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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

ĐINH THỊ PHƯỢNG

AN ANALYSIS OF THE REALIZATION OF GRICE'S COOPERATIVE
PRINCIPLE IN PRESIDETIAL LIVE DEBATES BETWEEN
DONALD TRUMP AND HILLARY CLINTON
(Phân tích sự hiện thực hóa ngun tắc cộng tác hội thoại của Grice
trong các cuộc tranh luận trực tiếp giữa Donald Trump và Hillary Clinton)

MASTER THESIS (Type 1)

Field : English linguistics (applied programme)
Code : 8220201.01

HANOI – 2019


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

ĐINH THỊ PHƯỢNG

AN ANALYSIS OF THE REALIZATION OF GRICE'S COOPERATIVE
PRINCIPLE IN PRESIDETIAL LIVE DEBATES BETWEEN
DONALD TRUMP AND HILLARY CLINTON


(Phân tích sự hiện thực hóa ngun tắc cộng tác hội thoại của Grice
trong các cuộc tranh luận trực tiếp giữa Donald Trump và Hillary Clinton)

MASTER THESIS (Type 1)

Field

: English linguistics

Code

: 8220201.01

Supervisor

: NGUYỄN THU HẠNH Ph.D

HANOI – 2019


STATEMENT OF THESIS AUTHORSHIP
I declare that the thesis I wrote entitled " An Analysis of the Realization of
Grice's Cooperative Principle in Presidetial Live Debates Between Donald Trump
and Hillary Clinton" is truthfully my original work and did not incorporate to any
material previously written or published by another author or writer except those
indicated in quotations, paraphrasing method and bibliography. Due to this fact, I am
the only person responsible for the thesis if there is any objection or claim from others.

i



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I owe deep and sincere gratitude to my kind supervisor, Dr.
Nguyen Thu Hanh. I appreciate her constant encouragement, invaluable advice, and
generous supervision which eventually help to improve the quality of this work.
I am also grateful to all my friends who help during the preparation of this
thesis. Without their motivation, help and kind support I would never have
started my M.A. studies
Finally, my words will never be sufficient to express my thanks to my family
members, my parents, my husband, and my children for their financial, and moral
support.

ii


ABSTRACT
This study was aimed at identifying the non-observance of Grice's maxims and
investigating the forces behind that breaching in the three American televised
presidential debate in 2016 between Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, and
Donald Trump, the nominee of the Republic Party. The data were collected from three
downloaded videos of the presidential debates in 2016. Qualitative method was
employed in processing the transcription of the data. The data were identified,
classified, and then investigated based on Grice's Cooperative Principle proposed by
Grice (1975). The findings show that Clinton and Trump violated and flouted all the
maxims in which they committed more violation than flouting and Trump failed to
observe the maxims more often than Clinton. The most violated maxims were the
maxim of quantity and relation while the most observed was maxim of manner. The
study reveals that Trump and Clinton violated the maxims to deceive or mislead the
listeners. They both employed this strategy to strengthen their image as well as weaken
the opponent's preferability. On the other side, they sometimes flouted the maxim of

all kinds with the purpose of making their arguments more persuasive and convincing.
In conclusion, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton repeatedly failed to observe Grice's
conversational maxims in all the debates and they exploited this rhetoric to present
themselves positively and other negatively to gain the listeners' approval.
Key words: cooperative principle, conversational maxims, violating, flouting,
persuading, deceiving.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF THESIS AUTHORSHIP .............................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. iii
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................... vi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1
1.1. Background of the Study ......................................................................................... 1
1.2. Rationale of the Study ............................................................................................. 2
1.3. Research Objectives ................................................................................................ 2
1.4. Research Questions ................................................................................................. 3
1.5. Research Scope and Limitation ............................................................................... 3
1.6. Research Significance ............................................................................................. 3
1.7. Organization of the Thesis....................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ................................................... 4
2.1.Concepts of Pragmatics ............................................................................................ 4
2.2. Pragmatics and Conversational Implicature ............................................................ 5
2.3. Pragmatics and Cooperative Principle..................................................................... 5
2.4. The Cooperative Principles and Grice's Maxim ...................................................... 6
2.4.1. Maxim of Quantity ............................................................................................... 6

2.4.2. Maxim of Quality ................................................................................................. 6
2.4.3. Maxim of Relevance: ........................................................................................... 7
2.4.4. Maxim of Manner ................................................................................................. 8
2.5. Non-Observance of Grice's Maxims ....................................................................... 8
2.5.1. Maxim Violation .................................................................................................. 9
2.5.3. Maxim Opting out .............................................................................................. 14
2.5.4. Maxim Infringement ........................................................................................... 15
2.6. Language Power in Presidential Debates. ............................................................ 15
2.6.1. Presidential Debates and Persuasive Function in the United States ................... 15
2.6.2. Language Power in Presidential Debates ........................................................... 16

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................ 19
3.1. Research Design .................................................................................................... 19
3.2. Research Instrument .............................................................................................. 19
3.3. Data and Source of Data ........................................................................................ 20
3.4. Technique of Data Collection ................................................................................ 22
3.5. Techniques of Data Analysis ................................................................................. 22
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...................................................... 24
4.1.Trump and Clinton's Violation of Grice's Maxims ................................................ 24
4.1.1. Violation of Quantity Maxim ............................................................................ 25
4.1.2. Violation of Relevance Maxim .......................................................................... 30
4.1.3. Violation of Quality Maxim ............................................................................... 37
4.1.4. Violation of manner maxim................................................................................ 42
4.2. Flouting Maxims ................................................................................................... 46
4.2.1.Flouting the Quantity Maxim .............................................................................. 47
4.2.2. Flouting the Quality Maxim ............................................................................... 49
4.2.3. Flouting the Relation Maxi ................................................................................. 51

4.2.4. Flouting the Manner Maxim ............................................................................... 53
4.3. The Forces of the Non-observance of Grice's Maxims ......................................... 56
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS ........................................... 62
5.1. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 62
5.2. Limitation .............................................................................................................. 64
5.3. Suggestion ............................................................................................................. 64
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 66
APPENDIX..................................................................................................................... I

v


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Clinton and Trump's Frequencies of Grice's maxims Violation ....................24
Table 2: Example of Trump's violation of the relation maxim .....................................32
Table 3: Clinton and Trump's Flouting Grice's Maxims ..............................................49

vi


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the researcher briefly presents the background and rationale of
the study. The research objective and research questions are also mentioned. Next, the
researcher limits the research scope corresponding to its significance as well as
presents the brief outline of the research.
1.1. Background of the Study
In recent years, more and more studies have been conducted on pragmatics.
Pragmatics is defined as the study of the context-dependent fields of meaning which
are systematically abstracted away from the construction of logical form (Horn &
Ward, 2004). Within the field of pragmatics, there are various aspects which are worth

investigating. The cooperative principle is among the most interesting topics learned
and analyzed. The cooperative principle controls the way people interact one another
effectively and sensitively. In other words, to get a satisfying conversation, the
speaker is assumed to be cooperative by saying truthfully, informatively, relevantly
and appropriately. There have been numerous pragmatics theories concerned the
Cooperative Principle among which Grice's Theory of Conversational Implicature
and Cooperative Principle has captured the attention and popularity the most. The
Cooperative Principle and its four maxims are very essential contribution to
pragmatics. Grice asserts that in a conversation the interlocutors are supposed to
follow the rules of specific maxims, namely quantity, relation, quality, and manner
maxim, to speak cooperatively with one another. Grice also asserts that

when

interlocutors fail to follow the maxims in their exchange of talk, they break the
cooperative principle for some purposes. This, according to Grice, can occur in four
ways: violating, flouting, infringing, and opting -out a maxim. Apart from opting out
and infringing a maxim, violation and flouting are divided into four types,
corresponding to four kinds of maxims.
Among discourses analyzed on pragmatics, presidential debates are more and
more chosen as materials of many linguistic studies because of its interesting richness
in both politics and language. Presidential debates are considered an institutional
component of the presidential campaign process. Compared to other campaigning
genres, presidential debates give the electorates "a somehow less contrived
1


impression" (Benoit and Harthcock, 1999, p.341). American televised presidential
debate is the most well-known political event. It is the most followed, viewed, and
intensively studied by numerous researchers in different aspects. In terms of linguistic

study, American presidential debates have drawn a lot of attention from popular
linguistic theorists. In a presidential debate, the candidates can realize their goals of
gaining the voters' approval through different manipulations of which non-observance
of Grice's maxims is quite useful because it helps them establish their preferability. In
other words, non-observance of the conversational maxims can help the candidate to
influence the audience's thinking and behavior respectively.
1.2. Rationale of the Study
The 2016 presidential debates in the United States have drawn the attention not
only from the Americans but from the audience all over the world because of it
interesting features. The topic discussed in the debates are those of public interest. It
is challenging for the candidates to give talk in the debates because they do not know
the questions in advance. Therefore, their answers are more useful for the public to
learn more about them. Unlike previous presidential elections, this was the
competition of a typical politician candidate and a typical businessman candidate. The
suitability of this case for analysis resulted from the observation that Donald Trump
and Hillary Clinton, whether consciously or unconsciously, failed to follow the
Cooperative Principle many times. As can be seen, although there have been some
studies on Cooperative Principle in political discourse, there is a lack of study on the
realization of the conversational maxims and its functions in relation to candidates'
purposes of persuasion. Besides, it was the first time in the American history of
presidential election when a nominee was not a typical politician and the other was a
woman, so the study will be in high demand and draw large interest.
1.3. Research Objectives
This study mainly rely on pragmatics field, especially in conversational
maxims. The cooperative conversational maxims by Grice (1975) is employed to
analyze how the presidential nominees fail to follow the maxims in 2016 American
televised presidential debates. The researcher sets the focuses on the non-observance
of Grice's cooperative maxims because this can make the research analyzed more
deeply and interestingly. The researcher wants to have deeper understanding of the
2



candidates' realization of the Cooperative Principle in their exchanges of talk, which is
purposely directed by their personal goals in the debates.
1.4. Research Questions
This research is conducted to answer the following questions:
1. How did the two candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump fail to
observe Grice's cooperative maxims?
2. What can be the pragmatic functions behind the nominees' non-observance of
Grice's maxims?
1.5. Research Scope and Limitation
This study relies on pragmatics area especially in Conversational maxims. The
researcher uses Conversational maxim theory proposed by Grice to analyze hoe the
interlocutors of the televised American 2016 presidential debates violated and flouted
Grice's conversational maxims. The researcher focuses on the non-observance of
Grice's conversational maxims in Trump and Clinton's answers in the three abovementioned debates.
1.6. Research Significance
The findings of this study are supposed to give contributions theoretically and
practically. Theoretically, this research is expected to broaden the researcher's and
reader's knowledge in the pragmatics which is particularly related to the cooperative
principle and maxim breaching. This study is also expected to be useful in helping
linguistics students to get more resources about cooperative principles or maxim nonobservance as well as inspire other researchers to develop further researchers on the
topic, especially topics of violating and flouting in political discourses.
1.7. Organization of the Thesis
The study was divided into five chapters. Following this brief introductionChapter 1, Chapter 2 discusses the Cooperative Principle by Grice and its maxims
which are focused on the way they are observed or breached. Besides, the researcher
also gives outline of common features of language use in political debates. Chapter 3
presents the method used in the study, the data to be analyzed and its context. Chapter
4 is devoted to the analysis the candidates' non-observance of the maxims and find
out its persuasion functions. It tries to answer the research questions that motivated

this study. Chapter 5 presents conclusion of the study and its limitations as well as
suggestions for future research avenues in the field of political discourse analysis.
3


CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
In this chapter, the researcher presents the theoretical background of the study.
Conceptual frame work of the theories or concepts relating to the research work are
mentioned as a direction of the analysis. They include concepts of pragmatics,
conversational implicature, Grice's conversational principle with its special maxims. The
researcher also presents Benoit's functional theory applied to explain the research result.
In addition, the topic-related previous studies are mentioned in this chapter as well.
A. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2.1.Concepts of Pragmatics
Pragmatics is one of the fields that is devoted to examine the linguistic
meaning. Throughout history, pragmatics has appeared as an essential level in the
study of language for its interdisciplinary feature linking the branches of philosophy,
psychology and language studies. Verschueren (1999) considers the study of
linguistics developed from phonology to syntax; then, from syntax to semantics, and
finally from

semantics to pragmatics. Yule defines pragmatics as the branch of

linguistics that "is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker
(or writer) and interpreted by a listener (or a reader)" (Yule, 2011, p.43). Leech (1983)
sees pragmatics as the study of how an utterance gets its meaning in the situation.
Levinson (1983) defines pragmatics is the study of the relations between language and
context that are basic to an account of language understanding. Mey and Jacob (2001)
refer to the context as the user and his or her conditions of production and
consumption of language that in the final analysis determine the way his or her words

are understood. In other words, utterances cannot be understood in isolation but the
text should be provided with context which plays a role to make the meaning of the
utterances worthy
In conclusion, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not
only on structural and linguistic competence (grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker
and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about
those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors. These can be
called the facts of pragmatics dealing. The facts are of various sorts of information.
First, it deals with the facts about the objective context information of the
4


interlocutors, time and place of the conservation. Second, pragmatics concerns the
speaker's intentions. It also considers the shared beliefs between the interlocutors, and
the conversation they are engaged in. Last, pragmatics is related to facts about relevant
social institutions, such as promising, marriage ceremonies, courtroom procedures, and
the like, which affect what a person accomplishes in or by saying what she does.
2.2. Pragmatics and Conversational Implicature
Implicature is one of the most important topics under pragmatic study. In
conversation, sometimes the speaker does not explicitly express what she/he means.
What she/he utters is not always the same as what she/he means. There is an intended
meaning called implicature behind her/his utterances. Among the most influential
pragmatic theories that has captured the attention of the famous linguistic
researchers is Gricean Theory of Conversational Implicature. The distinction between
what the speaker literally says with used words and what the speaker means or intends
to communicate is emphasized by Grice. The speaker's claim, conventional
implicature, is determined by the conventional meaning of the sentence uttered and
contextual processes of disambiguation and reference fixing; while her imply,
conversational implicature, is associated with the existence of some rational principles
and maxims governing conversation. What is said has been widely identified with the

literal content of the utterance; what is implicated, the implicature, with the non-literal
meaning, which is intentionally communicated, but not said, by the speaker.
In conclusion, conversational implicatures are the properties that convey additional
meaning which is behind the semantic meaning of the words. Interlocutors are able to
derive implicature depending on drawing related inferences to the particular utterance.
2.3. Pragmatics and Cooperative Principle
Levinson (1983) defines that pragmatics is the study of those relations between
language and context that are grammaticalized, or encoded in the structure of a
language. It is the way the interlocutors accomplish goals as social actors who do not just
need to get things done, but must pay attention to their interpersonal relationships with
other participants at the same time (Leech, 1983). One of the ways to accomplish goals as
social actors in a particular conversation is by following the cooperative principle. The
cooperative principle is one of the aspects that is solved in pragmatics. It is dealt by Paul
Grice in his paper Logic and Conversation. By observing this principle, the conversation
5


is expected to develop smoothly. The cooperative principle is defined as a set of rules in
an ordinary conversation. It is formulated as follows: "make your 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" (Grice, 1975, p.45). According to Grice, the
cooperative principle can be elaborated in four sub-principles called maxims by Grice:
maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relation and maxim of manner.
2.4. The Cooperative Principles and Grice's Maxim
2.4.1. Maxim of Quantity
Super-maxim: be informative.
Sub-maxim: 1. Make your contribution as informative as required (for the current
purpose of the conversation);
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than required.
The maxim of quantity controls the amount of information shared between participants

in a conversation falls under the maxim of quantity (Grice, 1975). The speaker should
try to deliver the message as informative as required (for the present goal of
exchange). In other words, quantity maxim is about remaining a balance of contributed
information that does not overwhelm the other person, but is not too vague.
Mc.Cornack et. al. (1992) argues that the manipulation of the maxim of quantity
includes information that satisfy the other maxims of quality, relevance, and manner.
For example:
Husband: Where are the keys?
Wife:

They are on the table in the hall (Thomas,1995, p.64)

In the above dialogue, the wife is observing maxim of quantity by giving right
amount of information that is required by her husband. She says precisely what she
means. There is no additional conveyed meaning in the wife's answer.
2.4.2. Maxim of Quality
Super-maxim: Be truthful
Sub-maxims: 1. Do not say what you believe to be false;
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Telling the truth and ensuring shared information is accurate is governed by the
maxim of quality. Cutting (2002) explains that the speakers fulfill maxim of quality if
they are sincere. The speakers are expected to give information that they believe
6


corresponds to reality and do not say something that they believe to be false or lack
evidence. Grice (1975, p.47) briefly gives example of observance of maxim of quality
as follows: "... 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; If I need a spoon, I do not expect a trick spoon made of rubber". Yule

(1996, p.38) explains that in observance of quality maxim if we are unsure of what we
want to say, or want to avoid inferring we has evidence for what we say, we can use
hedges such as "As far as I know...", "I guess...",... to indicate that we are aware of
cooperative principle and that what we are saying may not be totally true. For
example:
A: When will Tom get married?
B: As far as I know, he will hold a wedding party on next Sunday.
B says "as far as I know" means that B can't be completely sure if this is true,
so that if A finds that Tom will not get married on that day, B is protected from being
accused of lying because B did state that she was unsure of the possibility.
2.4.3. Maxim of Relevance:
Super-maxim: be relevant
Sub-maxim: 1. Say only what relate to the topic;
2. Don't give more information than needed.
According to Grice (1975, p.46), the way to observe maxim of relevance is being
relevant. The maxim of relation can be influenced by quantity because it relates to the
relevancy of the information being shared. Grice (1975, p.47) defines it as follows: "I
expect a partner‘s contribution to be appropriate to immediate needs at each stage of the
transaction". Cutting (2002, p.35) claims that observing maxim of relation means that
the contribution of the speakers should be relevant to what has been said before.
Grice (1975) says that if the speaker sets aim to establish a relation to preceding
talk, the maxim of relevance cannot easily be flouted. In the same line with Grice,
Levinson (1983) asserts that when a speaker tries to be as cooperative as possible, the
maxim of relevance seems to be the most difficult to violate. Besides, a great number
of conventional implicatures can be generated by this maxim which accounts for the
way interlocutors make relevant contributions to a particular exchange. In many cases
the relevance of an answer needs to be inferred on the basis of information from the
context. Here is an example:
7



A: Where is my box of chocolates?
B: It’s in your room.
can be compared to
A: Where is my box of chocolates?
B: The children were in your room this morning.
B‘s contribution in the first example observes the maxim of relevance, giving a direct
and appropriate answer to the question. B‘s answer in the second example appears not
to be relevant to the question at first sight. However, the second example could still be
relevant to the speaker. A will assume that B is observing the maxim of relevance and
the cooperative principle and will therefore infer that specific implied meanings are
being conveyed. In the example given, such implicatures could be that the children
may have eaten the chocolate, or that the children may know where the chocolate is,
since they were in A‘s room.
2.4.4. Maxim of Manner
Super- maxim: Be perspicuous.
Sub-maxims: 1. Avoid obscurity of expression;
2. Avoid unnecessary ambiguity;
3. Be brief;
4. Be orderly.
The maxim

does not refer to what is said, but how the information is

expressed. Organization of information is considered to be key rule in the maxim of
manner. Grice (1975) claims that for the maxim of manner to be satisfied, the speaker
has to ensure the information is shared with order, brevity, and clarity. Cutting (2002,
p.35) explains that to fulfill maxim of manner, the speakers are required to be brief and
orderly. Moreover, they should avoid obscurity and ambiguity. An elaboration of the
Gricean maxim of manner was proposed by Leech (1983, p.100), who distinguishes

two kinds of clarity: the first is the speakers make unambiguous use of syntax and
phonology of the language to produce a clear text. The other consists of forming a
clear message which is perspicuous or intelligible in the sense of expressing the
intended illocutionary goal to the hearers.
2.5. Non-Observance of Grice's Maxims
Adherence to the cooperative principle and its correlative maxims is a
reasonably rational behavior since it benefits the participants and reflects
8

their


communicative competence (Grice, 1975, p.48). Despite Grice's claims of ideal
exchange, he explains that there are situations when these rules may be violated.
The condition when the maxims are not followed is called non-observance of maxims.
There are four possibilities of non -observance of maxims, namely, maxim violation,
maxim flouting, maxim opt out and maxim infringement.
2.5.1. Maxim Violation
Maxim violation is the unostentatious and quiet non-observance of a maxim.
Cutting (2002, p.40) defines that a speaker can be said to violate a maxim when she/he
knows that the hearer will not know the truth and will only understand the surface
meanings of the words. Maxim violation happens when a speaker has an intention to
mislead or deceive the listener. Grice asserts that the speaker in violating a maxim will
be liable to mislead. The speakers are not implying anything. They are intending to
fulfill a certain aim.
a) Violation of Quantity Maxim
The maxim of quantity focuses on the importance of the information amount
shared, which has a key impact on the perception of the receiver. Not giving enough
information or offering too much more information in talk exchange of a conversation
than what the hearer is expecting to get is labeled as violating the quantity maxim.

Grice considers this problem as "such over informativeness may be confusing in that it
is liable to raise side issue; and there may be also be an indirect effect, in that the
hearers may be misled as a result of thinking that there is some particular POINT in
the provision of the excess of information" (Grice, 1975, p.46). To put it in other
words, when the hearer is overwhelmed by an unnecessary amount of information,
he/she may be confused about the main idea of the message and, consequently, may
pay attention to some other little related points. Here is an example:
HOLT: ..our institutions are under cyber attack, and our secrets are being
stolen.... how do we fight it?
CLINTON: We will defend the citizens of this country...I was so, I was so
shocked when Donald publicly invited Putin to hack into Americans.
(Clinton, Debate 1, 2016)
In the conversation, Clinton's answer was not satisfactory and violated the
quantity maxim because it did not have enough expected information to the raised
9


issue but at the same time she also gave too much unnecessary information. The
listeners wanted to know her plan in detail but she only offered a too general promise
"will defend the citizens". Besides, she also talked about her feeling and accused
Trump of the attack, which was little relating to the question. By doing this strategy,
Clinton not only could avoid difficult question but put an attack on Trump as well.
b) Violation of Quality Maxim
The maxim of quality controls the rule of telling the truth and ensuring
exchanged information is accurate. Grice (1975) admits that violating the maxim of
quality is related to the act of lying or deceiving. For instance, we often avoid saying
to a shop assistant, when we hand back a dress, like following: "This looks awful on; I
don't want it at all", but we would prefer to say "I'll go away and think about it and
maybe come back later". In this case, we certainly has no intention of buying the dress,
yet we don't want to hurt the shop assistant so we are telling a lie.

Carson (2010, p.25) claims quality violation causes more deceptive influence than the
violation of other maxims. When violating the maxim of quality, the speaker does not
tell the truth by conveying a lie or giving the information for which she/he lacks
adequate evidence. This act of language manipulation is called fabrication or a willful
perversion of fact, a deliberate act of deviating from the truth (Leech, 1983). In
political context, especially in presidential debates, this phenomenon appears to be
common. To get a good picture of oneself and to prove one's preferability, political
candidates often use linguistically rhetorical strategies to avoid unfavourable topic,
and at the same time, direct the hearers to the beneficial topic. They might choose the
way of striking around or being vague about the truth. Politicians can violate the
quality maxim when they often give ostensible promises. Offering an ostensible
promise is labeled as quality maxim violation because the speaker lack adequate
evidence to prove the truth at the present time of the utterance. Here is an example.
Trump talked proudly about the future of job market under his plan: "Under my plan,
I'll be reducing taxes tremendously, from 35 percent to 15 percent for companies,
small and big businesses. That's going to be a job creator like we haven't seen since
Ronald Reagan. It's going to be a beautiful thing to watch." (Trump, Debate 1, 2016)
c) Violation of relevance maxim
Grice (1975) claims that the maxim of relation can be affected by quantity
10


maxim for it has the relation with the relevancy of the information being exchanged. In
other words, relevance maxim violation can be concerned with the amount of shared
information. When the speaker violates the maxim of quantity, it means that she may
give too much more information than required. This can risk the speaker of giving
unnecessary contribution, which leads to the violation of the relevance maxim. The
speaker can even change the topic suddenly since she/he does not want the hearer to
continue focusing on what can bring unexpected consequences on her/his.
For example, in the first American presidential debate 2016, when asked about

Obama's birth certificate, Trump violated the relation maxim:
HOLT: Mr. Trump, for five years you perpetuated a false claim of the nation's
first black president was not a natural born citizen. You questioned his
legitimacy. In the last couple weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans
have accepted for years, the president was born in the United States. Can you
tell us what took you so long?
TRUMP: I got him to give the birth certificate. I'm satisfied with it..I want to
get on to defeating ISIS, to creating jobs. I want to get on to having a strong
border. I want to get on to things that are very important to me, and that are
very important to the country. (Debate 1, 2016)
Trump violated the manner maxim here because his answer had no concern to
the question. The question was about birth certificate while his answer was about ISIS.
He abruptly changed the topic for he wanted to avoiding the questioned topic which
was harmful to his image.
d) Violation of Manner Maxim
Maxim of manner concerns the way information is exchanged between the
participants of a conversation. Following manner maxim is important to maintain the
cooperative principle since the hearer expects the information to be offered orderly and
clearly so that the receiver can interpret the true message. When this condition is not
met, the violation of manner maxim appears. In the violation of maxim of manner, the
speaker can use an ambiguous way of expressing something which is not clear and
precise enough to the raised question. The maxim of manner can be fulfilled by

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appearing perspicuous, which means organizing the delivered message with clarity.
This can be done by making unambiguous use of syntax of language to build a clear
text. The other choice is try to frame a clear message with a clear reference, a message
that is intelligible and perspicuous in the sense of conveying the aimed illocutionary

purpose to the hearers.
In presidential debates, candidates can intentionally violate manner maxim in
their contribution of talk to gain a certain purpose such as persuading or avoiding an
unfavorable question. For example, in the first debate in 2016 between Donald Trump
and Hillary Clinton, when the moderator, Holt, asked Clinton about her plan to save
the American from cyber attack, she gave an ambiguous answer which violated the
manner maxim:
HOLT: ..our institutions are under cyber attack, and our secrets are
being stolen. So my question is, who's behind it, and how do we
fight it?
CLINTON:We will defend the citizens of this country, and the Russians need
to understand that. I think they've been treating it as almost a
probing, how far would we go? How much would we do? And that's
why I was so, I was so shocked when Donald publicly invited Putin to
hack into Americans (Clinton. Debate 1, 2016)
Obviously, Clinton violated the manner maxim here because she did not offer a
clear answer. She did not explain her future plan of fighting against cyber attack. She
just answered a question by giving two questions, which made the listeners confused
and unsatisfied.
2.5.2. Maxim Flouting
Flouting a maxim is the case in which a speaker blatantly and intentionally fails
to obey the maxim without any intention to deceive or to mislead the hearer. Grice
claims this blatancy is overt, that is, it is designed to be recognized by the speaker's
interlocutors and is therefore designed to generate a conversational implicature (Grice,
1975, p.47). According to Cutting (2002, p.37), maxim flouting happens when a
speaker appears not to observe a maxim but expects a hearer to understand the implied
meaning. The followings are the main types of maxim flouting.

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a) Flouting Maxim of Quantity
Flouting of quantity maxim when a speaker blatantly makes his or her
contribution in the conversation more or less information than the situation requires.
Following is an example of this case:
Charlene: I hope you brought the bread and the cheese.
Dexter

: Ah, I brought the bread.

(Yule, 1996, p.40)

In the dialogue, Charlene wants Dexter to give information about whether he
has bought bread and cheese. However, Dexter confirms only information related to
bread and ignore cheese. He has flouted maxim of quantity intentionally. He wants
Charlene to infer that what is not mentioned is not brought.
b) Flouting Maxim of Quality
Flouting maxim of quality occurs when a speaker says something which is
blatantly untrue or for which he or she lacks adequate evidence (Thomas, 1995, p.42).
It may be claimed that the speaker is stating a lie, misrepresenting his thought in order
to make the listener appreciate the intended meaning. This maxim can be flouted by
such different strategies as irony, metaphor, understatement, overstatement, or rhetoric
question. The following example introduces this phenomenon: Late on Christmas Eve
1993 an ambulance is sent to pick up a man who has collapsed in Newcastle city
center. The man is drunk and vomits all over the ambulance man who goes to help
him. The ambulance man say: 'Great, that's really great! That's made my Christmas!'
(Thomas, 1995, p.53). In this example, the ambulance man expects the hearer to infer
a conversational implicature or an additional conveyed meaning from his utterance,
not the literal meaning. What he says is untrue or not corresponding with what he
actually thinks in his mind. Therefore, he exploits the maxim of quality to be polite

while still conveying the intended meaning.
c) Flouting Maxim of Relevance
Flouting maxim of relevance takes place when a speaker expresses information
which is not relevant with the situation of the context at the present stage of the
conversation. Thomas (1995, p.70) asserts that speakers exploit this maxim by making
a contribution of information which is clearly irrelevant to the topic in hand e.g by
abruptly changing the subject or by overtly failing to address the person's goal in
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asking question. However, this does not always mean the speaker is uncooperative and
irrelevant. Sometimes, he or she just wants to hide something or imply something.
A: Can you tell me the time?
B: Well, the milkman has come. (Levinson, 1983, p.107)
In the dialogue, one can realize that B is flouting the maxim of relevance because his
answer is not relevant with A's question. However, there is one way by which A can
interpret B's answer that A assumes B is observing the maxim of relevance and the
cooperative principle in accordance with the current exchange so that A can realize B's
implicature. Therefore A can draw that B intends to communicate the time which is at
least after whenever the milkman normally comes.
d) Flouting Maxim of Manner
The speaker who flouts the maxim of manner appears to be obscure, the
information the offer is not brief or orderly. In other words, his or her contribution of
talk exchange is constructed in an ambiguous way. For example:
Wife: Where are you off to?
Husband: I was thinking of going out to get some of that funny
white stuff for somebody
Wife: Ok, but don't be long- dinner's nearly ready. (Cutting 2002, p.39)
In the above situation, the husband flouts the maxim of manner since he
respond the wife's question in an ambiguous way. Instead of saying " ice-cream"

directly, he says "that funny white stuff". In addition, he uses "somebody" to replace
the name of his daughter so that his daughter will not become excited and ask for the
ice-cream before the dinner. The wife, assuming her husband observes cooperative
principle as well as depending on the context, understands his intended message and
replies " Ok...". This means that she can recover the husband's implicature
2.5.3. Maxim Opting out
Opting out a maxim happens when the speaker expresses unwillingness to
cooperate in a conversation in which the maxims require. However, she or he does not
want to appear uncooperative. The speaker cannot talk as the way she is expected
because of a certain reason. Black (2006, p.24) defines that opting out a maxim means
that one is aware of the maxim but s/he is discouraged from observing it for some
reason. An example for this kind of phenomenon is as follows
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Interviewer : Are there any of the current candidates who you would not
consider as a vice presidential candidate?
Donald Trump: Well I don't want to say because I will tell you when it's all
over, win, lose or draw, I'll tell you who I respect, who I don't respect.
(Trump's interview by Time Editor, Nancy, 2015)
Trump is opting out the maxim of quantity by indicating unwillingness to
cooperate in the conversation and giving too much information. He avoids the answer
that is needed by the interviewer. It is because he has some personal reasons not to
inform the public about which candidate whom he will not consider to be his vice
president before he wins the election.
2.5.4. Maxim Infringement
Maxim infringement occurs when a speaker fails to observe a maxim because
of his or her imperfect linguistic performance. The speaker can either has an
inadequate command of the language (such as a child or a foreigner learner) or is in
state of nervousness, drunkenness...therefore his/her cognitive linguistic ability is

incompetent. As a consequence, the speaker can't make a sufficient contribution at the
current stage of transaction.
A: which color would you prefer: blue or green ?
B: Yes, please.
In this dialogue, A wants B to confirm his choice between coffee and tea, but,
instead of giving the option, he asserts an agreement, which is not suitable with the
question. This can result from B's incompetence of fully understanding A's question.
2.6. Language Power in Presidential Debates.
2.6.1. Presidential Debates and Persuasive Function in the United States
It is generally accepted that presidential election is one of the most anticipated
and high-profiled events in many countries, including in the United States. Every four
years, presidential candidates try their best to present themselves in a positive way to
earn the public vote. They participate in different forms of campaign, take advantages
of every opportunities, ranging from political speeches( prepared monologic discourse)
to dialogues in debates for distinguishing themselves from one another. The genuine
purpose of this participation is, rather than information or entertainment, persuasion as
well as making a fundamental influence on the voters' decisions. Politicians, therefore,
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try their best to deliver directive messages to voters, making an important influence on
the electorate's perception of the preferability.
Televised debates are considered to be an extremely importance occasion for
presidential candidates due to their various advantages compared to other campaign
message forms (Benoit and Hanson, 2007). Compared to, for example, a televisioned
spot or an advertisement broadcast on radio channels, it is certain that televised
debates provide the candidates far more room to prove themselves and to establish
their own superiority to the opponent. The topics mentioned in the debate are often
controversial issues or the public's most attentions such as jobs, tax, foreign policies,
and crime. the main purpose of the debate is to help the audience to learn more about

the party representatives with their political ideologies and their future goals and
polices to lead the country. The politicians jointly construct the debate, which means
they take turns to give respond to the questions and make defense to other's comments.
Their contribution of talk exchange is a main collaborative effort to maintain the
discussion. This offers the public a chance to observe a more spontaneous and natural
story of the party representatives.
Benoit and Hanson (2007) claim that voting is an act of comparison. Therefore,
presidential candidates intentionally employ all of possible strategies to influence
voters' perceptions, persuading the electorate of

preferability to their opponents.

Candidates have to set themselves as the most preferable either by highlighting their
own strengths and pointing out their opponents' weakness. They focus on the two
important subjects : policy and characteristic (stance and personality) which are of
decisive roles in winning the race. Policy here means the candidates' proposed general
goals and future plans, or even his or her past deeds. Character can focus on personal
qualities, leadership abilities, and ideals of the participants (Benoit and Harthcock,
1999). This can be done by acclaiming, attacking and defending with skill of adopting
various linguistic devices to cajole the electorate to vote for them and their parties.
2.6.2. Language Power in Presidential Debates
Van Dijk (1997) claims that a discourse is regarded as a political one when the
discourse itself functions a directive role to form a political action in the politics
process. The main goal of a political discourse is to suppress in argumentation. This
target emphasizes the goal-oriented nature of political conversational language in the
way that affect the public's reality, perception decision-making, and voting action.
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In order to fulfill influential and directive goals in their campaigns, presidential

candidates always exploit their rhetorical skills to gain more positive responses from
the audience. Both persuasive and argumentative linguistic rhetoric are exploited as
decisive strategies in order to attract and influence large audiences or the electorate.
Politicians must make their best efforts to answer the questions or respond comments
in a way that shows their intelligence, political standpoints, and ideological opinions.
At the same time, they should try to construct their convincing messages into all micro
structure of their speeches so that they can encourage and direct the listeners to
appreciate their political policies and to offer them votes. Their language use should be
carefully chosen to appear as the most potentially persuasive factor. First, they should
express their "moral credibility" by using the language which shows their "practical
intelligence, a virtuous character, and goodwill" (Rapp, 2009, p.5) . Second, besides
appearing as a virtuous person, it is important for the speaker to engage such language
that has an emotional effect on the listener because "emotions have the power to
modify our judgments'' (Rapp, 2009, p.5) and we can realize "persuasion through the
arousal of emotions". Finally, their arguments should be reasonable and logical to
"persuade the audience to accept the speaker's understanding of reality and to support
his/her ideologically biased views and policies" (Dontcheva, 2012, p.136).
B. PREVIOUS STUDIES
There have been many researches conducted under pragmatics. The research
about conversational breaching which is one scope of pragmatics also has been
conducted by several researchers. Some of the researchers can be read to strengthen
the theories used in this research.
One of the researches related to maxim flouting was conducted by Lindblom
(2015) entitled The Realization of Grice's Cooperative Principle in some Interviews
with Obama President. The objective of the research was to identify the flouting of
Grice's maxims and investigating the forces of that flouting in three interviews with
Obama. The research revealed that Obama flouted all the maxims and he performed
the strategies to decrease the degree of face-threatening acts that came under the
interviews' questions.
Another research related to maxim breaching that has been conducted was

entitled Pragmatics: Grice's Conversational Maxims Violations in the Responses of
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