An Effect Study Of Interpretation From The Perspective Of The Cooperative Principle

In1967, the American linguist H.P. Grice proposed in his speech Logic and Conversation in Harvard university that in all verbal communication processes, the participants involved in jointly obey some unwritten agreements and rules so that they can cooperate with each other and achieve successful communication and guarantee the proceeding of their conversation. The proceeding of their conversation are supported and guided by some unwritten principles, which were named by H. P. Grice as the Cooperative Principle.Interpretation is a kind of oral expression, by which an interpreter will quickly and accurately transform what he or she has heard (source language) into another language(target language), consequently the goal of delivering and exchanging information can be achieved. As a specific kind of oral communication activity, interpretation involves three participants, namely, the speaker, the interpreter and the listener. The interpreter plays an important role in the process. Therefore, in order to make the listeners of the target language understand the source language, the interpreter should observe the Cooperative Principle to make the rendition understandable for the listener.This thesis probes into how the interpreter deals with all the information that contained in the source language from the perspective of Grice’s Cooperative Principle. The interpreter should abide by Grice’s Cooperative Principle when he or she is rendering the interpretation. Only when the interpreter observes and grasps the CP and meanwhile complies with the four maxims of Cooperative Principle can he or she do the interpretation effectively, in other words, the interpreter manages to reveal the pragmatic function of the source language so as to guarantee the smooth communication.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter1is a general introduction of this research, including the research background, research objective and the organizational structure of this thesis. Chapter2presents the definition, the history, the characteristics and the categories of interpretation. Chapter3is the theoretical foundation of the study, that is, the Cooperative Principle and its four maxims and Daniel Gile’s Effort Model. Chapter4is the main body of the thesis. According to the theory illustrated in chapter three, the author makes a thorough and deep study about interpretation, to show the inevitability of observing or violating the CP. Moreover, the author reanalyzes this inevitability from the perspective of Gile’s Effort Model and further proves the importance of the CP in the process of interpreting. Chapter5is a brief conclusion, mainly dealing with the innovations, limitations of the thesis and suggestions for future study. Main findings include3parts as follows;1) For most of the time, in the process of interpretation the interpreter observes the CP and its maxims.2) In the process of interpretation, the interpreter at times violates the CP and its maxims for better cooperation between the communication participants.3) According to Effort Model for CI, the author gets some conclusion that cannot be got only according to the CP, that is, not all the violations are ascribed to deliberate violations, but due to the interpreter’s lack of processing capacity.Although this thesis has made some positive results, the study still has limitations. Most probably in the interpretation of press conference and international business negotiation there are some other good examples which the author of this thesis fails to cover may better illustrate the observation and violation of the CP. Furthermore, other principles in modern pragmatics like the Politeness Principle and the Relevance Theory also have a great explanatory power in the research of interpretation. Some further research will be carried out in the future in this aspect to make the pragmatic research of interpretation more far-reaching and systematic.