The Cooperative Principle For The C-E Translation Of Tang Poetry

Grice puts forward the Cooperative Principle just as "good rain knows its time right; it will fall when comes spring", and various applications of the principle have sprung up just like "bamboo shoots after a spring rain". The C-E translation of Tang poetry, "a hot potato" of the literary translation, benefits from it and "sprouts" a new solution.With the spirit of Xu Yuanzhong's principle of "three beauties", this paper suggests that a translator employ the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle (Quality, Quantity, Relation and Manner) to convey the original beauties in sense, in sound and in form in the C-E translation of Tang poetry and meanwhile probes into how to do so, on the assumption that translation is, in most cases, an ordinal, indirect, and one-way circle of conversing between the original writer, the translator and the target readers in the manner of passing on a message. Theoretic argumentation and contrastive illustration lead us to the final conclusion that the Cooperative Principle offers Xu Yuanzhong's principle of "three beauties" a new theoretic support and methodology and creates a new field of the C-E translation of Tang poetry, which will prove to be of great theoretical value and practical significance.