An Analysis of Tact Maxim in Selected Short Stories of Oscar Wilde

Abstract

This research aims to analyze what utterances that have tact maxim are classified as more polite and less polite in selected short stories of Oscar Wilde. The writer used Geoffrey Leech's (1983) theory. According to Leech, there are six types of the maxim, namely Tact Maxim, Generosity Maxim, Approbation Maxim, Modesty Maxim, Agreement Maxim, and Sympathy Maxim. The writer only focused on tact maxim. The writer applies the descriptive qualitative method to describe and analyze all the data because the data of this research are in form of utterances. The subject of this research is selected short stories of Oscar Wilde. Content analysis or by reading, observation, and documentation as an instrument of this research. The data of this research contain the tact maxim in utterances of the character in the four short stories. It is analyzed by identifying, classifying, writing down, and making conclusions about the data. The result showed that 33 utterances have tact maxim found in four short stories of Oscar Wilde. The utterances that have tact maxim classified as more polite are 25 data and less polite are 8 data.