Asian Social Science; Vol. 11, No. 4; 2015 ISSN 1911-2017 E-ISSN 1911-2025 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 319 Inshallah: Extensive Flouting of Grice’s Maxim of Quality Mohammad Issa Mehawesh 1 & Abdullah Ahmad Jaradat 2 1 Department of English Language and Translation, Zarqa University, Zarqa, Jordan 2 Dept. of English language and Literature, Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan Correspondence: Mohammad Issa Mehawesh, Faculty of Arts, Department of English Language and Translation, Zarqa University, PO box 132222, Zarqa 13132, Jordan. Tel: 962-7-9749-2506. E-mail: mohammedissa33@yahoo.com Received: October 29, 2014 Accepted: December 23, 2014 Online Published: January 14, 2015 doi:10.5539/ass.v11n4p319 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ass.v11n4p319 Abstract The expression inshallah is one of the most common expressions in daily interactions among Jordanians. The paper assumes that the expression has various non-literal meanings besides the literal one which is an invocation to Allah to enable the speaker to achieve a positive or a negative action. The non-literal meanings, on the other hand, are all cases of flouting Grice’s maxim of quality, whereby the speaker does not mean what the words literally mean; however, the addressee or the hearer can figure out the message intended by the speaker. The paper has found out that the various non-literal meanings inshallah serves are: irony, which a typical means for flouting the maxim of quality, threatening, wonder, yes/ok, prohibition, and wishing. Moreover, the study has found out that the utterances containing the expression inshallah will not give the same meaning after the removal of inshallah. And this can be considered another major contribution for the paper since it coined a diagnostic for deriving the non-literal meanings of inshallah. (p. 162) Keywords: inshallah, Grice, flouting, maxim, quality, literal vs. non-literal meaning 1. Introduction This paper studies one of the most common expressions among Muslims, who come from various cultural, racial and linguistic backgrounds. The noticeable salience of the expression inshallah ‘God willing’ is due to Muslims’ belief that all their activities and affairs in this life and their destiny in the afterlife are in the hands of Allah. In other words, the salience of the expression among Muslims is solely accounted for in terms of religion; it cannot be attributed to other cultural, racial or social factors. Actually, the expression inshallah is so common that it has penetrated every aspect of a Muslim’s life. It is commonly used in nearly every statement regarding the future. Generally speaking, inshallah is used to express the speaker’s hopes and anticipations regarding a future action. However, this paper provides a unique account of the expression. It claims that inshallah can deliver various meanings some of which are not literal and some are not related to the future or the original meaning of the expression. Moreover, the study will provide a diagnostic test that will be used to identify the non-literal meanings of the expression that are in turn considered floutings of the maxim of quality. The study will show that this expression extensively flouts the maxim of quality in particular to provide totally new meanings the expression does not carry or provide literally. The study is designed as follows. Section two includes the methodology that is applied in the study. It presents the source of the expressions used as well as how they are going to be analyzed. Section three introduces the theoretical background; it briefly presents Grice’s cooperative principle as well as the four pillars of the principle i.e. the maxims of quality, quantity, relation and manner. It also clarifies what is meant by observing, flouting and violating the maxims. The review of literature also presents the main studies that have focused on inshallah from a linguistic perspective. The fourth section presents the literal meanings of inshallah, while the last section is the discussion that presents the new non-literal meanings of inshallah which can be viewed as flouting’s of the maxim of quality. 2. Theoretical Background Since its emergence in 1975, Grice’s cooperative principle has been abundantly researched and applied in various fields and topics. Rundquist (1992), who sought to find a gender-based explanation for flouting the