A Pragmatics Analysis of Michael Scott and the Violation of Conversational Maxims in the Office Television Series

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

1. Introduction When conversing, it is said that certain rules exist which, if followed, allow for a conversation to be considered cooperative. However, if a speaker deviates from these rules it may cause communication problems which lead to misunderstanding and confusion. A key figure who put these unspoken rules into a framework was Paul Grice. Grice laid out a set of guidelines which he said could be found in cooperative conversations. Today the guidelines are referred to as Grice’s conversational maxims (Grice, 1975). The following conversation is offered in order to exemplify the outcome of a conversation when the rules, or maxims, are not observed. Suppose a conversation in which person A asks person B whether or not their friend’s new boyfriend is a nice person, to which person B does not take the maxims of conversation into account in their response. Person A – “Is he nice?” Person B – “She seems to like him”. Person B could have given a definitive answer by replying yes or no. However, they have opted to give an unclear reply (Thomas, 1995). In doing so, person B has failed to observe what is known as the maxim of quantity which states not to say too little, nor too much. This maxim, along with several others, are a part of Grice’s cooperative principle, a framework which will be discussed in greater detail later in this paper. The American TV show, The Office (Gervais, Merchant, & Daniels, 2014), is an American adaptation of the British television program which shares its namesake. The American version ran for a total of nine seasons from 2005 to 2013. Including a Golden Globe, the show won 47 awards and was nominated for 186 more. The Office is a mockumentary (a show about the making of a documentary) about a paper company whose employees have strange or awkward quirks and personalities. One of the key components which made the show a success was the clever use of dialog and conversation by the writers of the show. The character’s conversations are frequently littered with irrelevant, untruthful, ambiguous, and over or under informative propositions. At some point during the show, all of the program’s characters violate Grice’s cooperative principle. The main character throughout the show’s first six seasons, and a majority of the seventh, is the company’s regional manager, Michael Scott. Michael’s character has a tendency to make others feel awkward, embarrassed, or angry because of his lack of adherence to the rules of conversation, and frequently failing to observe Grice’s cooperative principle and its underlying maxims. Because of the shows long running (9 years) and success (47 awards), I thought it would be interesting to investigate how Michael’s character changes throughout the years as it relates to conversational maxims. Therefore, the goal of this study is to analyze how Michael breaks the maxims, how these violations are distributed amongst the observations, and if a change occurs during the show in how and how often he violates the various maxims. In light of the previous section, the research questions of this study are the following: 1. How often does Michael Scott violate Grice’s maxims? 2. How are the violations distributed amongst the observations? 3. Does Michael’s character change which maxims and how often he violates them throughout the show? In order to carry out a thorough analysis, two episodes from each of the seven seasons in which Michael appears (14 episodes in total) are analyzed. This is done to hopefully answer the study’s research questions and see if there are any noticeable patterns in relation to Michael’s failure to observe Grice’s cooperative principle and maxims of conversation. 2. Theoretical background 2.1 The cooperative principle According to Birner (2013) in a conversation, people first and foremost try to cooperate with those they are conversing with. In such discourses, speakers and addressees usually have mutual objectives such as solving

2218 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No. 1 (2020), pp. 2217-2216 a problem or settling an argument. In addition, the cooperative principle asserts that people’s utterances should be appropriate in order to progress the conversation. Although conversations in which participants disagree or find themselves in opposition may appear to be uncooperative, the very fact that they are attempting to resolve the matter is in itself a form of cooperation. Birner (2013) goes on to offer a set of criteria for which to describe a cooperative conversation, by saying that during a disagreement, people tend to remain on topic, make interpretable utterances, and offer complete thoughts that do not contain irrelevant information which misleads or causes confusion. Moreover, as long as a conversation is in progress the participants should converse in an appropriate manner, doing so until the discussion’s completion while not ending the discussion prematurely because of disagreement unless it is mutually agreed upon by both members (Grice, 1975). Conversations only function if both participant’s utterances are appropriate (Grice, 1975). In contrast, a person whose utterances are not appropriate is not considered cooperative. A participant who fails to provide appropriate contributions to a conversation would render having a successful discussion or argument nearly impossible. Moreover, a participant’s ability to properly understand the meaning of an utterance rests on the belief that the other person in the discussion is making an effort to cooperate. In order to be seen as cooperative, there is an expectation placed on interlocutors that they will act in certain ways when they are involved in a conversation. Grice, in 1975, subset his cooperative principle into four maxims, which he believed people were following when they took part in conversations that are considered to be cooperative. The four maxims described by Grice are the maxim of quality, the maxim of quantity, the maxim of relevance or relation, and the maxim of manner (Grice, 1989). When a speaker involves her or himself in a discussion, they should make every attempt to offer input which seeks to achieve the aim of the conversation (Huang, 2007). Grice’s cooperative principle is sometimes misinterpreted as a strict rule for conversation which people must follow. However, in reality, the principle is Grice’s description of several commonly reoccurring elements found in discussions. When participating in a conversation, members assume that a common set of guidelines exist which everyone is following. In comparison, when someone drives a vehicle, they assume that all drivers on the road are following the same set of rules as they are. Much like a traffic accident occurring because one person did not observe the rules expected to be followed by all drivers, accidents also happen in conversations, when one participant fails to observe the rules. Grice’s maxims of conversation can therefore aid us in following the cooperative principle and avoid costly accidents (Thomas, 1995). In the next section, these maxims are discussed in greater detail. 3. Gricean Maxims Grice’s maxims of conversation are four descriptive guidelines which he theorized people observe in cooperative conversations (Grice, 1975). 3.1 The maxim of quality The maxim of quality consists of two sub-maxims which set forth that, in a conversation, people should not say something they believe is false, and that an utterance should not be made unless sufficient evidence exists to support it (Grice, 1975). In other words, the maxim of quality is to “say things which are true”. However, because being completely certain of every truth is virtually impossible, a cooperative elocutionist must make every effort to utter things believed to be true while abstaining from making claims thought to be false. 3.2 The maxim of quantity The next maxim, the maxim of quantity, relates to the supplying of needed information within a conversation. As with the maxim of quality, this maxim also has two sub-maxims which provide knowledge about the inner-workings of the maxim (Grice, 1989). The first of these sub-maxims explains that the speakers in a discussion should remain as informative as possible in order to achieve the goal of the 2219 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No. 1 (2020), pp. 2217-2216 interaction. The second sub-maxim, goes on to say that speakers should not give information exceeding the amount needed to make an argument clear (Grice, 1975). While this maxim can be complicated, Birner (2013) offers an example to make it clearer by saying the when some says “Most people in this room believe in God” when in fact, everyone in the room believes in God, the uttererance is technically stating the truth. However, the speaker’s utterance of the word “most” would make hearers think that the speaker does not mean all people, therefore they are not providing sufficient information to make their statement clear. Consequently, for the purpose of being as informative as necessary without saying more than is needed, the speaker, knowing that everyone in the room believes in God, should state precisely so, without adding anything further (Birner, 2013). 3.3 The maxim of relevance or relation Next, the maxim of relevance, or relation, contains only one sub-maxim. This sub-maxim says that a conversation participant should attempt to make every utterance relevant to the conversation at hand (Grice, 1975). Relevance, or relation, in this maxim denotes the relevance or relationship among a specific utterance with the context of the conversation. For instance, if two people are having a conversation about a tennis match when all of the sudden one of them says that peanuts are legumes, this person would not be following the maxim because his/her statement was neither related nor relevant to the conversation. Afzaal, Khan, Bhatti, & Shahzadi (2019a) argues that “a text can be comprehended through textual analysis helping linguists to define and understand the features of any written or spoken text” (insert page number- p. ?). In contrast, if a conversation is being had, and one speaker is cut off by the other in order to point out that there is lettuce in their teeth, the maxim has not been violated because the statement is relevant to the situational context. In other words, when the addressee perceives an utterance as useful for meeting the conversation’s goal, it can be counted as relevant. 3.4 The maxim of manner The remaining maxim, the maxim of manner, submits that speakers who avoid ambiguity in their speech are considered to be relevant. The maxim of manner has a total of four sub-maxims which state that speakers avoid unclear utterances, as well as obscurity in conversations. Moreover, this maxim suggests that cooperative speakers are concise, orderly, and do not make utterances which are longer than necessary (Grice, 1975). A way to circumvent ambiguous or obscure speech is to make clear statements while not using overly difficulty terminology, which may lead to misunderstanding and confusion. Furthermore, a cooperative participant avoids making utterance which are unclear. Finally, a speaker observes the sub- maxims of precision and orderliness by not making lengthy utterances and through forming their speech in a structured way (Birner, 2013; Afzaal, Liu, Wu, Sayyida, & Naqvi, 2020). 4. The Observation of the Maxims During a conversation, a person must listen and decide if their discussion partner is cooperative. Once this has been decided, one can interpret and understand the intent of a speaker’s utterances. Grice (1975) states that there are four different ways that those involved in conversation can act in regards to the cooperative principle. Namely, when a speaker makes an utterance, they can either observe, violate, flout, or opt out of a maxim (Birner, 2013, p. 42). According to Birner (2013) observing a maxim means to obey it completely. To observe, or obey, the four maxims, a cooperative speaker’s utterances are informative and they say neither too much nor too little. Moreover, a speaker should only say what they believe is true. Furthermore, utterances are to be relevant or relating to the discussion at hand. Finally, cooperative speakers are concise, clear, and unambiguous so that what they say is easily understood by others (Grice, 1975). Thomas (1995) gives a clear example of all four maxims being observed. Person A – “Where are my car keys?” Person B – “They are on the table in the hall” (p.64). In this example, Person B says what is true, what is relevant, while also saying neither too much nor too little.

Violating a maxim is defined as the failure to observe them, that is to say, they are violated when one or more of the maxims are not followed in a given discussion (Birner, 2013). In addition, by violating a maxim, a speaker is attempting to not observe a maxim without making the hearer aware of their doing so. The violation of maxims is a common way to trick or deceive the addressee in a conversation. For instance, telling a lie, is a direct violation of the maxim of quality which states that a cooperative speaker never says what they believe is untrue. A speaker with the intent of lying to an addressee is considered in violation of a maxim. Take Thomas’s (2013) example in which Person A is being questioned by Person B about cheating on them with a woman. Person A – “Is there another man?” Person B – “No there is no other man” (p.43). The maxim of quality is violated here because Person B is attempting to deceive Person A in saying that person B is not cheating, when in fact, they are. When making an utterance, a speaker may also choose to flout a maxim. Flouting a maxim is another way to not obey a maxim (Birner, 2013). However, in contrast to violating a maxim, flouting a maxim occurs when a speaker fails to observe rules which are clear to the one being addressed, with the notion that the addressee is conscious of the violation. This can be seen through the phrase, “love is a battlefield”. Upon hearing this sentence, the addressee does not take it in a literal sense, but rather understands clearly what the speaker means. That is, love is like a metaphorical battlefield. In uttering this phrase, the speaker is purposefully failing to observe the maxim of quality and it can easily be seen that they are not asserting a literal truth. When a speaker flouts a maxim in an obvious way and the hearer is aware, they will continue to consider the speaker as cooperative. Furthermore, a hearer may know that the speaker is intentionally flouting the maxim due to the speaker’s use of metaphor to compare love to battlefield as a way of showing their opinion about love (Birner, 2013). When a maxim is flouted, a hearer knows that no attempt is being made to deceive them because they can easily identify that the utterance is false (Thomas, 1995). Finally, to opt out of a maxim occurs when the cooperative principle has been ignored completely (Birner, 2013). For example, if someone is invited to join a conversation or asked a question then they immediately begin scrolling through their phone messages or open and read a book, they are said to have opted out. A person has opted out of a conversation when they will not give input, but rather choose to remain silent. A police officer refusing to give a victim’s name in order to safeguard their family is an example of opting out (Thomas, 1995). In the above examples, it was expected that the maxims would be obeyed by the speakers, however, they chose not to do so instead. Though, situations sometimes warrant that the Gricean maxims be not observed. An example of this, according to Huang (2007), takes places in a court of law in instances where witnesses are not expected to give up all of the information they possess. 5. Previous Research There are other instances regarding the presence of Grice’s maxims in comedy. Attardo (1993) researched the comedic effect caused by the failure to observe the cooperative principle. The study investigated the cooperative principle and maxims with respect to jokes. Material included jokes from books as well as comedy sketches. The jokes were analyzed in light of the maxims to find out how frequently they were utilized to make material humorous. Whether or not being uncooperative creates comedy was another focus point. Results of the study asserted that at least one violation of Grice’s maxims occurred in each of the jokes. In addition, the investigation demonstrated how each of the four maxims may be used for the purpose of generating comedy, Afzaal et al., (2019b). Another finding of the study exhibited how the four maxims can be violated in various ways in order to be viewed as humorous. Another study relating to the Gricean maxims present in comedy was carried out by Andresen (2012). In Andresen’s study, the failure to observe the maxims in the TV series, Community was investigated. In the study, all of the main character’s violations of maxims were compared. The observations among the various characters were then pooled together to investigate how frequently the maxims were not observed. A third study was conducted by Šmilauerová (2012) with similar aims, but with TV show Friends. Finally, a study was done about the same TV show, The Office, being analyzed in the present study. That study, by Lööf (2017), focused on another of the 2221 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No. 1 (2020), pp. 2217-2216 show’s characters, Dwight, and sought to find if and how he violates the Gricean maxims. The investigation at hand differs from the previous research on the show in several respects. Namely, the character being analyzed, the distribution of the maxims, and finally the change in the focus character’s failure to observe the maxims throughout the duration of the show. 6. Method 6.1 Material Data from the current study comes from 14 episodes of the TV series, The Office. The materials used in the analysis of the show were acquired from online sources (Forever Dreaming, 2019). Unfortunately, the official transcripts from the TV show were not available, therefore, those used in this study were compiled by fans of the program. In order to be as accurate as possible, the transcripts were cross-checked with the recorded episodes they coincide with. To ensure data was as comprehensive and unbiased as possible, two episodes were randomly chosen from each of the show’s first seven seasons. 6.2 Methodology The present study’s main focus is to measure and analyze the failure to observe the Gricean maxims by the show’s lead character, Michael Scott. Among the randomly chosen episodes, special attention was paid to the conversations Michael partook in with his co-workers, as well as Michael’s “talking head” segments. A talking head is the name given to a scene in which a character speaks directly to the camera in an interview style. These were included because they are a form of interaction with both the documentary makers and audience. According to the research, Michael was involved in 172 conversations. Occasions where Michael violated the maxims are described later in the study with relevant accompanying data. While every occasion Michael failed to observe a maxim is included, only a handful of these moments are explained in greater detail as examples. These occasions are found below in the results section of the study. This study incorporates both qualitative and quantitative methods. It is qualitative in the sense that it seeks to make conclusions about broader patterns found in the data, and quantitative because it also makes use of objective numerical data. For example, not only are the amount of violations made by Michael Scott calculated, but also how they are distributed and whether or not this distribution changes throughout the course of the show. Based on the quantitative methods employed here, it becomes possible to provide an answer to the research questions presented at the beginning of the paper. 6.3 Episodes As mentioned earlier, The Office was on the air from 2005 until 2013. During this time, a total of 188 episodes were recorded and broadcasted. Michael Scott appeared in all of the first six seasons and partially in number seven. The following episodes were randomly selected to be analyzed in the study. 1. Season 1, Episode 1 and 4: The Pilot / The Alliance 2. Season 2, Episode 13 and 16: The Secret / Valentine 3. Season 3, Episode 2 and 18: The Convention / The Negotiation 4. Season 4, Episode 5 and 6: Local Ad / Branch Wars 5. Season 5, Episode 6 and 15: Customer Survey / Lecture Circuit (part 2) 6. Season 6, Episode 10 and 22: Shareholder Meeting / Body Language 7. Season 7: Episode 1 and 6: Nepotism / Costume Contest In order to simplify which season and episode are being referred to, a system has been employed. For example, Season 1 Episode 1 is referred to as [1:1], Season 2 Episode 13 is referred as [2:13], Season 3 Episode 2 is referred to [3:2], and so on. 6.4 Limitations of the study 2222 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No. 1 (2020), pp. 2217-2216

All of the episodes used in this material were studied in both there written and visual form with the hopes of identifying every occasion in which the focus character violates the maxims. Nonetheless, if the same material is viewed by another person different results could be yielded. Furthermore, this study does not include all 188 episodes, which could lead to a maximally thorough study. However, the fourteen episodes analyzed in the research is believed to be adequate in order to produce stimulating results. In addition, the matter of validity comes into question. According to Cohen, Manion, & Morrison (2011), validity can be seen as depth, richness, honesty and scope of the data accomplished in the study. Being that the identification of the violation of maxims is subjective opinion, the validity of the author’s judgements about what constitutes a violation could be affected negatively. Thus, were another person to replicate the current study, the results could vary from those presented in this paper. 7. Analysis and Results 7.1 Observation of the maxims In this section the number of times Michael violated each maxim can be seen, as well as what percentage of the maxims violated the number represents. In addition, the far-right column of the table shows the violation density. For this study, violation density is defined as the amount of times a maxim was violated divided by the total number of conversations which occurred. As noted in table 1 below, Michael participated in more than 172 conversations throughout the fourteen episodes and violated a maxim on 44 separate occasions. He violated the maxim of quantity 20 times, the maxim of quality on 14 occasions, the maxim of relevance 5 times, and the maxim of manner 5 times as well. Therefore, among all of the studied conversations, Michael failed to observe a maxim in approximately 26% of his conversations. Table 1. Michael’s conversations and violations of Gricean maxims Maxim No. of instances violated Percentage of total Violation density maxims violated Quantity 20 46% .12 Quality 14 32% .08 Relevance 5 11% .03 Manner 5 11% .03

7.2 The maxim of quantity The maxim of quantity was the maxim most often violated by Michael Scott, precisely 20 out of 44 instances contain a failure of its observation. To reiterate, the general essence of this maxim is that a cooperative participant does not to give too much, nor too little information than is necessary to complete the goal of discussion. Example 1 occurs when Michael addresses the entire office, while trying to justify a business lunch to the HR rep (Toby), and he gives more information than necessary which leads to speculation by the staff about a coworker’s secret crush on another person in the office. The segment considered to be sharing too much information is marked in bold print. (1) Toby: I'm not processing this. Michael: Look Jim needed a relaxing lunch; he has been depressed and it has been affecting his productivity. How is that not work related? Toby: He seems fine to me.

Michael: You're not his friend, you don't know. He is in love with a girl he works with who's engaged. So just cut me some slack. Please? [2:13] In this example, Michael shares an adequate quantity of information in order to achieve the purpose of the conversation, which is to justify the business lunch – a male co-worker is feeling depressed, because he is in love, and therefore has been less productive than usual. However, Michael fails to observe this maxim when he provides the additional information that the person the male co-worker is in love with is a fellow employee and that this person is also engaged. Without divulging the backstory, there is only one employee at the time who is engaged, meaning that their identity is easily revealed and an awkward conversation then ensues. 7.3 The maxim of quality As previously stated, the maxim of quality can be reduced to the notion that a cooperative conversation member says what they believe is true, and does not say what they believe is false. Michael fails to obey this maxim on 14 separate occasions. Example 2 occurs in a sequence of three scenes while Michael is visiting the company’s headquarters for a meeting with other managers and executives. One of the executives is a female superior who Michael has had an on-again, off-again relationship with, which has remained unknown to the other meeting attendees because of the conflict of interest it would create. The pertinent dialog from this sequence of scenes can be seen in the example, with the portions irrelevant to proving the point have been edited out. Scene 2 is included to give context and show why Michael is lying in scene’s 1 and 3. The segments in which Michael violates the maxims are in bold print. (2) Scene 1: Michael speaking with another manager (Josh) Michael: Maybe because she's my girlfriend. [starts retracting statement] Was, or not my girlfriend. She' s... we hooked up and... Josh: You hooked up with Jan? Michael: You know, months ago, just once, It's, just stupid. Just forget it. Scene 2: Michael speaking with his on-again / off-again lover (Jan) and female superior Jan: Yeah, Michael ‐ the CFO thinks that we slept together. Do you understand, people get fired for much less? And I just [scratches head] can't believe that you told everybody and we didn't even sleep together. Michael: Technically, we fell asleep in the same bed. So... Scene 3: Michael speaking with Jan and the company CFO (David) David: You understand this is a very serious situation. Michael: No no no no no, yes I, OK, well, alright, here's the deal. It's my fault. This is, this is totally on me. Before you guys came in, I was talking to the guys. We were all chatting and I made a joke, a really dumb joke and Craig the idiot took it seriously. [ Jan looks at Michael]. [2:16]

In example 2 Michael fails to observe the maxim of quality, not once or twice, but three times. First, in scene 1 he brags that Jan is his girlfriend (she isn’t) and that they hooked up. Scene 2, does not include a violation of a maxim, but rather serves to give important context to the scene. Last, in scene 3 Michael again violates the maxim of quality when he tells David that what he said earlier to the other managers was a joke when in fact it was the truth, or at least partially so. In this sequence of events Michael does not adhere to the maxim of quality because he blatantly says things which he knows to be false. 7.4 The maxim of relevance The maxim of relevance dictates that a cooperative conversation member makes utterances which are relevant to the topic. Michael fails to observe this maxim on 5 different occasions. Along with the maxim of manner, it is the one least violated by Michael in the data. In example 3, Michael is comparing his failed attempts to win over a woman’s heart with the movie Rudy, a famous film about a man who does not give up when he repeatedly faces rejection. This scene is called a “talking head”, therefore either the cameraman or the audience is considered the conversation partner. (3) Michael: What sort of movie would Rudy have been if he had just stopped, given up, after two rejections? Would have been a lot shorter. Probably been a lot funnier. But it would have ultimately been a disappointment. I still would have seen it, but that's not... the point. [6:22] In example 3, Michael successfully makes a comparison between the film Rudy and his situation by asking the rhetorical question, “What sort of movie would Rudy have been if he had just stopped, given up, after two rejections?”. This would have been the ideal place to stop talking, however, he proceeds to answer his own question in a flurry of details not relevant to the topic at hand. By saying the movie would have shorter, less funny, disappointing, and that he would have seen it anyway, Michael is in violation of the maxim of relevance. Moreover, at the end of the segment, Michael himself points out that what he has just said is not the point of his statement. 7.5 The maxim of manner Lastly, the maxim of manner, which states that a cooperative speaker avoids obscurity and ambiguity while being brief and orderly, is violated a total of 5 times. Like the maxim of relevance, it is the maxim least often violated by Michael. In example 4 Michael is being accused of nepotism for hiring his nephew who has poor work ethic. In an attempt to sort things out, Michael along with the corporate liaison (Gabe) call the company’s CEO (Jo). One portion of the dialog has been removed because it is not needed in order to make clear the point. The utterances which demonstrate the violation of the maxim of manner are in bold. (4) Gabe: Those overnight packages needed to go out, and Michael refuses to hold the guilty party accountable. Jo: Ok, educate me now why you won't fire the boy. Michael: You don't have all the facts. Jo: Which are? Michael: I love him. Jo: Oh, God. How far has it gone? Michael: No. No. He's my nephew. 2225 ISSN: 2005-4289 IJDRBC Copyright ⓒ 2020 SERSC International Journal of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Vol.11, No. 1 (2020), pp. 2217-2216

[7:1] In example 4 Michael is asked about the details concerning the party which Jo wants to fire. He is presented with the opportunity to clearly state who the person is; however, he instead elects to give an unclear answer when he tells Jo that he loves the person in question. Because of this, Jo draws an incorrect inference and thinks that Michael has become involved romantically with perhaps a boy. Then, realizing how his words were misconstrued, he clarifies that the person being referred to is his nephew, dismissing her misplaced interpretation of his words. 7.6 Changes in the violation of maxims over time As previously mentioned, the show aired from 2005 – 2013. During this time, Michael’s character appeared in all of the first six seasons, and most of the seventh. Over the course of this time, several new characters are added to the plot; with circumstances and conditions changing a number of times. Chart 1 offers a look at the changes in each of the four maxims over the seven seasons in which Michael appeared. According to the chart, while the maxim of quantity was the most frequently disobeyed, it also experiences the most fluctuations. It begins in seasons 1 and 2 before trending down until its floor during season 4. This is followed by two more spikes in seasons 5 and 7, with a single instance occurring and sandwiched between them in season 6. The maxim of quality also experiences its peak early on in season 2, with a mark of 5 before tailing off and hovering around 1 and 2 instances per season. The maxim of relevance remains low throughout the show, experiencing a slight uptick in season 6. Finally, the maxim of manner, bounces between 0 and 1, notwithstanding a slight peak in season 4 where 2 instances are recorded. Chart 2 displays the same information in the form of a bar chart. Chart 1. Changes over 7 seasons relating to Michael’s violation of maxims

Changes over 7 seasons 6 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 Sum of Quantity 3 2 2 2 2 2 Sum of Quality 2 Sum of Relevance 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Sum of Manner 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Season

Chart 2. Changes over 7 seasons relating to Michael’s violation of maxims (bar chart)

Changes over 7 seasons 6

5 5 4 4 4 4 4 Sum of Quantity 3 Sum of Quality

2 Sum of Relevance 2 2 2 2 2 2 Sum of Manner 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Season

8. Discussion The current study has sought to come to a conclusion about the following three questions: How does Michael Scott violate Grice’s maxims? How are the violations distributed amongst the observations? and Does Michael’s character change which maxims and how often he violates them throughout the show? In the data gathered for this study, Michael participated in 172 conversations with either coworkers or during talking head segments. In these 172 conversations, he failed to observe a maxim in 44. As a result, Michael is found guilty of failing to observe a maxim in 26% of his conversations. The results from the current study are not easily comparable with those of Attardo (1993) whose study proposed that all jokes are failures to observe Grice’s maxims. In Michael’s case, maxims were violated in 26% of the conversations, which would mean the remaining 74% “violation free” conversations lacked jokes. Furthermore, in Andresen’s (2012) findings in the show Community, it was concluded that the show’s characters most frequently failed to observe the maxims of quality and quantity. This coincides with the findings of the present study which also determined that quality and quantity are the maxims most often violated in the show. In Šmilauerová’s (2012) research it was found that the focus character of that study, Phoebe, most often violated the maxim of relation. This is in contrast to Michael Scott who was found to violate the quantity maxim most, and the relation maxim least. Finally, in the other study of The Office conducted by Lööf (2017) about the character Dwight, it was determined that he most frequently violated the maxim of relation, followed by quality, then quantity and manner. Here can be seen a clear difference between the characters of Dwight and Michael. While Dwight failed to observe the maxim of quantity just 5 times in four episodes, Michael failed to observe it over 20 times in seven episodes. Consequently, Dwight did not observe it 1.25 times per episode, and Michael did so 2.85 times. Moreover, the maxim of relevance was violated an average of 2 times per episode by Dwight, with this figure at just 0.71 for Michael. In regards to the other maxims, Dwight failed to observe the maxim of quality 1.25 times per episode and the maxim of manner 0.5 times, with the same categories being 2 and 0.71 per episode for Michael, respectively. A take away from this comparison of The Office characters is that Michael’s humor is most often portrayed through either giving too much or too little information, or in other words violating the maxim of quantity, while Dwight’s character tends be centered around making mentions which are irrelevant to the topic being discussed. Upon examining the failure to observe maxims by the focus character in this study, the results reveal that the maxim of quantity was violated on 20 occasions, while the maxim of quality was failed to be observed

14 different times. Furthermore, the maxims of relevance and manner were equally distributed throughout the conversations at 5 instances each. Therefore, it can be concluded that most of Michael’s failures, and thus, the main proportion of what makes his character humorous is his tendency to provide too much or too little information in conversations. On one final note, it may be that the maxim of manner was found to be least often violated because determining which expressions are obscure or ambiguous is susceptible to misinterpretation because of its subjectivity. However, identifying utterances which are irrelevant, include too much or too little information, or are blatantly false are more easily recognized due to their objective nature. This concept, leads to the possibility that the findings of this study could be skewed to some extent, therefore, affecting its validity and reliability. 9. Conclusion The emphasis of this study was the analysis of a character from the TV series, The Office, named Michael Scott, in relation to Grice’s maxims of conversation. The failure to observe these maxims in conversation was its primary concern. The aim of the research was not only to find out how often and which maxims were violated, but also how the figures varied over the course of seven seasons. Due to the successful comedic acting career of the character Michael (played by Steve Carrel), the findings of this study are not entirely shocking. When doing a more in-depth study of the character it was found that he failed to observe maxims in 26% of the conversations he participated in during fourteen episodes over seven seasons. Michael is constantly creating embarrassing, awkward, and uncomfortable situations for himself and those he works with. Sometimes through failing to be unambiguous, other times making irrelevant references, and still more by making utterances which he knows to be false. However, given that 46% of the infractions occur due the violation of the maxim of quantity one thing is clear; a key element of Michael’s, and perhaps the show’s, success, is contingent on his apparent inability to know how much information to provide in order to achieve the goal of the conversation. In regards to future studies in this area, it would be fascinating to research the differences in the violation of maxims by other characters in the show. Furthermore, a study comparing the British and American versions of the TV series in relation to Grice’s maxims would make for a stimulating investigation. References 1. Afzaal, M., Khan, M., Ghaffar Bhatti, A., & Shahzadi, A. (2019a). Discourse and corpus- based analysis of doctor-patient conversation in the context of Pakistani hospitals. European Online Journal of Natural and Social Sciences, 8(4), 732-752. 2. Afzaal, M., Khan, M., Ghaffar Bhatti, A., & Shahzadi, A. (2019b). A study of Pakistani English newspaper texts: An application of Halliday and Hasan’s model of cohesion: A Discourse Analysis. International Journal of English Linguistics, Vol. 9, No. 5; 2019 3. Afzaal, M., Liu, K., Wu, B., Sayyida, R., & Naqvi, S. B. (2020). An investigation of abstract and discussion sections in master’s dissertations. International Journal of English Linguistics, 10(1), (177-185). 4. Andresen, N. (2012). Flouting the maxims in comedy: An analysis of flouting in the comedy series Community. Unpublished bachelor's thesis, Karlstad University, Available at. [http://www.diva- portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:704301]. 5. Birner, B. J. (2013). Introduction to pragmatics. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. 6. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2011). Research methods in education (7th. Ed.). Milton Park, England: Routledge. 7. Forever dreaming. (2019). The Office (US) Episode Scripts. Retrieved from https://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewforum.php?f=574&start=125 8. Gervais, R., Merchant, S., & Daniels, G. (2014). The office- An American workplace. United States: Universal Television (if a book, missing city, country of publication: Publisher).

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