International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No. 1 (2020), pp. 2217-2229 A Pragmatics analysis of Michael Scott and the Violation of Conversational Maxims in The Office Television Series 1. Muhammad Afzaal Senior Lecturer Foundation University Islamabad, Pakistan Shanghai International Studies University, China Email.
[email protected] 2. Philip Habarman School of Foreign Languages Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
[email protected] 3. Muhammad Imran
[email protected] Lecturer in English Department, The University of Sahiwal, Pakistan. 4. Najla AlFadda College of Languages and Translation King Saud University, Saudi Arabia Email:
[email protected] Abstract The objective of this study is to investigate the failure to observe the Gricean maxims of conversation (quantity, quality, relevance, and manner) in the American adaption of the television series The Office. This study focuses on the character Michael Scott with the aim of discovering the ways in which he fails to observe the conversational maxims. The investigation utilizes written and recorded data from the television show’s manuscripts. The conversations Michael participates in are taken from fourteen randomly selected episodes and analyzed in order to find out what role Grice’s maxims play. As it turns out, the maxim most often violated by Michael is the maxim of quantity. Michael is one of the main characters of the show, and contributes heavily to the quirky, weird, and often uncomfortable situations which occur throughout the program. Keywords: The Office, Gricean maxims, conversational maxims, violation of maxims, pragmatics 2217 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No.