The conformance level to Grice’s Cooperative Principle by Iraqi Kurdistan University Lecturers and Students

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to reveal the level of conformance to the Co-operative Principle (CP), which was first developed by Grice (1975), in the academia in Iraqi Kurdistan. The research has been done in an intra-cultural context. The number of the participants is 134 people who were sent a researchers-made questionnaire of sixteen items via online Google Forms. The items reflect the CP maxims which have been arranged in the form of multiple choice questions. The principle states that interlocutors should abide by the maxims of quantity, quality, manner, and relevance as far as they can during communication in order for them to convey their messages best. Being a quantitative research, the paper seeks to show the difference between lecturers and students as well as between male and female participants with respect to their observance of the CP maxims using SPSS program. The paper also has a socio-cultural perspective in that it focuses upon two different groups of people on the basis of their occupations. Also, it takes the gender difference into account between the participants by indicating their adherence to the four aforementioned maxims. The main conclusion of the study is that factors such as age, occupation, gender, and societal attitudes cannot make big differences in the participants’ observance of the CP maxims.