Implicature and flouting maxims in the construction of humor in Kevin Hart's I'm a grown little man

This study aims to analyze the use of implicature and flouting maxims as linguistic strategies in constructing humor in Kevin Hart’s stand-up comedy special “I’m a Grown Little Man”. The objectives of this research are to identify the types of implicature found in the performance, to discover how flouting maxims are used, and to explore the relationship between implicature and flouting maxims in generating humorous effects. This research applies a qualitative descriptive approach. The data were collected from the transcript of Kevin Hart’s stand-up comedy performance “I’m a Grown Little Man”. The researcher used documentation techniques by transcribing the comedy video and selecting utterances that contain implicature and flouting maxims. The data were then analyzed using Grice’s theory of implicature and flouting maxims by classifying the data into generalized and particularized conversational implicatures, as well as four types of flouted maxims: quantity, quality, relevance, and manner. The findings reveal that Kevin Hart employed 8 generalized conversational implicatures and 8 particularized conversational implicatures in his performance. In addition, there were 12 data points indicating flouting maxims, consisting of three instances each for the maxims of quantity, quality, relevance, and manner. These implicatures and flouted maxims contribute significantly to the construction of humor by requiring the audience to infer meanings beyond the literal words. The study concludes that implicature and flouting maxims are essential pragmatic strategies in stand-up comedy to create both entertainment and implicit social criticism. It is suggested that future researcher explore similar analyses on other comedians or comedic genres to enrich the understanding of linguistic humor construction.