A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd From The Perspective Of Conversational Implicature Theory

In 1967, the American linguist and philosopher H.P. Grice put forward "Conversational Implicature" theory and it "Cooperative Principle"(CP), marking a significant breakthrough in pragmatics. According to Grice, people in conversation tend to follow some rules, which are cooperative principles, so that they can conduct their conversation efficiently. Once these principles are broken, special "conversational implicature" will occur. An author often designs some dialogues, which are an important component of a novel, where the speaker intentionally breaks CPs to convey implications beyond the literal meaning. Thus, the "conversational implicature" is rather enlightening for a translator to understand the hidden meaning in the original text and reproduce a figure accurately.Detective novels in Agatha Christie's writing are characterized by a large proportion of dialogues, which implies key clues to a case as well as a figure's personality. Thus, the writer select The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which brought the author into fame, as a case study for how the "Conversational Implicature" can enlighten a translator on achieving equivalence in translation. For comparative study, two translated versions are selected, published in 1980 and 2006 respectively.To begin with, I select typical dialogues that violate CPs, then analyze the resulting implicatures. Lastly, I compare the two versions'different strategies in translating dialogues that break CPs so as to covey the real intention of a speaker. As a conclusion, I generalize differences, strengths and weaknesses of the two versions and how instructive the "Conversational Implicature" is for dialogue translation.