Disclosing Deceitful Behavior in Aladdin (2019): The Characters’ Violation of Grice’s Maxims
Abstract
In spite of the fact that Grice’s maxims direct the dyad talk exchange to glide gently, some people disobey for certain rational grounds or motives: one of them is hiding a lie. Aladdin (2019) was the remake of the 1992 American musical fantasy film which described a kind-hearted street urchin (Aladdin) and a power-hungry grand vizier ( Jafar) who were vying for a magic lamp that had the power to make their deepest wishes come true. Princess Jasmine’s introduction enlivened the story because her beauty was so tempting that Aladdin, whose social stratification was different, fell passionately in love with her. Jafar’s ambitious appetency to take over the kingdom fired the conflicts among the characters. All enthusiasms drove these fictitious characters to do anything, including entailing lies. Unriddling the violation of Grice’s (1975) maxims and detailing Ekman’s (1992) Detecting Deceit theory, comprising word, voice and body, this investigation was designed qualitatively to disclose the characters’ deceitful behavior and find out the reasons behind it. Some of the reasons for telling a lie, according to Turner, Edgley and Olmstead (1975) are covering to save face, to maintain/terminate a relationship, to avoid tension/conflict, and to control the situation; these were operated in the study. It was found that there were groups who 1) violated the maxims of quantity, quality and manner; 2) violated the maxims of quantity, quality and relevant; and 3) violated the maxims of quality, manner and relevant. The most frequently found reasons for why they violated the maxims were to save face, to exploit others and to terminate the interaction. The results show that people tend to deceive others in order to save face in social situations and to gain power over others by violating multiple maxims.
Keywords: deceitful behavior, reasons of deception, violated maxims
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