A Study Of English Proverbs In Charles Dickens’ Novels

A proverb is a traditional, short saying in common use. Proverbs contain wisdom,truth, morals, and traditional views expressed in a metaphorical manner and in anindependent form and are handed down from generation to generation. They are regardedas a store of experiences and expertise which reflect people’s beliefs and traditions. Thereare thousands of proverbs in English and in many other languages. Many have descendedfrom ancient times through sources, such as the Bible and renowned literary works likethose of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens but there are many whose origin weare uncertain of.The present study is an attempt to analyse English proverbs from the perspective ofthe Cooperative Principle and Gricean maxims. Eighty English proverbs which are stillin common use have been selected from thirteen novels by Charles Dickens. The studyaims to find out whether these proverbs demonstrate the observance or non-observance ofGrice’s maxims, which maxim is least observed and which kind of non-observance is themost frequent compared to others.The study has revealed that most of the English proverbs demonstrate non-observance of conversational maxims and that only a small percentage observe them. Thestudy also showed that the relation maxim is the one which is broken more often than theothers, while the quality maxim gained lower percentage. The other two maxims, thequantity maxim and the manner maxim, gained far lower percentages. The findings alsoindicated that flouting is the most common way of breaking the maxims, whereasviolating and opting out occur far less often. The other two kinds of non-observance,infringing and suspending, do not represent any significant percentage. Speakers canflout the conversational maxims when they have no intention of misleading or deceivingthe hearer. They do so primarily because they want the hearer to pay attention to theimplicature.