Abstract

BREACHING THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE THEORY IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN ONE ACT PLAYS

Salam Ishmael Armish, Dr. Bushra Nima Rashed

Volume: 8 Issue: 4 2018

Abstract:

H.P. Grice (1975) introduces the term Cooperative Principle in an attempt to clarify the case in which one says something but means something else. By presenting this term, Grice distinguishes between ‘what is said’, and ‘what is meant’. The present study aims at investigating Grice’s Theory of Conversational Implicature and how people sometimes say something but mean something else in different occasions and different contexts. In addition, the study tries to show whether or not, the different social background of the characters has an effect on the direction of the conversational implicatures. The study hypothesizes that Grice’s maxims of conversation are frequently breached by the characters according to their different social background and personal attitudes. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that the direction of the conversational implicatures goes in both directions as each interlocutor takes the turn of the speaker. The procedures to be followed to achieve the aims of this paper is to analyze two ‘one act plays’ namely that ‘Augustus Does His Bit’ by George Bernard Shaw and ‘The Boor’ by Anton Chekhov. The results of the study show that the characters in these plays tend to breach the Gricean maxims in order to achieve their personal goals depending on the context, situation and background knowledge. In addition, the results show that Grice’s Theory is global in nature, which means that different social backgrounds have no effect on the manner of initiating conversational implicatures.

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