Humor Strategies through the Flouting of the Cooperative Principle in the Logickah? Podcast: A Pragmatic Analysis

Abstract

Humor is one of the communication strategies widely employed in digital media to create engaging and entertaining interactions. One mechanism for generating humor is through the flouting of Grice’s Cooperative Principle. Unlike previous studies that primarily focused on identifying floutings of the Cooperative Principle, this study examines such floutings as pragmatic strategies for constructing humor in digital communication. This study aims to describe the mechanisms of humor through floutings of the Cooperative Principle in the “Logickah?” podcast. This research employed a descriptive qualitative approach, with the data consisting of utterances from four episodes of the Logickah? podcast. The data were collected using the non-participatory observation technique (Simak Bebas Libat Cakap [SBLC]) and note-taking through the transcription of spoken utterances into written form. The data were then analyzed using the extralingual matching method. The findings revealed 118 instances of Cooperative Principle floutings used as humor strategies, comprising 6 floutings of the maxim of quantity, 12 floutings of the maxim of quality, 91 floutings of the maxim of relation, and 9 floutings of the maxim of manner. These maxim floutings function as humor strategies through the inference of conversational implicatures derived from the conversational context, thereby producing humorous effects. The findings indicate that floutings of the Cooperative Principle should not merely be regarded as communicative deviations but can also serve as effective pragmatic strategies for constructing humor in digital media.