A Study Of Translation Of Conversations In Yu Mi From The Perspective Of The Theory Of Conversational Implicature

Conversational implicature is one of the most important theories in pragmatics. In realcommunication, people always convey some implied meaning behind the surface semanticstructure. In accordance with Grice, in all the linguistic communication, there is a tacitagreement between speakers and hearers or a principle that both of the two parties shouldabide by so as to achieve a particular purpose. That is Cooperative Principle. People, however,don’t always obey the principle; they violate or give up a certain maxim. Nevertheless, the“uncooperative” utterances will not necessarily lead to the failure of communication; thehearer will assume that the speaker is cooperative and the speaker’s uncooperative wordsimply some specific purposes. With the assistance of context, the implicit meaning will bederived.Literary work is a special kind of communication between the author and readers, whichis on the one hand realized by means of the characters’ dialogue, on the other hand by thecommunication between the narrator and the readers. This thesis refers to the two termsrespectively as micro-conversation and macro-conversation. Translation is a kind ofcommunication which is mediated by translators. Since the recipients of the TL text andauthor of the SL text are in different cultural context, a translator should apply theCooperative Principle to analyze and reason out the implicit meaning, and when necessary,help establish a cooperative relationship between the recipients of the TL text and the authorof the SL text for the sake of appreciating the author’s conversational implicature.This thesis discusses both the macro-conversation and the micro-conversation byemploying the theory of conversational implicature. The author, through elaborate analysis,comparison and discussion of the examples drawn from the novel Yu Mi, finds strategiesreflected in the translation of the conversational implicatures are mainly as follows: totranslate the implied meaning in the SL text with the phrases with similar contextual implicitmeaning; to reveal the original implicit meaning in the translation; to translate the implicitmeaning literally and then offer further explanation; to carry out a word-for-word translationplus a footnote for explanation. Conclusively, the translators choose not to completely revealthe cultural specific images but retain those cultural images, namely, conversationalimplicaures under the precondition of without arousing misunderstanding among receptors ofthe TL text.This study aims to reveal that the theory of conversational implicature in the pragmatictheory can not only guide the translation of conversational implicatures in literary works butalso offer a criterion for translation fidelity; meanwhile, it measures whether the translation isin line with the SL text in aspects of quality, quantity, relevance and manner, so as to enhance the translator’s awareness to produce an equivalent translation.