The Violation of Cooperative Principles and Four Maxims in Iranian Psychological Consultation

Abstract

This paper aimed to investigate new ways of understanding non-cooperative attitudes of the speakers and the violation of Cooperative Principle maxims in real Iranian psychological consulting session. The data base consists of recorded conversations between a male psychotherapist and his patients during therapy sessions. After analysing their language by means of conversational implicature and the occurrences of the violation of Cooperative Principle, it is concluded that the recognition of conversational implicature is essential for the understanding of the non-cooperative attitudes of the speakers and their violation of one or more Cooperative Principle maxims. Moreover, it was clear that the message people intend to convey is not wholly contained within the words they use, but it is also dependent on how hearers interpreting the message taking into account context and implicated meaning. Finally, there were instances when the purpose was to intentionally miscommunicate within this sophisticated social context. The study has a contribution to the existing knowledge in the area of pragmatics and psychology development.