Flouting of Gricean Maxims: An Analysis of Pakistani Comedy Talk Shows

Abstract

The study is carried out to investigate the phenomenon of flouting of Grice maxims in Urdu language with respect to Urdu comedy talk shows “Hasb-e-haal” and “Khabarnaak”. The reason why the researcher chooses this study because in the political talk shows flouting occurs when individual intentionally do not apply the maxims in order to persuade their listeners to derive the hidden meaning behind what is said, that is, the speakers employ implicature. The main purpose of this study is to find out how flouting create comedy and which is the frequently flouted maxim and reasons behind it. It is a qualitative study that focuses on flouting of maxim. The data of this research are interviews from only that part of the show in which current political issues have been discussed by the mimic artists of politicians and 40 instances from both the shows are selected. Based on the analysis, in results there are two points; first data analysis shows that every type of maxims is flouted by the participants in order to create comedy. Second, the most flouted maxim is manner maxim with 62.5% because participants using vague and ambiguous information which the implicature shows that interviewer and interviewee wants their audience to look for the hidden meaning.