A Pragmatic Analysis of Some Quranic Verses in Light of Grice's Cooperative Principle

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to evaluate the applicability of Grice’s Co-operative Principle and Conversational Maxims, as one of the outstanding models in Pragmatics, to some selected Quranic conversations. Grice’s model is regarded as template for the flow of conversations and interactions held between people. Quran, as a Holy Text in Islam, contains many speech events, i.e., situations wherein conversations take place. In the stories narrated in Quran, there are situations in which, as the ordinary life of the human beings, participants converse with one another. In this study , the researchers examine the applicability of the conversation model of Grice to the Quranic conversations. To this end, the researchers have quoted some verses from Quran, first  in Arabic along with their translations in English , and analysed them in light of Grice’s model of conversation analysis. Findings indicate that in the Quranic conversations there are occasions where the maxims of conversation are observed and in some other cases not observed. This fact attests the universality of Grice’s model.