Pragmatic research on Friends

Friends first aired in the US in 1994， featuring a cast of six young men and women in New York， who were Monica， Ross， Chandler， Joey， Phoebe and Rachel. Today Id like to analyze the Speech Act and Cooperative Principles in Friends.

In Paul Grices view， this general principle， Cooperative Principle ， has four maxims—which are as follows： The maxim of quantity， The maxim of quality， The maxim of relation and The maxim of manner. I will give one example respectively used wonderful in Friends under each maxims.

First of all， the violation of the maxim of quantity. Lets observe the following conversation：

Janice： Oh！ What is that on your finger？ I am blind. So who is the lucky guy？

Monica： Oh， it is a funny story.

Janice asked Monica about who was her fiance. However， obviously， Monicas response concealed her fiances name and implied it was another story that was too difficult to talk about currently instead， which is an open violation of the maxim of quantity， because her fiance was Chandler who was Janices ex-boyfriend and Chandler tried his best to escape from Janice ever. So， if Monica had replied Janice directly， it would have embarrassed them both. This completely stems from the prevention embarrassment consideration. Thus Monica was withholding some of the information required at this stage of conversation and was thus flouting the maxim of quantity in order to avoid embarrassment.

Second， the violation of the maxim of quality：

Monica： He was my best friend in fifth grade. One day， I asked him to be my boyfriend and he said no. Do you know why？

Chandler： Because you kept talking to him while he was trying to go to the bathroom？

This conversation happened when Chandler was using the bathroom but Monica was keeping telling Chandler about her love stories during the school-days from the other side of the bathrooms door simultaneously. Monica intended to make Chandler guess the reason of her rejected experience. However， Chandler responded her with apparently impossible answer to remind her that it was not convenient for him to converse with her when he was using the bathroom. Obviously， Chandler did not observe the maxim of quality for he said something that he believed to be false and he also knew that Monica also knew it was false.

Third， the violation of the maxim of relation：

Phoebe： （to Monica） So have you decided on a band for the wedding？ Because you know， I am kind of musical.

Rachel： Phoebe， she just got engaged a couple of hours ago. I doubt she even has time for this.

Phoebe： Speaking of chiming in， remember the time you burned down my apartment？

Rachel： （to Monica） Yeah， you are on your own.

Phoebe was obsessed with playing the guitar， but she is a terrible guitar player. At the time Monica announced her engagement， Phoebe was raring to be weddings band. It seemed that Rachels response was totally irrelevant to Phoebes question， but Phoebe understood that Rachel was trying to help Monica to refuse her request in an euphemistic way. What Phoebe did was also cut off the relation between her and Rachels words.So it was this kind of “cutting off the relation” that helped Phoebe to beat Rachel in language， flouting the maxim of relation.

Last， the violation of the maxim of manner：

Chandler： There was something we wanted to tell you about the wedding. It is going to be a small ceremony.

Monica： It is actually going to be just family.

Janice： Wait. You two think of me as family？

Chandler and Monica was going to hold the engagement ceremony where they wouldnt like Janice to join， they said these words and hope Janice to quit the ceremony voluntarily.However， the reaction from Janice was out of their control since their obscurity of expression misled Janice that they considered Janice a member of their family， which would strengthen Janices idea to take part to their ceremony. Actually， this was an good example that obscurity of expression， which flouted the maxim of the manner， would mislead hearer and fail the speakers communicative goals.

In short， to familiarize ourselves with the pragmatics of the language we are using or learning is of essential significance， where speech act and cooperative principles play an important role and whenever we use or learn a language， we should pay attention to avoid pragmatic failure.

References：

[1]Searle，J.“what is a Speech Act？” in Giglioli，P.（ed.）Language and Social Context.Harmondsworth：Penguin，1972.

【作者簡介】Majingyi，北京中央民族大學外國語學院。