Effective communication happens when the speaker and addressee share the same background knowledge or context. Grice presented his theory of Cooperative Principle, which people need to obey to in order to create an effective communication. However, he also presented that a speaker may fail to obey the Cooperative Principle by flouting the maxims, which generates implicature.
This research aimed to analyze the types of maxim flouting, the strategies used to flout the maxims, and the purposes of generating implicature in the utterances spoken by the characters in Peaky Blinders season 4. Peaky Blinders, a British television show, was chosen as the primary data for its content which contain many examples of maxim flouting utterances. To analyze them, the research used the theories mainly from Grice, Thomas, Cutting, and Austin.
There were eight types of maxim flouting, 10 strategies of flouting the maxims, and 13 purposes in flouting the maxims found from analyzing the Peaky Blinders show. The findings were the overlap of flouting maxims, the use of personification to flout the maxim of quality, and the various purposes of flouting the maxims.
Although flouting the maxims is considered failing to fulfill the maxims in Cooperative Principles, it does not interfere with the communication participant to engage in the topic. Overall, the communication still flows smoothly, as long as the speaker and the addressee(s) understand the context or the background knowledge.
Keywords: maxim flouting, types, strategy, purpose, implicature