The Application Of The Cooperative Principle To Interpreting Conference Address

This thesis is an attempt to study the interpreting of conference address from a pragmatic perspective. Through the analysis of the two distinctive features of conference address and the coping tactics of its interpreting, along with the discussion of the connection between the Cooperative Principle and interpreting practice, the author intends to explore how the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle is applied to interpreting conference address.Due to its distinctive features, formality and flexibility, the interpreting of conference address is often discussed as a special type of conference interpreting. Consequently, it has its own specific coping tactics such as omission, addition, replacement, fuzziness, reconstruction, reproduction, repetition and paraphrase. The author finds that these coping tactics happen to either observe or violate one or some of the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle which is an important principle in daily communication and also a new research orientation in the field of interpreting.Apart from detailed theoretical and practical analysis, an observational study is also provided in this thesis to further justify the application of the Cooperative Principle to interpreting conference address. Through parallel observation of a conference address and its interpreted version, the author draws the conclusion that in most cases, the process of interpreting conference address strictly observes the maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner of the Cooperative Principle; in some other cases nevertheless, the interpreter deliberately violates one or some certain maxims of it. Despite all that, the causes of either observing or violating the Cooperative Principle are always the same, i.e., to ensure the cooperation among the participants of the conference address.