Breaking Grice's cooperative maxims in humorous interactions : a pragma-stylistic study of Shaw's "Major Barbara"

Abstract EN

The present study is an endeavor to illustrate how a pragmatic model is employed to analyse humorous conversations.

Grice's cooperative principle model and its four conversational maxims: Quantity, Quality, Relevance and Manner are traced to analyse characters' humorous interactions in Shaw's "Major Barbara".

The researchers handle all conversations along the play in which humour is created to show the extent to which Grice's conversational maxims are not observed by the characters and how humorous conversations break the basic rules that should be obeyed in frank conversations.

The results of the study display that the frequent type of the maxims broken in the investigated play is the maxim of quantity, and wit is the form of humour that most frequently created.

The study ends with some conclusions concerning the model used in the work.