FOUR MAXIMS OF COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

ON ONLINE CLASSES OF ENGLISH MAJORS IN

UNIVERSITY OF NUEVA CACERES

A Thesis Presented to

College of Education Faculty

University of Nueva Caceres

City of Naga

In Partial Fulfillment of

The Requirements for the Subject

4052

Research in Teaching

IMPERIAl, KING BENSON

TAPAR, CHRISTINE JOY

 CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM

Introduction

COVID-19 pandemic becomes a widespread public issue

around the world and changed so many things. Furthermore,

it sets new rules as humanity enter to a new way of living

which is called ‘the new normal’. One of the things that

this pandemic changed is on the student’s way of education

from ‘traditional’ that specifically uses books and

blackboard to ‘online classes’ which utilizes technology to

communicate and acquire knowledge. Online classes refers to

a type of learning that is being accompanied by the

internet. These are usually conducted through class

websites like Blackboard Learning Management System, Google

Classroom, Google Meet, Zoom, etc., through which teachers

displays the course syllabus and the students can track

their academic progress, as well as interact with each

other which is a core component in learning. With the

changes in the method of teaching and acquiring knowledge,

good and clear communication between the students and

teachers is very significant.

 Online classes are held through technology and the

internet, which makes searching for an answer to every

question becomes easy, but students tend to rely on the

internet that sometimes they just copy and paste answers in

just one touch. As a result, there is no real and decent

interaction between the teacher and the students. Also,

since online class is a distance learning, it became more

teacher-centered in which the teacher does more talking and

the students just listen. In that way, the students know

the lesson but can’t express the idea of the lesson. Yet,

to address this problem, there are several theories that

was established and one of those is the Cooperative

Principle which is a rule that concerns with how people

talk and perceive ideas in a conversation and the way both

parties cooperate to avoid misunderstanding and troubles.

The findings of the study would be valuable to the

students, teachers along with other professionals and

future researchers. For the students, this study is a great

way to deeply understand the importance of communication

especially when there is a gap/distance in between with

someone. Moreover, the conduct of this study would make

teachers and other professionals be aware of the situation

among the people around them. This could provide them such
techniques and manner on how to deal with communication

problems. Yet, it would also be beneficial to future

researchers as they explore variety of principles and this

study may help and encourage them to have more in-depth

studies to obtain further information on Cooperative

Principle and its four maxims (maxim of quantity, maxim of

quality, maxim of relation, maxim of manner).

Statement of the Problem:

This study focused into the 4 maxims of Cooperative

Principle (maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of

relation, maxim of manner) and its features on discourse of

English Majors online classes.

Particularly, it would answer the following questions:

1. What are the conversational features of English Majors’

Online Class in terms of?

a. The Maxim of Quantity

b. The Maxim of Quality

c. The Maxim of Relation

d. The Maxim of Manner

2. What are the identified violations based on the four

maxims of the cooperative principle in the online class

of English Majors?

3. What recommendations can be given with regard to the

conduct of online class discussion?

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The main theory anchored in this thesis is the

Cooperative Principle, a principle proposed by H.P. Grice

in 1975, which states that participants expect to make a

conversation to achieve a certain purpose which is an

important part to understand pragmatics. Cooperative

Principle has 4 maxims: the maxim of quality, the maxim of

quantity, the maxim of relation, and the maxim of manner

which is important in understanding a conversation. (Li,

2015).

Four Maxims of Cooperative Principle

The four maxims of the cooperative principle or the

Gricean maxim shows the correlation between statement and

what is understood from it. The four maxim is based on its

cooperative principle, which states that, at the stage

where it occurs, make your contribution as required by the

accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which

you participated. Cooperative Principle describes how

interaction is achieved in conversation in common social

settings.

1. The Maxim of Quality

In which one tries to be true and does not provide

information that is false or that is not supported by

proof.

The condition of Maxim of Quality is that:

Do not say what you believe to be false.

Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Example

Person 1: How old are you?

A 25 years old man: I’m 20 years old.

Fail to follow this, means that the speaker gives false

answer or information in a conversation.

2. The Maxim of Quantity

Where one tries to be as informative as one can be and

gives as much and no more information as is required.

The condition of Maxim of Quantity is that:

· Make your contribution as informative as is required.

· Do not make your contribution more informative than is

required.

Example:

Student 1: When is the due of the project?

Student 2: You can find the due in the group chat.

Fail to follow this means the speaker don’t give the

required information that is needed.

3. The Maxim of Relation

Where one attempts to be relevant and says things that are

relevant to the conversation.

The condition of Maxim of Relation is that:

· Be relevant.

Example:

Person 1: Are you attending the party?

Person 2: I have so many laundries in the house that needed

to be washed.
Fail to follow this means the speaker answer irrelevant

information.

4. The Maxim of Manner

Where one uses brief, clear, and simple language in a

conversation.

The condition of Maxim of Manner is that:

· Avoid obscurity of expression.

· Avoid ambiguity.

· Be brief.

· Be orderly.

Example:

Person 1: What did you have for dinner last night?

Person 2: Well, we combined all the ingredients listed in a

recipe for risotto Milanese, in the indicated order, and

the result was edible.

Fail to follow this means that the speaker doesn’t give

simple and brief answer.

(BJORKMAN, n.d.)
 This research study is supported by the theory of

Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson which is the Politeness

Theory, 1978.

Politeness theory is a theory developed by Penelope

Brown and Stephen Levinson which discusses the two types of

faces of a community or a person in communication with

another. The two faces of politeness theory are the

positive face and the negative face. The positive face is

the wish or desire to gain the approval of others, while

the negative face is the wish to be unimpeded by others in

one’s actions. These two have been used in developing two

strategies of politeness theory which are the negative

politeness strategies and the positive politeness

strategies.

The negative politeness strategies are the strategies

that are performed to avoid offense through deference,

while the positive politeness theory is the strategies that

are performed to avoid offense by emphasizing friendliness.

This strategy may help the study in finding the proper

recommendation for the problem of the study.

Politeness Theory strategies may help the teacher and

the student to have good communication because sometimes

the teacher and the student have good communication which

results in misunderstanding. After all, the student is

afraid or ashamed of the teacher.

They both consider sociocultural aspects and reasons

for communication, but Grice's model focuses on analyzing

and describing speech maxims and implicature decryption. As

a result, the Gricean model is insufficient to comprehend

all of Brown and Levinson's knowledge about politeness in

language. Another way to broaden the Gricean perspective is

to develop another important conversational maxim: which is

the maxim of politeness.

Politeness Theory is interconnected to the Cooperative

Principle since it both focused on the manners on how

appropriate, decent and worthy a conversation must be. A

good and perceivable conversation is not just about how we

express our sides but rather on the way we conduct and

value the kind of conversation that we had with others.

Both the theories can help in finding the right

recommendation on how teacher and the student would

understand each other in the aspect of online classes.

Fig. 1: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The conceptualization of this study consists of these

system. The input, the process, the output and the

feedback. The main focus of this study are the identified

violations based on the four maxims of the cooperative

principle in the online classes of English Majors and the

recommendations that can be given with regard to the

conduct of online classes.

Input. The following inputs of the study were the

conversational features of English Majors’ Online Class in

terms of The Maxim of Quantity, The Maxim of Quality, The

Maxim of Relation, The Maxim of Manner. The second input is

the identified violations based on the four maxims of the

cooperative principle in the online class of English

Majors.

Process. Involves the data gathering process which is

done by observation of online classes, transcription of

data, discourse analysis using the cooperative principle to

identify the violations that lead to non-cooperative

attitudes of the speakers.

 Output. Upon the completion of the process, the study

will provide recommendations with regard to the conduct of

conversation in online classes.

Fig. 2: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Scope and Delimitation

This study was concentrated on the four maxims of

cooperative principle (maxim of quantity, maxim of quality,

maxim of relation, maxim of manner) in which discourse and

pragmatic analysis is utilized to interpret the data of the

three classes of English majors during 2nd semester of

school year 2020-2021. It also aims to figure out the

violations made by the students on the conversations made

from their online classes. However, this study did not

include any other major classes in the college of education

of University of Nueva Caceres.

Definition of Terms

1. Discourse Analysis - is a research method for studying

written or spoken language in relation to its social

context. It aims to understand how language is used in real

life situations.

2. Grice’s Cooperative Principle - is a set of norms that

are expected in conversations. It consists of four maxims

that needed to be followed in order to have a cooperative

and understanding conversation.

 ● Maxim of Quantity - where one tries to be as

informative as one possibly can, and gives as

much information as is needed, and no more.

● Maxim of Quality - where one tries to be

truthful, and does not give information that is

false or that is not supported by evidence.

● Maxim of Relation - where one tries to be

relevant, and says things that are pertinent to

the discussion.

● Maxim of Manner ­
- when one tries to be as clear,

as brief, and as orderly as one can in what one

says, and where one avoids obscurity and

ambiguity.

7. Conversational Features - the characteristics of how a

good conversation should be.

8. Maxim - a short, pithy statement expressing a general

truth or rule of conduct.

9. Conversational Violations - the violations made though

the process of conversation.

Notes

BJORKMAN, B. (n.d.). 10.5 Pragmatics and the

Cooperative Principle. Retrieved from

ecampusontario.pressbooks:

https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/essentialso

flinguistics/chapter/10-5-pragmatics-and-the-coop

erative-principle/

Li, Q. (2015). The Application of Cooperative

Principle in Oral English Learning. International

Journal on Studies in English Language and

Literature (IJSELL), 39-48.

https://www.grin.com/document/335445 - Politeness. A

comparison of two pragmatic approaches towards

polite acting in speech

 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the related literature and

studies relevant to the present studies which were reviewed

to be able to conceptualized the current study. The review

material will help in identifying the basic concepts and

variables in the in-depth study of the phenomena.

(Bengisu, 2020) emphasizes that linguistic principles

at different stages are crucial in maintaining consistent

and accurate communication for dyadic interactions.

Violating these principles, however, could lead to unwieldy

and problematic communication. When conversational

violations occur, gaze can be a medium to reflect the

cognitive responses. This reference can be useful in

understanding why the students violate the four maxims.

(Alqbailat, 2020) emphasize the importance to improve

chatrooms' features regarding speech acts theory and

Grice's maxim. The analysis concluded that interaction on

OSC still needs more investigation. More precisely,

Facebook chatrooms neglect to some extent the two theories.

This reference can be useful in looking for the possible

recommendation in with regard in conducting conversations

in online class.
 (Syafryadin, Chandra, Apriani, & Noermanzah, 2020)

propose that the conversation is with the maxim and

implicature. Without realizing it, the students usually

violate and obey the maxim. Thereby, their study aims at

knowing the types of maxim and implicature. The findings

of this study showed that most of the students obeyed the

maxims of quality, quantity, manner, and relevance,

however, some students still disobeyed the maxims. This

reference can be useful in understanding the students

follow or violate the maxims without them knowing.

(Awwad, Ayasreh, Ayasrah, & AL-Sabti, 2019)emphasize

that the speaker and the listener are expected to

communicate successfully in a normal conversation. The

perception of conversational maxims by Grice requires that

the meaning of the speaker be expected based on the meaning

of the sentence, in violation of the cooperative principles

of conversation and the ability of the listener to

understand the meaning of the speaker.

(Khayati, Mujiyanto, & Warsono, 2019) aimed at

investigating the realization of Grice’s maxims in English

teacher’s interaction with male and female students at

Bilingual Boarding School and the gender difference that

influenced the interaction. The results of their study can

pedagogically contribute to English language studies. In

the classroom interaction in discourse and pragmatic

development in general, the realization of maxims (observed

and flouted) can be directly included as a good example of

the natural authentic of English.

(Stokke, 2016) shown that the conversational

implications of Gricean are routinely inferred from

utterances recognized to be untruthful. It is argued that

this observation falsifies the original claim of Grice that

listeners assume that speakers obey other maxims only if

the speaker is presumed to obey quality maxims, and also

the associated claim that listeners assume that speakers

are cooperative only to the extent that they assume they

are being truthful.

(Okanda, Asada, Moriguchi, & Itakura, 2015) used a

revised Conversational Violations Test to examine Gricean

maxim violations in 4- to 6-year-old Japanese children and

adults. Participants' understanding of the following maxims

was assessed: be informative (first maxim of quantity),

avoid redundancy (second maxim of quantity), be truthful

(maxim of quality), be relevant (maxim of relation), avoid

ambiguity (second maxim of manner), and be polite (maxim of

politeness). Sensitivity to violations of Gricean maxims

increased with age: 4-year-olds' understanding of maxims

was near chance, 5-year-olds understood some maxims (first

maxim of quantity and maxims of quality, relation, and

manner), and 6-year-olds and adults understood all maxims.

This reference can be useful in understanding the

violations that the students in the online class of English

major violate.

(Kleinke, 2010) shows that a cognitive perspective on

the conversational maxims of the Gricean concept opens new

perspectives on two issues that have not been addressed in

detail in the original model and most successive work on

conversational implications: the activity of the speaker

and the cognitive underpinning of the maxims of

conversation.

(Murray, 2009) argues that learners can simultaneously

benefit from a deductive approach which develops an

appreciation of those general principles that background

the performance and interpretation of speech acts. It is

suggested that Grice's Cooperative Principle provides a

useful means through which to implement such an approach

and help ensure that learners use language in a socially

appropriate way. This reference can be useful to know the

effect of following the maxims in online class.

Synthesis-of-the-State-the-Art

(Bengisu, 2020) (Awwad, Ayasreh, Ayasrah, & AL-Sabti,

2019) (Khayati, Mujiyanto, & Warsono, 2019) presented the

importance of cooperation, listening, and speaking for a

conversation to take place successfully. It would greatly

help to understand what is needed to be done when having a

conversation specially when into an online classroom.

However, this reference had a limited idea on the

specificity in the conversation that takes place in online

classroom.

(Okanda, Asada, Moriguchi, & Itakura, 2015)

(Syafryadin, Chandra, Apriani, & Noermanzah, 2020) (Stokke,

2016) observe on how to analyze the violation that take

place in a conversation with the use of the Four Maxim of

Cooperation which will be helpful for us researcher on also

finding the violation that take place in an online

classroom.

(Alqbailat, 2020) (Murray, 2009) (Kleinke, 2010)

presented the things to improve in having a conversation.

These studies will be helpful to the researchers on giving

recommendation with regard to the conduct in online

classes.
Gap Bridged of the Study

All books, studies, and other materials mentioned

above had contributed sufficiently to present the research.

Although these materials showed relatedness to the present

research, the study is distinct and focuses on the features

and violations on conversation that take place in an online

classroom. Based on the researcher’s capacity, the

researchers have seen that there has been no studied yet

conducted that is the same with the study of the present

research.
Notes

Alqbailat, N. M. (2020, 01 24). Internet linguistics: a

conversational analysis of online synchronous chat and

face-to-face conversations of EFL undergraduate students in

Jordan. Retrieved from e-archivo:

http://hdl.handle.net/10016/29806

Awwad, A. S., Ayasreh, A. M., Ayasrah, N. M., & AL-Sabti,

N. (2019). Interpretations of the Gricean Conversational

Maxims Violations. International Journal of Applied

Engineering Research, 4100-4104.

Bengisu, Ç. (2020). An investigation of interactions with

conversational violations: Insights from visual perception

and Gricean Maxim violations. Middle East: Middle East

Technical University.

Ho, C.-H., & Swan, K. (2007). The Internet and Higher

Education. Elsevier Inc.

Khayati, I., Mujiyanto, J., & Warsono, W. (2019). The

Realization of Grice’s Maxims in English Teacher’s

Interaction with Male and Female Students. English

Education Journal, VOL 9 NO 3.

Kleinke, S. (2010). Speaker activity and Grice's maxims of

conversation at the interface of Pragmatics and Cognitive

Linguistics. Journal of Pragmatics, 3345-3366.

Murray, N. (2009). Pragmatics, awareness raising, and the

Cooperative Principle. ELT Journal, 293–301.

Okanda, M., Asada, K., Moriguchi, Y., & Itakura, S. (2015,

July 02). Understanding violations of Gricean maxims in

preschoolers and adults. Retrieved from frontiersin:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.009

01/full

Stokke, A. (2016). Truthfulness and Gricean Cooperation.

Grazer Philosophische Studien, 489–510.

Syafryadin, S., Chandra, W. D., Apriani, E., & Noermanzah,

N. (2020). Maxim Variation, Conventional And Particularized

Implicature On Students’ Conversation. INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, VOLUME 9,

ISSUE 02.

Tajabadi, A., Dowlatabadi, H., & Mehri, E. (2014). Grice's

Cooperative Maxims in Oral Arguments: The Case of Dispute

Settlement Councils in Iran. In A. Tajabadi, H.

Dowlatabadi, & E. Mehri, Procedia - Social and Behavioral

Sciences (pp. 1859-1865). Elsevier Ltd.

Tannen, D. (2007). Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue,

and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

https://www.thoughtco.com/conversational-implicature-speech

-acts-1689922
 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methods and procedures used

in accumulating the essential data to analyze how students

converse as they share their perceptions concerning the 4

maxims of Cooperative Principle (maxim of quality, maxim of

quantity, maxim of relation, maxim of manner). Furthermore,

this chapter describes the research design, participants,

discourse analysis method and ethical consideration which

are needed to achieve the aims of the study.

Research Design

In order to generate sufficient information to support

the study, Descriptive Qualitative Research design was

utilized. Descriptive Qualitative Research is intended to

deeply explore, understand and interpret social phenomena

with its natural setting (Creswell 2002, Pope & Mays 1995,

Denzin & Lincoln 1994). Qualitative design was used since

the focus of the study is on observing a certain phenomena

on the way students express and perceive thoughts. By using

a qualitative research methodology, researchers want to

collect richer information and get more detailed picture of

issues, cases or events (Aurora and Stone 2009).

 Specifically the only method of collecting data for

the study is through observation in which cases and

situations from conversations made on the online classes of

english majors are analyzed and interpreted according to

the rules of cooperative principle and its maxims.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS METHOD

Discourse Analysis is a broad term for the study of

the ways in which language is used in texts and contexts.

Also called discourse studies. Developed in the 1970s, the

field of discourse analysis is concerned with "the use of

language in a running discourse, continued over a number of

sentences, and involving the interaction of speaker (or

writer) and auditor (or reader) in a specific situational

context, and within a framework of social and cultural

conventions. (Abrams and Harpham, A Glossary of Literary

Terms, 2005)

In this thesis, discourse analysis was employed as an

instrument to scrutinize a number of talks or conversation

between a professor and student as they exchange

perspectives with a certain matter that took place in the

online classes of English Majors at University of Nueva

Caceres in accordance with the four maxims of cooperative

principle (maxim of quality, maxim of quantity, maxim of

relation, maxim of manner). Discourse Analysis through

online observation is the main method used to analyze and

interpret the data gathered.

Participants

The participants in this study were the third year

education students of University of Nueva Caceres whose

major is English and into online classes. Further, only

three classes were chosen by the researchers and it is the

classes of Mr. Mark Paderan, Mrs. Maria Cristal Velez and

another english major professor. Based on the standards,

these participants are capable of providing the sufficient

and detailed information that are notable in the aims of

the study. Also, it would be easier to collect data since

the researchers and respondents are together taking with

the same course, subjects and professors. Hence, simple

random sampling method was used.

Procedure of Investigation

The researchers sought the approval of Mrs. Maria

Cristal Velez, Mr. Mark Paderan and Mrs. Melvi Briones to

commence the gathering of data. Observation is manifested

on the mentioned classes. Through observation, the

researchers would analyze the overall conversation of the 3

classes. All interpreted data’s were presented in case

study formats. This enables the researchers to easily

interpret the data.

Ethical Consideration

Ethics is described as a principle that concerns with

what is morally right and wrong. In this research, the

following ethical guidelines were put into place:

1. The dignity and well being of the professors and

students are protected at all times.

2. All the data and information remained

confidential throughout the process of the study.

3. Only relevant and vital information were utilized

in the study.
 CHAPTER IV

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

The data collected by the researchers were presented,

analyzed, and interpreted in this chapter. The following

questions were addressed by this research: 1. what are the

conversational features of English Majors' Online Class in

terms of the Maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and

Manner? 2. what are the identified violations based on the

four maxims of the cooperative principle in English Majors'

Online Class?.

CONVERSATIONAL FEATURES IN THREE ONLINE CLASSES OF ENGLISH

MAJOR

The student's approach to education shifted from

"traditional," which relied solely on books and

blackboards, to "online," which relied on technology to

communicate and learn, as a result of the pandemic.

Teachers display their course syllabus and students can

track their academic progress as well as interact with one

another, which is an important part of learning, through

class websites such as Blackboard Learning Management

System, Google Classroom, Google Meet, Zoom, and others.

One of the schools that have followed this new method of

teaching students this pandemic is the University of Nueva

Caceres.

The researchers will analyze three online English

majors classes to identify the violations committed by the

teachers and students in terms of the Four Maxims of

Cooperative Principle and also to find conversational

features observed in the classes. To find this violation

and conversational features, the researchers will utilize

Discourse Analysis.

The researchers used its main theory, "Four Maxim of

Cooperative Principle," as well as Politeness Theory by

Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, to conduct the

discourse analysis of the three online English major

classes at UNC. The important elements of the discourse

analysis of the three online classes of English major in

UNC are Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Quantity, Maxim of

Relation, and Maxim of Manner.

The Spoken Discourse Analysis reveals the presence of

conversational features in terms of four Maxims of

Cooperative Principle in the online classes of English

Majors which are adjacency pairs, back-channel features,

contraction, discourse markers, face, false start, fillers,

Grice's Maxims, Hedge, Phatic talk, Paralinguistic features

and Prosodic features.

FOUND CONVERSATIONAL FEATURES

MAXIM OF QUANTITY

In the context of the Cooperative Principle, the maxim

of quantity is concerned about when someone tries to be as

informative as one can be and gives as much and no more

information as is required. With regards to this maxim,

there are a lot conversational features that are

noticeable. First observable feature among the 3 classes is

the Adjacency pair. These are commonly paired statements or

phrases often used in two-way conversation. Further, this

had been recognized when the professor greeted the students

and they responded somewhat the same. An example based from

the classes is like:

Professor: Franz Olinguit, good morning.

Student: Morning, Ma’am.

The case above is a manifestation of the above

mentioned feature. Next feature which had been noticeable

with the 3 classes are Back Channels. This refers to a word

or phrase given by a listener to show attention or

understanding using minimal responses. In the situation

below, this feature had been clearly noticed.

Professor: Can you please click for the next slide,

next slide.

Student: *Next slide.

Professor: Yeah… Ok, I hope. Is this for the Language,

Culture and Society or we, the other one.

The word “yeah” is considered to be in this feature.

Next one which had been noticeable with the 3 classes are

Discourse Markers. This refers to words or phrases used to

help a listener organize and give meaning to what is being

said. The sentence below contains this feature.

Professor: So, this subject is Research and we’re going to

talk a lot of things here and there is an expected output

for you to pass this subject.

The word “so” is an exhibited feature which belong in

this category. Another conversational features that was

detected is Elision. This regards with the combination of

words to form meaningful non-words. This is one of the

evident features on the 3 classes. In the circumstances

below, such words like “let’s”, “you’ve” and “it’s” had

been noticed.

Professor: Now, let’s move on to (feature) discussion of

Feature writing. Alright, before we discussed it, let’s

differentiate first what is hard news and soft news. Okay.

Let me first ask. What would you feel if (if) all the news

on TV or in the newspaper are about death, pandemic,

killings, robbery, rape? What would you feel if everyday

(everyday) of your life you’ve been hearing this type of

news? Melvin? What would you feel?

Student: Sometimes, ma’am it’s not pleasing anymore seeing

those all the things that you’ve seen in TV is about bad

news (po) ma’am.

Also, paralinguistic features are detected between the

conversations of the 3 classes. This features has its sub

categories which are false start, fillers, repetition and

phatic talk. Under the false start, in the circumstance

below the phrase “if you would--if I am going to” clearly

depicts the said feature.

Professor: So, it’s not (ah) the same with other subjects

because if you would--if I am going to tell you (uhm) your

course subjects is divided into 3.

Besides, fillers and repetitions are manifested.

Fillers are words used to fill the little pauses while

repetition are repeated words or phrases in a sentence.

Distinguished words such as “uhm” for the filler and “with

regard to” for the repetition is under this feature.

Professor: So, each of you will be asked to contribute

(for) for the final output, the news story. Are you done?

Are you done (ah) with discussing all of these (uhm) aspect

of your news letter? Who lead the (uhm) meeting? Arthur,

are you done? Did you arrive with the consensus with regard

to (with regard to) (ah) your news letter?

Meanwhile, Prosodic Features were also sighted among

the 3 classes. This feature includes intonation, rhythm and

stress. Intonation refers to the pitch of the speaker’s

voice. Rhythm is the movement of speech. Then, stress is

concerned with the relative emphasis to certain syllables.

It had been given an emphasis on the word “imagine” in

which it was said in a high pitch.

Professor: Okay. You will feel sad because everything is

negative. {laughing while saying... Imagine (high pitch)

you’ve been watching ‘Probinsyano’ for 24 hours} and you’ve

been seeing news on TV (on the news), you’ve been reading

news on newspaper, everything is about pandemic, everything

is about death, everything is about robbery and rape

killings everywhere. So, in a newspaper, we have the 2

types of news.

MAXIM OF QUALITY

In the maxim of Quality, the researchers did not find

features that can be linked to the maxim which tells that

one needs to be truthful and does not provide information

that is false or not backed up by evidence. In this aspect,

the integration of the Politeness Theory by Penelope Brown

and Stephen C. Levinson is visualized since it has its 2

classification; the positive and negative politeness

strategies. Positive Politeness Strategy was perceived as

the way of how professor exchange conversation with the

students (vice versa) where they exhibit the truthfulness

of what they have conveyed or said to one another. The

expression of truthfulness in presentation of knowledge and

ideas were obviously seen in the faces of the students

along with the professors.

Generally, discourse analysis reveals the presence of

adjacency pairs, back-channel features, contraction,

discourse markers, face, false start, fillers, Grice's

Maxims, Hedge, Phatic talk, paralinguistic features,

Prosodic features, Repairs in the three classes of English

majors. Other nonverbal features identified include smiles,

exclamations, pauses or silences, laughter, gaze or

looking, deep breaths, increases in the pitch or loudness

of voice, prolonging vowels in a syllable, and so on. The

existence of this features clearly emphasizes the way a

conversation exists in a normal way. For the communication

to be effective, each and everyone should understand

what must be meant to say in a clear and concise way.

Most importantly do not violate any of the maxims to

achieve a successful conversation.

C. MAXIM OF RELATION

False Start

Repetition and corrections are more common than false

starts. When a conversation becomes heated, multiple

speakers speak at the same time, or a speaker is

interrupted, they're the most common. They can also occur

when a speaker becomes animated and jumps from one topic to

another.

False starts violate the Maxim of Relation because

they make the students confuse about the discussion of the

topic.

Example:

Professor: Ok, but they will be creating… they will be

presenting, the classroom will presenting using

infographics or what did we use? The story map, ahh your

choice from the creative works, your choice, yeah.

Discourse Markers

A discourse marker is a word or phrase that helps

control the flow and structure of a conversation. Oh, well,

now, then, you know, and I mean, as well as the discourse

connectives so, because, and, but, and or, are examples of

discourse markers.

Discourse markers are manifested in all the 3 classes.

The most used marker among the classes is “so”. In one of

the classes of English major, it was visible in the

statement, “so, in a newspaper, we have the 2 types of

news.” while in the other class it was noticeable in the

statement, “ok, but they will be creating, they will be

presenting, the classroom will presenting using

infographics or what did we use?”. The word “but” was the

discourse marker being utilized.

D. MAXIM OF MANNER

Adjacency Pairs

A conversational unit consisting of two speakers

exchanging one turn each is known as an adjacency pair. The

turns are functionally linked in such a way that the first

one requires a particular type of the second turn.

This feature had been observed in all the 3 classes of

English major students. For instance, the teacher greeted

the students one by one then the students will reply when

their name is called. In that way, the Maxim of Manner is

violated because it makes the greetings long when it the

time should be in the discussion.

Professor: “Good morning”

Student: “good morning, ma’am”.

Back-Channel Features

Backchannel responses are frequently phatic

expressions that serve a social or meta-conversational

purpose rather than conveying important information, such

as indicating the listener's attention, comprehension, or

agreement. "Yeah," "uh-huh," "hmm," and "right" are

examples of phrases.

In the three classes, this feature had been fully

manifested. These are what most people fillers. Fillers are

words used in full sentences. It became a violation of the

Maxim of Manner because it adds to the discussion of the

Professor which violates the rule of this maxim to be

brief.

Example of this are:

Professor: Ahhh, again “inaudible”, so this for us enable,

ahh this enables us to know your feelings today and so to

start please go to mentimeter.com and type the code that is

on your screen. And you will see there, how do you feel

today? And type two words to share your feelings.

VIOLATIONS IN THREE ONLINE CLASS OF ENGLISH MAJOR IN TERMS

OF FOUR MAXIM OF COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

Through the discourse analysis of selected three

online classes of English major in UNC using the main

theory in this study, the researchers find the results

using the 4 Maxims of Cooperative Principles which shows

that there are violations in concern of communication

between the teacher and the students inside the online

classroom. The violations found in the three classes were

as follows:

The most violation that is found in the 3 analysis is

related to the Maxim of Manners. Examples of these

violations are; (1) the most notable is when the Icebreaker

which is initiated by Ms. April Nanuz, which should be a

short activity and takes too long and eat a great time of

the class. (2) when Ms. April Nanuz repeatedly greets the

students one by one, to which most of the students replied

good morning to the teacher. This repetition violates the

Maxim of Manner which states that what is omitted in

conversation should be short and clear. One greeting is

sufficient for all students because repeating the

one-on-one greeting to the students only adds time that

could be better spent introducing the topic to be

discussed, it is also preferable to have a brief

introduction because students can easily lose focus in

class; which psychologists also claim that the average

student's attention span is ten minutes, and the maximum

attention span is fifteen minutes. (3) There are a lot of

feelers like “ahh” mentioned in the class discussion, this

also violates the Maxim of Manner, which states that the

person conversing must be brief, clear, and simple in his

or her words in a conversation. (4) when the student's

answers a question with answers that do not belong in the

choices, such as "sakalam, etc." (5) when there are

noticeable unnecessary words and phrases like (my internet

connection is unstable). According to the study of

(Awwad, Ayasreh, Ayasrah, & AL-Sabti, 2019), they state

that the speaker and the listener are expected to

communicate successfully in a normal conversation. In

normal conversation being brief and clear is important so

that the conversation will become understandable for the

students.

In Maxim of Relation, where one attempts to be

relevant and says things that are relevant to the

conversation, the example of the violation that is found

are; (1) when the student's answers a question with answers

that do not belong in the choices, such as "sakalam, etc."

(2) because of the aforementioned problem, many comments

about the internet and gadgets have been made, causing the

takeaway discussion to consume more time of the class;

these comments can be said to violate the Maxim of Relation

and Maxim of Manner because the comments are a little bit

unrelated to the topic and make the discussion a little bit

longer. And (3) when the presenter violates the Maxim of

Relation by not taking his presentation seriously at the

end and doing some unnecessary things and showing

unnecessary slides. Maybe because the students are not

inside the classroom, they become a little bit informal to

answer unrelated answers, and because we are all suffering

from a slow internet commenting becomes natural to the

student and the teacher. In the class of Mrs. Velez and Mr.

Paderan there are no violations noticed in the whole

conversation. The study of (Syafryadin, Chandra, Apriani,

& Noermanzah, 2020) sates that, without realizing it, the

students violate and obey the maxims. Therefore, knowing

the types of maxims and implicature may help the students

and the teacher to fix these violations.

 With regards to the maxim of Quantity, where it is

necessary to be as informative as possible and to provide

only the information that is required. There were some

violations being noticed and those are; (1) the existence

of fillers such as “uhm” “ah” (2) unmodulated and unclear

voice (3)repeated words and (4) interruptions like “can I

just answer the call of Dr. Dante?”.

In the maxim of Quality, the researchers did not find

any notable violations that can be linked to the maxim

which tells that one needs to be truthful and does not

provide information that is false or not backed up by

evidence.

Some factors outside the 4 maxims of Cooperative

Principles also affect the communication of the teacher and

the students like (1) the technical error that is happening

to the gadget of the students in the middle of the online

class, (2) slow internet provider, and (3) miscommunication

of instructions. These factors affect the teacher and the

students because the good gadgets and internet provider is

the most need things to attend an online class if one of

these is two is defective the communication and the study

of the student is at risk.

 To correct this violation and have an excellent online

conversation between a teacher and a student, the teacher

must plan ahead of time on how, when, and why the teacher

will communicate with their students so that they can

ensure that interaction in online classes is as effective

as possible; the teacher must also include in the plan in

when should the student will communicate. Further, the

teacher must also ensure that the plan must be timely,

relevant, and useful in communicating with the students.

These are the recommendations to help the teacher in

making successful communication inside an online classroom:

1. Keep in mind that less is more, try to keep your

sentences as short as possible. Online students are

inundated with text-based information, so reading yet

another long message is the last thing on their minds.

2. Be considerate, ask the students if they understand

the discussion, if not, reread your text to ensure

that it sounds exactly how you want it to. Examine the

communication's tone, as well as the text's clarity

and completeness. Your messages should be professional

and enjoyable, and your students should feel confident

that you are paying attention to their questions.

3. State the lesson clearly, your lesson and discussion

should be short and to the point, with no room for

interpretation. If, for example, you want your

students to know that a test deadline has been

extended, your message should only mention that.

4. Inquire about your students' opinions, inquiring about

their opinions adds a personal touch to your

communication, which helps them form bonds. People

enjoy giving their personal opinions because it makes

them feel important and a part of something; however,

this feedback is extremely valuable in helping you

improve the content of your course in the future.

5. Give responses because your students are learning

online, they must receive consistent feedback on their

progress. If a student has a question about a task,

it's a good idea to give a personal response first,

and then, if you think the question is important to

the rest of the class, introduce it to everyone.

 CHAPTER 5

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATION

PROBLEM 1: What are the conversational features of English

Majors’ Online Class in terms of The Maxim of Quantity, The

Maxim of Quality, The Maxim of Relation, The Maxim of

Manner.

Findings

● The Spoken Discourse Analysis reveals the presence of

conversational features in terms of four Maxims of

Cooperative Principle in the online classes of English

Majors. In the Maxim of Quantity; adjacency pair, back

channels, discourse markers, elision, paralinguistic

features (including false start, fillers, repetition

and phatic talk) and prosodic features (including

intonation, rhythm and stress) were observed. Further,

in the Maxim of Quality, there was no conversational

features linked to this maxim. Besides, for the maxim

of relation; false starts and discourse markers were

distinguished. Moreover, with the maxim of manner,

adjacency pairs and back channels are noticed.

Conclusion

● The existence of such features clearly manifests the

violations of each speaker in a conversation and on

how understandable and effective the communication is.

Therefore, knowing the conversational features will

benefit both the student and the teacher to produce a

successful conversation especially in the context of

Online Class. Having good communication facilitates

learning, assists students in achieving their

objectives, expands learning opportunities,

strengthens the student-teacher relationship, and

creates an overall positive experience.

PROBLEM 2: What are the identified violations based on the

four maxims of the cooperative principle in the online

class of English Majors?

Findings

● In the analysis of the three classes of English

majors, it was found that the most frequently violated

Maxims of Cooperative Principle are the Maxim of

Manner, the maxim of Relation and maxim of quantity.

The violations on the Maxim of Manner are on times

when some topics or activities take on in the allotted

 time only causing students to lose interest in

listening. The Maxim of relation is violated because

there are times when the topic is diverted to

something else or sometimes the student answers

something that does not apply to the question which

confuses the conversation. Further, the considered

violation in the maxim of quantity is on the existence

of fillers like “uhm”, repeated words and unavoidable

interruptions. In terms of the remaining Maxim, there

is no violation recognized as the words, phrases and

sentences being conveyed and imparted were considered

to be truthful and is always based on facts which were

mainly supported by evidences.

Conclusion

● Violations in the Four Maxim of Cooperative Principle

cause a great effect on conversations especially on

online classes. So, to achieve a productive and

successful communication where each and everyone

clearly understood what was meant to be transmitted,

planning and visualizing things is so significant as

it profoundly refine communication in a substantial

way and make learning more meaningful.

Recommendations

These are the recommendations to help the teacher in making

successful communication inside the classroom:

1. Keep in mind that less is more, try to keep your

sentences as short as possible. Online students are

inundated with text-based information, so reading yet

another long message is the last thing on their minds.

2. Be considerate, ask the students if they understand

the discussion, if not, reread the text to ensure that

it sounds exactly how it must be. Examine the

communication’s tone, as well as the text's clarity

and completeness.

3. State the lesson clearly, the lesson and discussion

should be short and to the point, with no room for

interpretation.

4. Inquire on students' opinions, inquiring about their

opinions adds a personal touch to the communication,

which helps form bonds.

5. Give responses because the students are learning

online, they must receive consistent feedback on their

progress. If a student has a question about a task,

it's a good idea to give a personal response first,

and then, if the question is important to the rest of

 the class, introduce it to everyone.

Implication for Practice

In the field of teaching especially in the time of

“New Normal”, communicating with students through online

classes is the new way of teaching the students about the

lesson or a topic. However, as educators, the teacher

should want to do more than just to communicate with the

students, teachers must ensure that every student on an

online platform hears and understands everything the

teacher says for the students to grasp the lesson. As said

in the study of (Alawamleh, Al-Twait, & Al-Saht, 2020)

students still prefer classroom classes over online classes

due to many problems they face when taking online classes,

such as lack of motivation, understanding of the material,

decrease in communication levels between the students and

their instructors and their feeling of isolation caused by

online classes. These problems happen due to poor

communication of the teacher and the student, the teacher

must be clear when he/she is motivating the students, be

brief and clear in explaining the instructional material,

and be more engage in asking the student not only about the

lesson but also about the personal life of the students so

that the students will become more open in communicating

with the teacher. We can achieve these things by having

effective communication which the teacher can fix or

improve by knowing the violations on the conversational

features between the teacher and students by using the Four

Maxims of Cooperative Principle which is the (1) The Maxim

of Quality, (2) The Maxim of Quantity, (3) The Maxim of

Relation, (4) The Maxim of Manner. By understanding these

four maxims, the teachers will become aware of the barriers

in communication that will affect the students'

comprehension of the discussion and lesson, which help to

improve communication inside the Online. It will also

provide the students with a sense of belongingness while

they are enrolled in online classes because the goal of

online communication is the same as it is in face-to-face

communication: to connect, share information, and be heard

and understood.

Future Research

This study's data is from the 3 selected online classes of

English majors from the University of Nueva Caceres and it

is advised that should future studies conduct a study

regarding Four Maxims of Cooperative Principle in Online

Classes, a more controlled participant pool should be

considered with a target size per year level so that future

researchers can include the students' year level and test

whether their year level affects the conversational

features in term of the Four Maxims of Cooperative

Principle or any other variable of the researchers'

choosing. This study's data was gathered by asking

permission from the Dean and English professors of the

College of Education to acquire video of their classes, it

would be wise that future researchers take a more direct

approach, for example observing an actual online class, so

that the study may yield more accurate results. It is

believed that several factors in the classroom affect the

conversational feature of the students, with the direct

approach, an observation can be conducted, and factors such

as the delivery of the lecture, the ambiance of the online

classroom, external factors that may affect the variables

(lecture presentation, voice modulation of the professor,

internet connection, gadgets, etc.)

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