A study on H.P. Grice's co-operative principles in Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Killers"

Language in literature as a form of communication is an interesting subject to explore because it is different from language used in everyday communication. The differences are marked by (1) the tendency writers have in addressing their ideas in such a way that it is necessary for the reader(s) to allow several interpretations and meanings because writers often avoid short and concise delivery of utterance, and (2) the existence of indirect contact which is observed between the sender of the message and the receiver. The existence of the two characteristics made it possible for the writer of the literary text to employ Grice's conversational maxims in a slightly different manner than they would have been applied in everyday spoken communication. This study is to see the application of Grice's conversational maxims in the short story "The Killers", by Ernest Hemingway. The data needed for the research are taken from the short story itself. The study is descriptive exploratory or descriptive interpretative in design. As such, a human instrument is used in data collection procedure, i.e., the writer of this study. In analysing the data, these steps are taken: (1) identification of the speech events, (2) the coding of the speech acts, (3) interpretation of meaning, (4) interpretation on the application of the four conversational maxims based on a) the normal application of the four conversational maxims, b) the application of the violated conversational maxims, and c) the application of the flouted conversational maxims; and (5) identification on the function of the four conversational maxims. From the analysis, it was shown that the use of the four maxims found in the short story "The Killers" is different from the use of the four conversational maxims found in everyday spoken communication. This difference is marked by flouting the maxims in order to produce implicature meaning(s). The flouting is observed in (1) the flouting of maxim of quantity by concealing some part of information and expressing what the author wanted to say (=the message) in a form of story, (2) the flouting of maxim of quality by using imagination to express the message, (3) the flouting of maxim of relation by disclosing information which does not or does not seem appropriate to the previous information given to the readers, and (4) the flouting of maxim of manner by using ambiguity of information. The flouting of the conversational maxims is easiest to detect in the short story, but it gets more and more difficult as it gets to identifying the flouting of the maxims in the speech events and speech acts. The flouting of the conversational maxims in the short story "The Killers" has these functions: (1) to indirectly describe the characters in the story, (2) to conceal message being passed on, (3) to build up the plot of the story, and (4) to create imagery