AWEJ. Special Issue on Translation No.3 May, 2014 Pp. 225-238
The Shift of Grice’s Maxim Flouting in Indonesian Translation of the Donald Duck Comics
Issy Yuliasri
English Department
State University of Semarang (Unnes)
Indonesia
Abstract
Flouting of Grice’s cooperative maxim could result in humor. There are evidences of flouted cooperative maxims in the humor found in the Donald Duck comics. The original author of the comics uses a lot of cooperative maxim flouts to create humor as realized in the characters’ utterances. All the four maxims, i.e. maxim of quantity, quality, relation, and manner, are flouted in different combinations. This study aims to compare how cooperative maxims are flouted in the original English and in the Indonesian translation of humorous utterances in the Donald Duck comics. The research findings reveal that 34.79% of the translated humorous utterances undergo shifting in the pattern of cooperative maxim non-observance. Interestingly, the most dominant shift is in the flouting of the maxim of manner and its combination, where the English original humour flouts more maxim of manner than the Indonesian translated utterances. This probably relates to the use of certain translation techniques such as discursive creation, generalization, reduction, and amplification for the sake of readibility and ‘decency’.
Keywords: Grice’s cooperative maxim, flout, non-observance, shift, translation