Doctor-Patient’s Abidance and Violations of Grice’s Cooperative Maxims in Persian Medical Consultations

The cooperative principle consists of quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim and manner maxim. These maxims, described by Paul Grice (1975), are expected to be followed in conversational exchanges. In this study, the researchers investigated Cooperative maxims applications within medical discourse. A fieldwork was conducted in clinics and hospitals of Rafsanjan city in Iran. One-hundred and twenty doctor- patient consultations by ten doctors (5 males and 5 females) were audiotaped and transcribed during 2011-2012 year. The analysis of the data revealed that Grice’s cooperative maxims were applied in Persian doctor- patient interactions with a frequency of 96/6 % for quality, 95% for the quantity, 95/8 % for the relation and 88/3 % for manner maxim. The results showed low frequency of violations in doctor-patient conversations: 3/4 % in quality, 5% in quantity, 4/2 % in relation and 11/7 % in manner. The finding indicated that female patients violated the cooperative maxims more than male ones. The results also confirmed a relationship between the violations and doctor and patient’s gender in the way that in female doctor ‘s conversations, female patients violated quantity and manner maxims more than male patients. It also showed that generally the manner maxim is more frequently violated and the quality maxim is followed more. This study may have some implications for linguistics, physicians and discourse analysists.