Pragmatics of Medical Proverbs in English with Reference to Arabic

The underlying general aim of the study is to analyze the speech acts of the selected medical proverbs and to identify the cooperative principles of Grice (Grice's maxims) and ways of flouting these maxims. As long as medical proverbs can be embedded in the flow of conversations, they may flout one or more than one of Grice's maxims. Medical proverbs serve different functions and achieve different illocutionary acts. They are sometimes said to mean something different in addition to what is explicitly stated. Words may mean something beyond those intended by the addressor. These extra meanings might achieve or refer to different illocutionary acts. Four hypotheses are proposed for testing this possibility.