Guidelines of Rational Communicative Behavior: An Analysis of Grice's Maxim Exploitation

The guidance of rational communicative behavior is a guideline that communication participants should utilize to achieve successful communication outcomes. The guidelines proposed by Grice (1975) constitute assumptions of intention and cooperation that underlie the human communication process. Despite the recognized importance of adhering to these guidelines, which align with innate human desires, speakers violate or exploit these guidelines. This study focuses on the exploitation of rational communicative behavior guidelines among the Malay community. This exploitation is investigated based on dialogues from a film that serves as evidence of actual societal conversations. The film dialogue from Lampong Karam (1961) is used to illustrate how these guidelines are exploited to create implicatures that lead to successful interactions. This study employs data analysis methods based on two main theories in effective communication, namely Grice's Theory of Conversation and Relevance Theory. Based on the conducted research, it is found that the exploitation of these guidelines by communication participants aims to produce implicatures in line with the innate human desire for cooperation. The implicatures resulting from this exploitation are effective as they are connected to the relevant desires of the listener, focusing on pertinent information. The exploitation of the identified guidelines in this film dialogue also showcases the diversity of ways the Malay community conveys messages, sometimes deviating from the guidelines but ultimately generating meaningful conclusions.