THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES BIỆN HOÀNG THẠCH A STUDY OF IMPLICATURES IN OSCAR FILMS OF THE 20th CENTURY MASTER THESIS IN LINGUISTICS AND CULTURAL STUDIES OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES Da Nang, 2021 THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES BIỆN HOÀNG THẠCH A STUDY OF IMPLICATURES IN OSCAR FILMS OF THE 20th CENTURY Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 822.01 MASTER THESIS IN LINGUISTICS AND CULTURAL STUDIES OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES Supervisor: Assoc. PHAN VĂN HÒA Da Nang, 2021 i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Except where reference is made in the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole, or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without acknowledgement in the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution.
Danang, December 2021 BIỆN HOÀNG THẠCH ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Phan Văn Hòa, Da Nang University of Foreign Language Studies, for his support, guidance, patience and inspiration in researching and writing this thesis. I could not have imagined having a better supervisor for my M. I also express my gratitude to lecturers at Da Nang University of Foreign Language for their positive and encouraging impacts on my work in one way or another.
Finally, my special thanks and blessings go to my parents and my friends for their love and support in any respect during the completion of the thesis. Their well- being is of great inspiration to me all the time. iii ABSTRACT This study investigates maxim violations in three Oscar-winning movies: Gone with the Wind; The Godfather and Hamlet. Grice’s maxims are used in daily conversations to create a comprehensive and purposeful conversation by making a proper answer in response to the message of the counterpart.
However, dialogists often either obey or violate Grice’s maxims for various purposes such as concealing a truth, fooling the other speaker, or expressing an implied message. Besides being spotted in many daily conversations, Grice’s maxim violations are also found in movie lines. The researcher uses Gone with the Wind; The Godfather, and Hamlet movie scripts to be investigated to analyze Grice’s maxim violations by the characters’ responses. Three Oscar-winning movies create the possibility of maxim violations on the speakers’ utterances.
Therefore, two research questions are formulated to achieve the objectives of the study. The first research question is about which Grice’s maxims are violated in The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, and Hamlet movies. The second one is about the similarities and differences of frequency and linguistic features in creating Maxim violations in The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, and Hamlet films. The finding in this research for the first research question revealed that there were four types of Grice’s maxim were violated in The Godfather, Gone with the Wind and Hamlet movies namely, maxim of Quantity, maxim of Quality, maxim of Relevance, and maxim of Manner.
For the second research question, the researcher showed that comparing similarities and differences of frequency and linguistic features in the creating Maxim violations in The Godfather, Gone with the Wind and Hamlet films can add a better understanding of the author’s purposes in creating maxim violations among three films. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES. vii Chapter One.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES. SCOPE OF THE STUDY. SIGNIFICATION OF THE STUDY. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY.
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. PREVIOUS RESEARCHES RELATED TO THE STUDY. Definition of Key Terms. Grice’s Cooperative Principle.
PROCEDURES OF DATA COLLECTIONS. RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. VIOLATION OF GRICE’S MAXIMS IN GONE WITH THE WIND, THE GODFATHER AND HAMLET.
Violation of Quantity Maxim in Gone With The Wind, The Godfather and Hamlet. Violation of Quality Maxim in Gone with the Wind, The Godfather and Hamlet. Violation of Manner Maxim in Gone With The Wind, The Godfather and Hamlet. Violation of Relevance Maxim in Gone With The Wind, The Godfather and Hamlet.
SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN THE CREATING MAXIM VIOLATIONS AMONG THE THREE OSCAR WINNING MOVIES. Difference of reasons for violating conversational maxims in the three movies. Noticeable times of flouting the maxim of manner in Gone with the wind. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS.
The implications for the Vietnamese learners of English:. The implications for the Vietnamese translators. The implications for the Vietnamese teachers. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY.
66 QUYẾT ĐỊNH GIAO ĐỀ TÀI LUẬN VĂN (Bản sao) APPENDIX. 69 vii LIST OF TABLES Numbers Names of Tables Pages of Tables 4. Maxim Violation by main characters in The Godfather 18 4. Maxim Violation by main characters in Hamlet 19 Maxim violation by main characters in Gone With The 4.
19 Wind Special reasons for violating conversational maxims in 4. 36 The Godfather Special reasons for violating conversational maxims in 4. 41 Gone with the Wind Special reasons for violating conversational maxims in 4. 49 Hamlet 1 Chapter One INTRODUCTION 1.
RATIONALE Communication plays fundamental importance to the existence, survival, and development of human beings. Communication is a process of sharing ideas, information, viewpoints, feelings, etc. from person to person to reach a mutual understanding. In order to reach this objective, language is the core.
Language is eventually essential since it is the primary means through which humans communicate and interact with one another. It is apparent that communication, language, and interaction are closely interrelated. However, reaching a common understanding is not always easy as interlocutors have to apply themselves in the specific context that their counterparts are referring to. This is a real challenge to Vietnamese learners of English since they often pay little attention to the implied message, respond improperly, then fail in communicating with others.
Recognizing conversational implicatures exactly and responding appropriately can be considered as language learners’ pragmatic competence. In numerous everyday discussions, conversationalists are in some cases a lot wordier than required or answer an inquiry with an insignificant reply. Great correspondence is important to make the association runs well and successfully. Audience members and speakers should talk agreeably and commonly acknowledge each other to be perceived with a certain goal in mind.
So Grice (1975) proposes the cooperative Principle which states “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.” Cooperative Principles enable speakers to shape their utterances so that they are received by listeners. The phrase “Make your conversational contribution such as required” suggests that the speakers should provide enough information without providing too much. The phrase “At the stage which it occurs” means that the 2 speaker's utterances should be relevant to the context of the speech. The phrase "by the accepted purpose or direction of the discourse exchange in which you are engaged" implies that speakers should deliver meaning clearly and simply, avoiding ambiguity.
The Cooperative Principle describes how to achieve effective conversational communication in everyday social situations. Grice (1975) proposes four conversational maxims that he claims most people follow in order to communicate effectively. Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Quantity, Maxim of Relevance, and Maxim of Manner are the four maxims. In my research, I chose to examine Grice's maxim violations because implicature is directly associated with the meaning of a sentence rather than the meaning of an utterance.
As a result, the listener in a conversation is more likely to fully comprehend what the speaker is attempting to convey. Without a doubt, watching English films can help English learners approach the language in a more complex way. Film is an important medium for gaining a deep understanding of human emotions and thoughts. As a result, in this study, I chose Maxim violations in Oscar films that are created or directed to follow the scheme devised by the director.
Language has a relationship with movies as a communication method as well. The three chosen Oscar-winning films are Gone with the Wind; The Godfather and Hamlet. All of them are interesting and meaningful films that can inspire the audience. The first film is Gone with the Wind, which has been viewed as one of the most incredible known and best movies ever.
Gone with the Wind, delivered in 1939, is an amazing American epic verifiable sentiment film. Notwithstanding its eight Academy Awards, the film likewise acquired two privileged honors, which expanded its number of Oscars to 10. Being adjusted from the top-rated 1936 novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, the film is very nearly 4 hours in length (3 hours and 58 minutes) with a 20-minute interlude. The film, set in the nineteenth-century American South, recounts an account of American Civil War and Reconstruction time according to a Southern perspective with the middle person of Scarlett O'Hara (played by Vivien 3 Leigh), a hardheaded and unusual Southern beauty.
The second movie is The Godfather, which is a 1972 American crime movie coordinated by Francis Ford Coppola and delivered by Albert S. Rosy from a screenplay by Mario Puzo and Coppola. In light of Puzo's 1969 novel of a similar name, The Godfather stars Marlon Brando as the head of an amazing Italian-American wrongdoing family. The film is generally viewed as one of Hollywood's most noteworthy basic and business victories.
It won three Oscars in 1972: Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay (for Puzo and Coppola) at the 45th Academy Awards. The movie likewise got 7 other Oscar designations including Pacino, James Can, and Robert Duvall for Best Supporting Actor and Coppola for Best Director. The last film chosen is Hamlet, a 1948 British film transformation of William Shakespeare's play of a similar name. The film is adjusted and coordinated by Laurence Olivier, who likewise plays Prince Hamlet.
Olivier's Hamlet is the Shakespeare film form that got the most prestigious honors in the absolute of 50 Hamlet motion pictures, winning the 21st Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor just as the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1948. The film begins with the phantom of the King of Denmark advising his child Hamlet to vindicate his homicide by killing the new ruler - Hamlet's uncle and stepfather. Eventually, the King, the Queen, Hamlet's rival, and Hamlet himself are completely killed. Concerning all the reasons above, the researcher decided to carry a study named “A STUDY OF IMPLICATURES IN OSCAR FILMS OF THE 20th CENTURY”.
Hopefully, the proposal assists with working on the understanding towards significance, purposes, and uses of proverb infringement, consequently, the discoveries of this examination can make a minor commitment to English educating and learning in Vietnam. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 1. Aims The study of implicatures in Oscar films of the 20th century aims at: 4 - Exploring how Maxim violations in particular work in terms of creating meaning through linguistic features in the context of the films chosen. - Understanding deeply Maxim violations, from which the thesis the writer will have some practical for Vietnamese users of English to be able to use Maxim violations as an effective tool in communication.
Objectives The study of implicatures in Oscar films of the 20th century is targeted at: - Identifying Maxim violations in the films - Finding out if producing Maxim violations can cause misunderstanding, which may breakdown the conversation - Describing, classifying, and comparing Maxim violations in terms of semantics and pragmatics in the films 1. What types of Maxim violations are identified in the conversations made by the characters in The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, and Hamlet films? 2. What are the similarities and differences of frequency and linguistic features in the creating Maxim violations in The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, and Hamlet films? 1.