On The Application Of The Cooperative Principle To Simultaneous Interpreting

Although interpretation has been long existing in human history, the history ofsimultaneous interpretation is comparatively much shorter. The debut of simultaneousinterpreting (short for SI) was at the Paris Peace Conference in1919. However, it wasnot until the Nuremburg Trials from1945to1946that the SI began to attract wideattention. Since then, SI has become an essential part of most business conferences，government and non-government exchange activities.Nowadays, the research work on interpretation is more likely to be associatedwith other disciplines, such as linguistics, psychology, sociology, and neuroscience.As a primary principle in pragmatics, the Cooperative Principle (short for CP), putforward by Grice, has come into the sights of interpretation researchers. The CPdescribes how effective communication in conversation is achieved in common socialsituations. There are four maxims in the CP: the maxim of quantity, the maxim ofquality, the maxim of manner and the maxim of relevance. Interpretation, as a specialkind of conversation, also can be guided by the CP.This paper is composed of five parts. The first part briefly introduces thebackground, purpose, research method and structure of the study. The second partcovers some relevant definitions and the previous study on the application of the CPto interpretation. In the third part, the CP and its four maxims will be illustrated indetails. The fourth part analyzes the observance and violation of the four maximsrespectively in SI and some suggestions are given to enhance the SI quality from theperspective of CP. The last part makes a summary of the major findings andlimitations of the study as well as suggestions for future research.Through the study, the paper concludes that the CP can be applied to SI to helpthe interpreter better understand what to do and what to avoid; when the CP is appliedto different types of interpreting, the frequencies of violating a certain maxim aredifferent. The violations of the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner occurmore frequently in SI than in CI.