Gendered Pragmatics: Flouting of Maxims in Female Conversations in Tilik

Abstract

This study investigates the ways in which female characters in the Indonesian short film Tilik flout Grice’s conversational maxims and how these pragmatic deviations reflect gendered communication patterns. Employing a qualitative descriptive approach, eight selected utterances from the film’s dialogue were analyzed, focusing on interactions involving characters such as Bu Tejo, Yu Ning, and Bu Tri. The analysis identified instances of flouting across all four Gricean maxims: quantity, quality, relevance, and manner, with the maxim of quality occurring most frequently. These pragmatic strategies generated conversational implicatures that conveyed implicit moral evaluations and social criticism, particularly toward the character Dian. To enrich the interpretative framework, the study incorporated Tannen’s (1990) theory of gendered communication, emphasizing features such as indirectness, gossip, indirect criticism, and shared assumptions in women’s discourse. The findings demonstrate that maxim flouting in Tilik corresponds closely with these gendered communicative strategies, serving as a means of reinforcing social solidarity while simultaneously negotiating social norms. Overall, the study reveals that flouting conversational maxims functions as a culturally embedded and gendered pragmatic practice through which women construct meaning and express judgment indirectly.