The Cooperative Principle in Selected Stories of Agatha Christie: A Pragma-stylistic Study

 Abstract: The current study aims at applying Grice‟s Cooperative Principle to selected detective stories by Agatha Christie; namely The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The ABC Murders . Through applying the cooperative principle, the researcher aims to point out how non-observance of conversational maxims of the cooperative principle is employed in the concerned detective stories and how employing several types of non-observance of the cooperative principle could contribute to creating such complicated and obfuscating fictional atmosphere in the concerned detective stories. The researcher aims to tackle the reasons for non-observance of the conversational maxims in the detective novels in question. Such reasons could include not several purposes as: serving the objectives of maintaining suspenseful and curious atmospheres through her works, persuading her readers towards the functionality of her distinctive detective stories, and creating less coherent fictional world which drives readers to pursue reading for identifying the true