Analysis of Grice’s Maxims in The Speech of Prime Minister, Imran Khan at UN General Assembly

Abstract

Current research aims to analyze Prime Minister Imran Khan's speech to the UN General Assembly on September 27, 2019 using Paul Grice's Maxims and Conversational Implicatures. To this end, the study took a mixed approach; qualitatively and quantitatively. The data was collected by YouTube through extracted subtitles as text. The text was analyzed using Paul Grice Conversational Implicature (Maxims) to find out whether the maxims were disregarded, observed, violated and excluded during the speech. Analysis of the study found that his words had a hidden meaning and clearly disregarded and violated the maxims. The results were presented in tables and diagrams. He renounced the maxims and avoided the observables in order to get his message across to the UN members. He constantly used the terms of words with hidden meanings to provoke the listener into figuring out the unspoken meaning in the conversation. Prime Minister Imran Khan violated maxims in the interests of the positive future of Muslims in India by delivering something extraordinary, highlighting the state's debt problem and its fight against money laundering. Despite his great efforts and the great applause of the nation, his words remained weak, and the main reason for this was the violation, disregard, observance and rejection of the maxims.

Keywords: Conversational Implicatures, maxims,

speech, Imran Khan