A study on how scriptwriters flout certain
maxims of Grice's cooperative principle to
create verbal irony through the sitcom "Friends"
from episode 1 to episode 10

Đào Thị Vân Hồng

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Trần Xuân Điệp
Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Keywords:

Content:
PART 1: THE INTRODUCTION
1.1.Rationale
Verbal irony is a common form of speech used in daily discourse. The reason why irony
is deliberately chosen over its literal counterpart is because it serves several functions that cannot
be achieved through a literal utterance. These functions are derived from the very nature of
verbal irony that distinguishes it from a literal statement.
There are many ways to create verbal irony. Different approaches have different ways to
clarify the mechanism in which verbal irony is generated, but none of which has reached their
fulfillment. This study, thus, is carried out in the light of pragmatic approach in which verbal
irony is considered to be the product of the art of flouting certain maxims of Grice‟s cooperative
principle (Grice, 1975). This theory helps to analyze not only the linguistic features of an ironic
utterance but also its functions in comparison with its literal counterpart. This is the first reason
why the author decided to choose Grice‟s cooperative principle the basis for this study.
It is also necessary to provide an explanation for the choice of analyzing the scripts of the
sitcom “Friends”. According to Alison, “although British comedy has a high reputation and used
to claim a higher degree of subtlety and irony, some of the most popular recent sitcoms are from

when interlocutors aim to generate verbal irony, although the maxim of quality is the most likely
to be flouted as stated by Levinson (1984), other maxims are flouted as well. Besides, by
exploring the art of flouting certain maxims of Grice‟s cooperative principles to create irony, the
author means to give evidence that linguistic features do contribute a great deal to the success of
that sitcom.
1.4.2. In practice
It is because language is for communication. In other words, language is used to
realize socio-cultural functions, some of which can be to save face or amuse people. In these
situations, in order to communicate successfully (in both production and reception), people
should be more able to realize these functions. Thus, this paper aims at facilitating
interlocutors to be better-aware of the cases when speakers flout certain maxims with the
intention of generating verbal irony, which helps interlocutors to be more successful in
communication.
1.5. Scope of the study
The research on non-observances of maxims of Grice‟s cooperative principle is so
broad that it is impossible to cover all its aspects. Therefore, this study narrows down the
study only to the art of flouting certain maxims of Grice‟s cooperative principles to create
verbal irony.
Furthermore, the data are only collected from scripts of the American sitcom “Friends” in
the first season (from episode 1 to episode 10) in regard with the limit of time.
Also, this paper will not be able to deal with the cultural differences when analyzing
ironic dialogues because of the limit of time although is also clear that, in many cases, the fact
that people in non-English speaking countries cannot completely understand irony in English is
due to cultural differences.
Besides, in the scope of this study, figures‟ characters and traits which may have some
effect on the style of humor and the change of voices which sometimes plays a important role in
understanding irony will not be discussed. The reason is that thorough studies on these subjects
will be too broad for this research.

1.6. Design of the study

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