Language Is A Means Of Communication

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Language is a means of communication; it expresses thoughts, emotions, feelings, and desires of human beings. Proverbs play an essential role in cultural, social, didactic, and psychological aspects in all societies. Proverbs are the essence of popular philosophy. They form the consensus of folklore and give a true picture of the spirit of the nation.

The English word proverb comes from Latin and Greek, it is one of the etymological terms. It comes from Latin term "proverbium" with the meaning of "old saying" and "adage" or "proverb". After that, the term "proverbium" has been modified into the English language to mean a "short pithy saying in common and recognized use" (Abdul Jabbar, 2008).

Proverbs are regarded as one of the smallest ubiquitous folklore genres. They have been collected and studied since the beginning of written records. Paremiographers and paremiologists have been working hard to publish collections and treatises throughout the world. In human communication trend, proverbs have been playing a major role whether in oral or written form (Mieder, 2005:1).

Proverbs have been described as bits of ancient wisdom that bear "the impress of the early days of mankind." But their value and charm is not to be found in the past or in their brevity and wit only. The Spanish described the proverb as "a short sentence based on long experience," while the Dutch called it "the daughter of daily experience." To the Germans, proverbs can be compared to butterflies in that "some are caught and some fly away." For the Arab, "A proverb is to speech what salt is to food" (Stone, 2006: xiii). The wisdom of proverbs has guided people in their social interactions for thousands of years. Proverbs contain experiences of the past decades in brief and formulaic language, making them easy to remember and use in life as effective rhetorical in oral and written communication (Mieder, 2004: xi).

A proverb may have two different types of meaning, literal and figurative. The Literal meaning is the one that can be interpreted easily, for example the proverb like father, like son has a literal meaning since father and son are alike. Whereas, the proverb blood is thicker than water have a figurative meaning in different interpretations depending on the social context. In this case the figurative meaning refers to the members of the same family that share stronger ties with each other than they do with others. In other words, the meaning of the constitutive parts of proverbs is different from the whole meaning of the proverb (Abdul Jabbar, 2008:177-178).

Language has been studied from different points of view according to variety of branches of linguistics. The study of meaning of language has two levels. The first one is the study of text meaning which refers to the study of the words and sentences in its form. It is also means the study of meaning of language related to dictionaries or structure meaning of language. This study called the semantic study of language.

From the other hand, the study of the meaning beyond the form of words and sentences called the pragmatic study. It deals with the meaning that relates to the component of context. So in this case, pragmatic meaning looks to the implicit meaning of language with reference to the speaker implying and hearer intention, whereas semantic meaning looks to the abstract meaning of the words and sentences that constitute the text. The meaning without the pragmatic is called the literal meaning which comes under the branch of semantics. While the branch that consider the context or what the speaker wants to convey is called the pragmatics.

Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics. It can be defined as the study of the language in use or the study of the invisible meaning of utterances. Pragmatics concerns with the relationship between what the speaker means by utterance and what the hearer infers from it. Pragmatics interested with the meaning in context. Understanding the meaning is the essence of communication, without understanding the meaning we cannot communicate with each other. The implicit meaning occupies essential role in linguistic forms. Therefore, many researchers and linguists have interested in this discipline and they tried to scope this from different perspectives under the pragmatics umbrella. The idea of pragmatics is first attributed to the philosopher Charles Morris and followed by Austin, Searle, and H.P. Grice, they drew an intention to the context before meaning. Morris distinguished between three branches syntax the study of how the words are companied to form sentences, semantics the study of the meaning of the words and sentences in its explicit form, and finally pragmatics the study of the meaning beyond the form of language (Levinson, 1983:1).

Cooperative principle is one of the topics runs under the concept of pragmatics. P.H. Grice in 1975 pointed out that the conversation to be informative, the interlocutors should do positively to fulfill the four maxims he has supposed. According to him, the four maxims should follow throughout the conversation and discourse. He pointed out that if the speaker fails to abide these four maxims, he regarded as breaking the maxims whether he has the intention or not to mislead the hearer.

Proverbs as an aspect of language have been studied from different perspectives, whether from the pragmatic, social, cultural, translation, and English language teaching. Proverbs can be found everywhere, in simple conversation or in long discourse like political discourse and literary works such as novels. There is no attempt found to analyze English proverbs belonging to cooperative principle. So this study emerged to analyze English proverbs from the perspective of cooperative principle and Grice’s maxims. Understanding the meaning of proverbs require knowing the way that the users adopt to formulae proverbs in such a way to be accepted and understood by the audience.

Significance of the study

The study is important to those non-native speakers of English language who they interest in English language, the study enables them to understand proverbs in comparing with their languages, especially when they traveled abroad. The study is also significant for the teachers who they work in academic constitutes; they can choose proverbs as an examples give to students to analyze them especially from the perspective of discourse analysis and pragmatics disciplines. It is of importance to people to draw proverbs as a part of natural language perfectly and adequately and then apply them in the environment of interaction. Finally, it is more important to those who they are interested with literary works. Knowing the meaning beyond the words of proverbs enable them to draw an intention to understand the theme of the discourse like novels and to interpret the relation between the characters.

Outline of the study

The study consists of five parts. The first one is an introduction in which it in turns consists of background knowledge, the significance of the study, and the outline of the whole thesis. The second part is a literature review which consists of five main subparts. The first subpart is the concept of proverbs which deals with a survey of proverbs, its definition, the origin, characteristics, importance, and it's different in relation with idiom and saying. Second subpart is previous studies which is an overview of the past studies of English proverbs. The third subpart is a survey of cooperative principle theory and its maxims with reference to kinds of non-observance of Grice’s maxims. Fourth subpart is an illustration to the fictional conversation, it clarifies how the speaker/author and listener/reader converses with each others showing the levels of conversation found in the discourse of the novel. The last subpart is dealing with the role of cooperative principle in relation to proverbs.

The third part of this thesis is a methodology which includes three subparts, research questions, research subject, and research procedures. And the fourth one is the results and discussion which are regarded the mean and important part in the study due it concerns with aims of doing the study .It is a long part consists of subparts dealing with analysis the quotations quoted from the texts of Charles Dickens novels, counts the results, and discussion the findings. Finally, the last part is a conclusion, it is a summary of the major findings that appeared in the study with a précis illustration of the main points that the researcher has concluded.

1. Literature Review

This part is a review of the literature, it divided into subparts. It consists of a survey of English proverbs, its definition, the origin, characteristics, the importance, and the differences among proverbs, idioms, and saying. Another subpart is dealing with previous studies in which it divided into a different perspective of the study. Finally, is a survey of cooperative principle theory, beginning with an introduction and illustration in detail the concept of this theory and how it manages with the conversation supporting with examples.

1.1 The concept of Proverbs

Under this part many topics will be taken into account. It is a general overview about proverbs, its definitions, the origin of English proverbs, its characteristics, the importance, and their differences with idioms and sayings.

1.1.1 The Definition of the proverb

It is inappropriate here to choose a general or one definition of proverb because proverb is multifunction. It has been defined from different opinions by different scholars and dictionaries and according to different functions.

The Webster’s Dictionary (1972) defines proverb as a "Short saying in common use expressing a well-known truth or common fact ascertained by experience."

Oxford Concise Dictionary of Proverbs (2001: ix) defines proverb as "A proverb is a traditional saying which offers advice or presents a moral in a short and pithy manner."

Mieder (2004) defines proverb as "A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical fixed and memorizable form which is handed down from generation to generation."

According to Taylor (1996) a proverb is wise, it belongs to many people, it is ingenious in form and idea, and it was first invented by an individual and applied by him to commonality.

Later (2004) Mieder defined a proverb as "Proverbs are a significant rhetorical force in various modes of communication, from friendly chats, powerful political speeches, and religious sermons to lyrical poetry, best –seller novels, and the influential mass media. Proverbs are in fact everywhere, and it is exactly their ubiquity that has led scholars from many disciplines to study them from classical times to the modern age."

Dundes (1975) gave important expressions about proverbs according to him "A proverb is a traditional saying that sums up a situation, passes judgment on a past matter, or recommends a course of action for the future. Some proverbs state a fact, such as Honesty is the best policy. But most proverbs are metaphorical. Proverbs consists of at least one topic and one comment about that topic. They can have as few as two words: "Money talks", "Time flies". Many proverbs fall into one of several patterns. Proverbs are one of the oldest forms of folklore. Proverbs are found among the Indians of North and South America. It is often supposed that proverbs are full of wisdom. In fact, a proverb has been defined as ‘the wisdom of many and the wit of one’."

According to Honeck (1997:18) "A proverb can be regarded as a discourse deviant, relatively concrete, present (non-past) tense statement that uses characteristic linguistic markers to arouse cognitive ideals that serve to categorize topics in order to make a pragmatic point about them."

Norrick (1985) defines proverb as "The proverb is a traditional, conversational, didactic genre with general meaning, a potential free conversational turn, preferably with figurative meaning."

1.1.2 The origin of the proverb

The word proverb descended from the Latin word "proverbium", the prefix pro means "forth" and the origin "verbum" means "word" .Every nation has own proverbs .Proverbs have been found in the oldest literary works in many languages, in the Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Chinese, and Roman Literature. In the works of Aristophanes, Chaucer ,in Shakespeare’s works, in Erasmus, Cervantes, Ben Jonson, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost, and finally in Charles Dickens works especially novels. And also they have been found in divine books, in the Bible and the Quran (D’Angelo, 1977: 365-366).

Before the mass literacy become widespread, most of the proverbs come to us by mouth, the users of proverbs are no longer interested with their origin. They found himself and others utter them orderly because they hear parents or common people deal with them in real life. When sayings realized by common people and handed down from generation to generation it becomes a proverb. English language like other languages it rich with proverbs (Byrne, 2005).

Every proverb has own origin whether it has come from holy books, literary sources, come from mouth of famous people, or yield from different situations happened in the past. As a general idea, a proverb cannot idiomatically be a proverb unless it becomes in current use among people whether in the past or in the present.

Some of English proverbs borrowed from other languages like Latin, French, and Spanish, and become a part of English proverbs after they found in other languages. Another source of English proverbs is the Bible where so many sayings have famed for wisdom among public and currently have become proverbs and a few of people aware of their origin for example a living dog is better than a dead lion (Manser,2002:174) .Centrally, the greatest literary source of modern English proverbs is Shakespeare’s works, no one knows whether these proverbs produced by Shakespeare himself, I mean by his thought or he has tackled them from the environment and put them in his works .

In Europe and during the middle age, proverbs were widely known and gained more popularity. Proverbs in Europe were utilized in sermons, homilies and didactic words. The use of proverbs as a literary style in the period of the 17th century had been declined due authors saw that literary style no longer required in the use of proverbs (Karagiorgos, 2001 : Int. ).

The most interesting of proverbs as a folk saying and as a literary tradition has been coming back at the beginning of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, proverbs become in highly scholarly attention. Byrne (2005) pointed out that the new proverbs has been seen in the United States, many of these proverbs apply to the several areas of business and politics.

People sometimes make certain manipulations to the proverbs in order to be appropriate for new situations. Some proverbs have been modified to meet the need of new words appropriate to the development lies in certain incidents or situations whether in political, economical, or social aspects of life as they have been seen in literary works of Chaucer, Shakespeare etc, Where some of the vocabularies replaced by others or change the structure of proverb to be more appropriate with development of languages.

1.1.3 Characteristics of English proverbs

Proverbs are found in all nations and in all cultures. Proverbs are distinguished from other aspects of language having own certain features. There are some of the important prominent features of proverbs:

1. Syntactic features: Predominantly, Gramley & Päzold (1992) stated that the proverbs show the irregular syntax, for example, like father, like son. Proverbs still recognized as proverbs, more clearly they are not affected by the transformation. According to Mieder (2004) proverbs consists of about seven words, but sometimes find proverbs consists of more than seven words such as, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Mieder also stated that the shorter proverbs seem to be more popular and easy to memorize. According to him, there are common patterns or templates illustrate the structure of proverbs and they are used as a base to other proverbs. He classifies it as follows:

1. Where there’s X, there’s Y Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

2. No X without Y No gain without pain.

3. Like X, like Y Like father, like son.

4. One X does not make a Y One swallow does not make a summer.

5. Better X than Y Better late than never.

6. If X, then Y If at first you don’t succeed, then try, try again.

With regard to grammatical perspective of proverbs, many of the proverbs seem to be sentential, by other means, they can stand alone. Proverbs are complete grammatical aspect which makes them independent by itself. From the other hand they are not sentential because their structure cannot coordinate with the grammatical structure of a sentence, for example some proverbs are constructed without verbs such as like father, like son, and some others without nouns, such as the more, the merrier (Norrick, 2007).

2. Semantic meaning: The vocabularies used in the structure of proverbs tend to be originated from the Anglo –Saxon English .The meaning of proverbs is interested in general not in particular, the case in which the past tense is not formulated with them. Semantically, proverbs are restricted come through modifications such restrictive relative clauses for example, people how live in glass houses should not throw stones (Gramley& Patzold, 1992:76).

Three implications that have been identified (Cieslicka, 2002:Int.) in which they follow from traditional approaches of interpreting and understanding of English proverbs. First, the determination of a figurative meaning of any proverbial expression is preceded mandatory by the analysis of the literal meaning of the sentence. Second, understanding proverbial expression requires identification of a detective literal meaning before searching for a figurative meaning. Third, the inference of figurative meaning requires an additional inferential work and specific cognitive processes.

Proverbs are characterized by the semantic relations antonymy and synonymy. As an antonymous, proverbs express contradictory ideas through related images such as a big fish in a small pond-a small fish in a big pond, and also through different images like, he who hesitate is lost-fools ruch in , or through appositive idea for example out of side, out of mind-absence makes the heart grow fonder (Norrick,2007).

The antonymous of proverbs state that there are not absolute truths and the validation of their wisdom, they only occurred in the context (Mieder, 2004:133). For example the contradictory proverb, too many cooks spoil the broth can be true in the context in which the job requires a complicated skill like cooking (Hirsch et al, 2002).

When proverbs express the same idea through parallel images, they become synonymous as strike where the iron is hot-make hay while the sun shines and also in different literal terms as in first impressions are most lasting-you never get a chance to make a first impression and through figurative and a literal proverb when the same idea was expressed such as the leopard cannot change his spots-once a thief, always a thief .These semantic relations make proverbs more realistic due they permit them to reflect the complexity of life (Norrick, 2007).

3. Norrick (1985) distinguished between two features of the proverb, Prosodic and figurative. Prosodic features mean stylistic, rhetorical, and external features. According to Mieder (2004) prosodic features make the proverbs easy to remember and memorize. They are illustrated as follows:

1.Repetition: which means the repetition of syntactic pattern as in where there’s smoke there’s fire, or repetition of the subject as in redundant proverbs such as enough is enough (Norrick,2007).

2. Alliteration: the use of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words related together such as, many a little makes a make, live and let live (Mieder, 2004).

3. Assonance: means that two syllables in words close together which have the same vowel sound with different consonants as a rolling stone gathers no moss (Gibbs, 2001).

4. Rhyme: it is a word that has the same sound or ends with that of another word such as, when the cat’s away, the mice will play (Mieder, 2004)

5. Parallelism: as in a penny saved is a penny earned, where there’s a will, there’s a way (Mieder & Holmes, 2000)

6. Ellipsis: such as out of sight, out of mind, more haste, less speed (Mieder, 2004).

7. Personification: as in hunger is the best cook (Gibbs, 2001)

8. Hyperbole: as in a watched pot never boils (Ibide)

9. Paradox: as in no news is good into the kingdom of God (Ibide)

The second kind of literary features is the figurative or imagery. Metaphorical feature of proverbs makes them encoded to manipulate different situations. So the generalization as an important feature of proverbs achieve through the metaphorical nature of proverbs which make proverbs applicable to suit different varieties of context situation.

Concerning with a metaphorical aspect of proverbs, Lakoff & Turner (1989) debated that the proverbial language takes advantage of the conceptual metaphor GENERIC IS SPECIFIC. Lakoff (1993) also pointed out that the metaphor of the proverbs asserts the idea of metaphor is central to everyday natural language.

It is important to say that not all proverbs appear as metaphors. Some proverbs can be understood by its literary form, such as honesty is the best policy, without any application to be metaphorical due these proverbs express truth as a general fact and do not need to manipulate the specific situation.

Furthermore, Norrick (1985) mentioned that there is no cut between the metaphorical and literal of proverbs. He indicated that proverbs entirely depend on the context that they are occurred in to be used as figurative or literal, for example proverb the it never rains but it pours can be used as actual rain or to refer to someone experiencing many problems. Another example is don’t put all your eggs in one basket is understood by the conceptual metaphor life is a container and beliefs are physical possessions. The interpretation of the proverb shows that the language user maps his or her knowledge of containers and possessions into their knowledge of the life. In another interpretation, the people who put all their hopes in one place and confirming the conceptual mapping whereby the beliefs are represented by eggs in this proverb (Cieslicka, 2002).

4. Socio-cultural features: This kind refers to all the non-linguistic features that a proverb characterizes to gain the property of the proverb. In order the proverb to be accepted and recognized as a proverb, it requires a long time of period for the saying to achieve the popularity and traditionality. Popularity and traditionally make proverb accepted by commonalty. During their use by population, proverbs lost their origin and become hard to the users to know their sources (Ridout& Witting, 1969). Mieder (2004) explained that proverbs are used by the society over time have their origin with a single individual.

Vivanco (2008) mentioned that the proverbs can not be regard as proverbs unless they have some degrees of currency in a period of time. This currency means the familiarity of occurrence of a certain period. The currency is based on truths and points on observations derived from everyday experiences. The familiarity and generalizations of proverbs based on experience of life, and because there are different people have different experiences, these yield different proverbs. To gain the popularity or commonness, proverb should be liked, enjoyed, and supported by human beings, if some sayings fail to reach to the state of popularity, it may die out before reaching to the case of commonness.

In addition, Gramley & Pätzold (1992) pointed out that the proverbs have a didactic tendency. The didacticity of proverbs sometimes regarded as explicit form such as live and let live, and sometimes be as implicit like too many cooks spoil the broth. Any saying lacking the didacticity feature described as cliché rather than a proverb.

5. The pragmatic features: The last important feature of proverbs is feature that includes the pragmatic aspects of language. We will talk about this kind later under the title How cooperative principle operates with proverbs? In which this study deals with analysis of proverbs according to one of the pragmatic models.

1.1.4 The importance of English proverbs

Proverbs are a rhetorical force that is used in different aspects of communication, such as internet chatting, in political speech, literary works, mass media, academic study and teaching approaches. Proverbs are widely used in real life like in newspapers, advertisements, and everyday communication.

Proverbs are surround us everywhere, and they are an important part of daily communication. Proverbs can serve as the punch lines of jokes and the refrains of songs, they sum up situations and give advice in short and terse phrases .English speakers tend to use proverbs to comment on a situation, often at the end of a true story someone has told, or in response to some events. Proverbs are useful and joyful for knowledge and understanding, but they warn us to use them with care (McCarthy and O’Dell, 2002). Dougall (2004) claims that the function of proverbs "provide a snapshot of other cultures that allows for a more thorough understanding of both language and culture… we can become enriched as individuals and societies when we understand the viewpoints of others". According to Byrne (2005) proverbs have three functions: 1) they passed wisdom and cultural values from one generation to another,2) they advise and warn children about the appropriate and inappropriate behaviour ,and 3) they embellish speech, cap arguments and add to the gaiety of nations .

Proverbs are a politeness policy by which the speaker can accomplish a variety of purposes, such as persuading, gives advices and wisdom, warning, and didactic way. So the politeness of Proverbs gives the speaker powerful to using them in such a way to be accepted by people, due many of people refuse to accept the direct way of speaking. As a result ,the public image of proverbs and metaphorical way that related to most of proverbs save our attitudes and avoid us embarrassments.

Proverbs are multifunction and flexible devices use in everyday situations. The currency and popularity of proverbs during past ages gave him the high stature to maintain of the culture and ancient heritage. Proverbs are propositions full of the speaker’s hidden feelings, intentions, and wishes (Lauhakangas, 2007:80-81).

Proverbs can be used in different situations in prose, poetry, and poetic words. Proverbs also have been found as a title of literary works like the Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure. Proverbs are used in place, hot news in which they take place in headlines to reflect news topics.

1.1.5 The difference among proverb, idiom, and saying

Both proverbs and idioms are traditional and also they have a fixed form and literary value .Proverbs represent a complete piece of information, they can work as a sentences .They are meaningful by themselves, and in consequence can work independently, as it can be seen from all griefs with bread are less. In contrast, idioms are not so syntactically-independent because they cannot always work as a full sentence, but as a part of it, as can be seen from the expression as like as two peas.

Nida (1993) defined idioms as "Idioms are combinations of words, the meaning of which cannot be determined from the meanings of the parts, e.g. to kick the bucket, meaning ‘to die’, and from the frying pan into the fire, meaning ‘to experience increasingly worse circumstances’."

The proverbs constitute from a complete sentence, whereas the idioms consist of just one phrase. Therefore, the proverbs formulate sentences, the word order of these sentences cannot be changed .The idioms must be used in a sentence, and their verbs must be conjugated, but we choose where to use an idiom in a sentence, for this reason, we can formulate longer sentences with the idioms. The proverbs give lessons based on the experiences of regenerations, whereas the idioms are used to depict an event, or a situation in which one finds herself/himself. The proverbs intend to teach people, whereas the idioms describe social, natural, and experiential events (Agis, 2007:3).

According to Akbarian (2012) idiom is a group of words whose meaning is different from the meaning of individual words in which it does the idiom, for instance the meaning of, let the cat out of the bag, is to tell a secret by mistake, but it does not mean what it says.

Dobrovol & Piirainen (2005) also pointed out that differentiate between proverbs and idioms is not depending on just syntax but also the semantic and pragmatic levels can be used as a base to determine whether the saying is proverb or idioms. He discussed differentiate in the three points. Firstly proverbs are regarded as a general statement expressing the general fact with the determination of quantifiers such as every, all, any, each, always, no, never, whereas sentence idioms do not have such general function. Secondly, while proverbs have the illocutionary force recommending with indication to an accepted proposition, sentence idioms lack explanatory force. Thirdly, proverbs are independent avoiding use deictic elements while sentence idioms are discourse dependent making use of deictic elements.

The saying is a word or phrase used in particular situations by particular people. The saying can be defined as a statement spoken by famous people. Its meaning is different from the meaning of single words which are formulating it, e.g. saying by Aristotle what is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies, and the saying by Albert Einstein, try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

1.2 Previous studies

Proverbs are an aspect of language. They have been studied and explored from different perspectives. Proverbs are one of the folklorist studies; therefore, the most who have studied proverbs are folkloristics. This part deals with the past studies of English proverbs, it divided into different subparts according to the kind of study.

1.2.1From the linguistic perspective

Dundes (1975) was one of the famous giants of the international folkloristics; he had been interesting with folklore in general and with proverbs in particular. His lectures, which have been delivered around the world, are interested by many of scholars and students of the folklore. And also he has introduced over twenty thousand students interested in folklore at the University of California at Berkeley. Dundes interested with the definition of genres by means of structural, textual, and contextual analysis, the textual features of proverbs, such as rhyme and alliteration, stress, pitch, juncture, tone and onomatopoeia. The text is a version or a single telling of a tale, the text considered to be independent of its texture for the purpose of analysis, whereas texture untranslatable, for example the proverbs text coffee boiled is coffee spoiled may be translated into any language, but translations of texture feature of rhyme will virtually nil. The context of the proverb is the specific social situation in which that proverb is employed. Again Dundes employed proverb to illustrate the theoretical point for folklore in general in his articles" Structuralism and Folklore" (1976), his idea stated that the proverb consists of at least of descriptive elements that is made up of a topic and a comment to be a perfect example of a minimal structural unit (Mieder, 2007).

Abbas (2009) tackled a repetition phenomenon of the proverbs especially phonological phenomenon. The study attempted to see whether the figures of phonological repetition have any significance in the text of the proverb. The data were selected from traditional English proverbs. These proverbs cover different concepts like, theme, weather, religion, gender, food, agricultural, and others, e.g., better bend than break, what must be must be, speech is silver, silence is golden .The study attempted to show people the right way on how to act and to do in critical situation when listening and repeating proverbs, they would get experience and lessons.

Sattam (2009) investigated the problems that a translator encounters when translating some English proverbs which include attributively and predicatively used adjectives. Eleven English proverbs have been chosen with their renderings. These proverbs were discussed in terms of syntax and translation with reference to the similarities and differences in the usage of the attributively and predicatively used adjectives in English and Arabic. By application two types of translation the semantic and communicative. The author concluded that there was no one to one correspondence between English and Arabic proverbs involving attributively and predicatively used adjectives due to the formal and cultural differences. Attributively used adjective in English often precedes its head noun in the noun phrase, while in Arabic follows its head noun. And also in English, the attributively used adjective does not agree with its head noun, in Arabic, it agreed with its head noun indefiniteness, number, gender and case.

Rezaei (2012) discussed the importance of proverbs in rhetoric and then investigated their function according to the literary genre from different perspectives, like the role of audience, choice of words, and quality of the message.

1.2.2From the sociocultural perspective

Lutfi (2008) introduced the crucial sociocultural properties of weather proverbs which can be identified and distinguished from other types of proverbial utterances. He has pointed out to the following characteristics of the weather proverbs: the first is a locality in which the proverbs formulate with cases happened in the atmospheric conditions, like appearance of the sky, the movement of clouds, and the direction of winds, e.g. when the wind is in the west, the weather is always best. The second is value property; this refers to advice given to others depending on the personal experiences, e.g., a year of snow, a year of plenty. The study answered the question on how weather proverbs come into the life. The author concluded that when hunters, farmers, and sailor observed behavior of animals, they connected these to the changing in nature and weather, as a result they recalled what they saw in short saying and then they were repeated more and more to become part of culture handed down from generation to generation.

The study adopted by Lauhakangas (2007) based on a research on the functions of proverbs in social interaction. The study aimed to explore the common sense or everyday thinking in its cultural and social contexts. The author kept a notebook on everyday situation she has observed about people’s ways to use proverbs in social situations. According to her observations, proverbs are multifunction and flexible instruments of everyday reasoning, although they may maintain solidified attitudes or traditional modes of thought of a certain culture.

1.2.3From the EFL perspective

Black (1999) used a new methodological approach that of corpus linguistics to answer the following questions: which texts from former generations are still current today? What are the truly new proverbs of the modern age? How familiar are people with proverbs today? He identified some of the characteristics shared by proverbs that have maintained their currency. He has argued that a paremiological minimum of English proverbs is best identified using a large corpus like the bank of English and that it should include all types of proverbs as long as the time can be related to a proverb citation form. He has claimed that length and repetition of form are central characteristics of proverbs that exhibit vitality and repetition of use. He has believed that issues of style are considered to be important to anyone who concerns with how proverbs are used in contemporary English and in the identification of a paremiological minimum.

Can (2011) tried to find out EFL teacher trainees’ attitudes towards learning and teaching English proverbs, their conceptualization of proverbs, their thoughts about their knowledge and use of English proverbs, and perceptions about how sufficiently their English teachers and course books at high school taught them English proverbs. The study also aimed to uncover how the English course books they used in Anatolian teacher training high school in Turkey teach English proverbs.

Akbarian (2010) presented some activities with proverbs for language teachers, particularly EFL teachers, to make their classes more lively and exciting. He has suggested that adding variety to the classroom activities might contribute to the learners’ consciousness-raising that would in turn increase their language proficiency in general and proverbial in particular.

Furthermore, some scholars have studied proverbs from a comparative perspective like, Black (1995) attempted to explore the topic of proverbs with reference to speech and silence from a cross-linguistic perspective, Naoum (2007) pointed out to the associative meaning in English proverbs with their Arabic equivalents. And Ali & Makhlef (2011) tried to clarify the metaphorical and indirect meaning that proverb conveys, he has adopted speech act theory to analyze English proverbs.

1. 3 Cooperative Principle and Grice’s maxims

This part is an overview of the theory of Cooperative Principle. It beginning with a general introduction about the theory and its maxims, how the implicature arises between the speaker and hearer supporting with examples. And then an illustration of the concept of non-observance and how the speaker fails to fulfill the maxims, supported by figures.

1.3.1 General Introduction

Austin (1962) concerned with illustrating the concept of the speaker saying (locautionay act) on the contrary to what the speaker means (illocationay act). Followed Austin, Grice(1975) tried to explain how the hearer can infer from what the speaker imply. The concept of implying relates to the speaker which means the hit meaning, the actual meaning that the speaker wants to convey to the hearer. In this case the speaker meaning is different from structure meaning, I mean the meaning of words in its explicit form. For inferring, Grice related this concept to the hearer. Inference means the ability of the hearer to understand the implied meaning from the evidence of linguistic or non-linguistic properties (Thomas, 1995:58).

In 1975 H.P. Grice developed the idea of cooperative principle which underlies successful verbal communication. Grice proposed that the genuine meaning, which convey by utterances as a part of the speaker’s meaning without being part of a speaker’s saying, is called Implicature. According to him the intending meaning, which the speaker is used to communicate, is regarded far richer than what s/he directly expresses (Horn &Ward, 2004: 3). The following example illustrates what is meant by Conversational Implicature: Have you got any cash money? The speaker wants the hearer to understand the meaning Can you lend me some money? I don’t have enough money. The conversational implicature is not found in the exact saying, the speaker implied it and the hearer inferred it.

According to Grice, the conversational impliacture is "explain how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant, from the level of expressed meaning to the level of implied meaning" (Thomas, 1995: 56). The bridge between the literal meaning (what is said) to what is communicated is constructed through implicature. What a speaker says is quite distinct from what he implies (Horn & Ward, 2004: 7).

Grice’s theory of cooperative principle is based on the assumption that human beings are intrinsically rational and cooperative in their interactions with one another, their communications should be intended to be informative (Verschueren & Ostman, 2009: 103-105).

The basic assumption in conversation is to adhering participants to the cooperative principle and the maxims. For example, the following is a conversation between Alex and John:

Alex: I hope you brought the bread and the cheese.

John: Ah, I brought the bread.

John violated the requirements of the quantity maxim. Alex, after he has heard John’s response, has assumed that John was cooperating and not totally unaware of the quantity maxim. But John didn’t mention the cheese, if he has brought the cheese then he would say that, because he would be adhered to the quantity maxim. John believed that Alex inferred that what is not mentioned was not brought. We can infer from this conversation that John has conveyed more than he said via a Conversational Implicature. In other words, it is the speaker who communicated via implicatures and it is the listener who recognized this communicated meaning via inference (Yule, 1996: 40).

The conversational implicature is commonly used in everyday life and in different situations. The common knowledge plays a significant role in understanding and interpretation the inference between addressor and the addressee. Furthermore, both the addressor and the addressee in conversation should have the willingness to communicate. More clearly that the cooperative attitude between them in the talk exchange is necessary.

Thus, Grice in 1975 proposed a general principle to describe how participants interact in conversation and how they understand implicatures. The cooperative principle is formulated as follows: "Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged."

Supporting this principle are four maxims, Grice regarded it as the basis for cooperative communication and it is called Gricean Maxims:

1. The maxim of Quantity

The maxim of quantity relates to the amount of contribution to the coherence of the conversation. Grice (1975) clarified that the maxim of quantity has two sub-maxims:

1-Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).

2- Do not make your contribution to the conversation more informative than necessary.

Example (Levinson, 1983:106):

A: How did Harry fare in court the other day?

B: Oh, he got a fine.

2. The maxim of Quality

Grice (1975) suggested that a conversation should be genuine and sincere and the speaker should tell truth or facts. This maxim formulated as:

1-Do not say what you believe to be false.

2-Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Example (Chrisnawaty, 2006):

A: Does your farm contain 400 acres?

B: I do not know that it does, and I want to know if it does.

3. The maxim of Relation

In this maxim, the utterances should be relevant to the context of the conversation. According to Grice, the speakers’ saying should be relevant or related to the current topic of the conversation (Grice, 1975).

Example (Leech, 1983:144):

A: Where’s my box of chocolates?

B: It’s in your room.

4. The maxim of Manner

Grice (1975) stated that the speakers have to try presenting meaning clearly, concisely and orderly, and avoid ambiguity and obscurity of expression. This maxim breaks down into four sub- maxims:

A- Avoid obscurity of expression.

B- Avoid ambiguity.

C-Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).

D-Be orderly.

Example (Levinson, 1983:108):

A: where was Alfred yesterday?

B: Alfred went to the store and bought some whisky.

The following figure shows the relationship between interlocutors in the conversation. Both of them abide the conversational maxims. The meaning is clear from the speaker and understandable for the hearer. In other words there is no implicature arises here.

Explicit

Replying

Explicit

Saying

Speaker

Listener

Quantity

Quality

Relation

Manner

Figure 1.1 Observance of Grice’s Maxims

Grice also pointed out that the speaker sometimes unable to fulfill the requirement of abiding conversation or observe a maxim unless he/she violated another maxim, this case what Grice call it as a clash between maxims (Grice, 1975:52) for instance:

A: Where John lives?

B: Somewhere in the north of China.

According to Grice explanation B knows that A aims to go to visit John. The relief of the maxim of quantity required giving John’s address, but because B doesn’t know John’s address and in order to avoid violating the quality maxim, B intended to resolve the clash by failing to be as informative as required.

The cooperative principle and the maxims of conversation are part of a broader theory of conversational implicature, which bridges the gap between what is said and what is meant (Davies, 2007:23-28).

These maxims specify what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient, rational, and co-operative way. They should speak sincerely, relevantly, and clearly when providing sufficient information (Levinson, 1983:102).

From the above illustration, we can conclude that if there is no distinction between the speaker saying and what he meant, there was no implicature expected in the conversation. In this case the speaker observes all maxims. More clearly, if the speaker adhere all the maxims, the maxims will be observed.

It is not clear to what extent cooperative principle can be generalized. The application of Grice’s maxims is not equal to every situation. Many verbal communications are not conversations. To gossip, speakers are likely to engage in exaggeration, depart from the strict truth and generally try to make their comments interesting at the expression of various maxims. Some interactions like quarrels are uncooperative. We all say irrelevant things, but we are irritated when others do so (Black, 2006:24).