that a boundary in informal talk
exchange is not limitation for them since
they realize that they have equal position
socialy then it will be different case when
they speak with people who have higher
position socially such as teacher, lecturer,
etc. It can be seen in the last violation
above they use their unrelated utterances as
a joke, where a joke can show that how
close one with the other or even in the
second violation one of the participants
openly state that she gives untrue
information since she assumes that there
will be no big problem occur when she
commits the violation to their friend
compared with when she does it with
people who have higher position socialy or
even stranger it will generate a bigger
problem for her (for instance, people may
think that they have problem mentally etc).
it shows that It will be hard to follow these
maxims in the talk-exchange. This is what
become the main objection by Levinson
(1983) that states these maxims only can
be applied in a letter rather than verbal
talk-exchange where it is oriented to.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
After analyzing the data which were

taken from the data recording of daily
conversation of EZC students, it can be
concluded that: (1)The maxims which are
violated in the study are maxim of quantity
(30 times), maxim of quality (20 times),
maxim of manner (10 times) and maxim of
relevance (5 times). (2) Although the
samples of this study have a background
knowledge of the maxims, but they still
violate it. The reason for violating the
maxims are cultural factor, as Indonesian
prefers to apply indirectness strategy and
western countries prefer directness strategy

while conversing. The cause for violating
is also social distance.

After the writer explains and
concludes the finding in the field, the
writer would like to suggest as follows: (1)
This research needs to be followed up by
other research works in larger scope. The
research with the larger scope is needed to
elaborate more aspects and reasons deal
with the phenomena of disobeying Gricean
maxims in daily conversation. (2) For all
participants in a conversation need to learn
more deeply about the maxims theory
proposed by Grice as a guidance in
understanding the delivered meaning of
one’s utterances in the conversation. (3)
This study can be used as a reference for
the next researcher who has the same
interest in examining the way people
communicate one another in daily
conversation.

REFERENCES
Brown, G. and George Yule. 1983.

Discourse Analysis. New York:
Cambridge University Press.

Cutting, J. 2002. Pragmatics and
Discourse. resource book for
student: London and New York.

Grice, H. 1975. Logic and Conversation~.
Cole, P. and Morgan, J. (eds.).
Syntax and Semantics, volume 9:
Pragmatics, p. 41-58. New York:
Academic Press.

Kamarudin. 2016. Discourse Analysis, an
introduction: (a learning resource
for English learner): Fakultas
Pendidikan Bahasa Dan Seni Ikip
Mataram press.

Levinsson, S. C. 1983. Pragmatics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Sugiyono. 2014. Metode penelitian
kuantitatif kualitatif dan r&d.
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Wardaugh, R. 2006. An introduction to
sociolinguistics fifth edition:
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Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics.Oxford
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