Translation Practice Under The Guidance Of Cooperative Principle And Relevance Theory:Report On The Translation Of Evaluating Navy’s Funded Graduate Education Program—A Return-on-investment Framework

Cooperative Principle(CP) was put forward by Grice in 1967 and it is the foundation of conversational communication. Both the speaker and the listener abide by the theory unconsciously during their dialogue. So CP can interpret oral communication adequately. Translation and oral communication share something in common, which is communication principle. As a result, the theory can interpret translation as a textual communication. In 1986, “Relevance:Communication and Cognition” was published by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson,which researches discourse comprehension from the point of relevance. Relevance Theory(RT) focuses on communication and cognition, from the opinion of which,communication is an inter-lingual ostensive-inferential process about information intention and communicative intention. Translation is an inter-lingual ostensive-inferential process. RT can guide translation practice.The report gives a brief introduction about the original text and the translation theories adopted in the process of translation which are CP and RT. It narrates the origin and the essence of CP and RT, their explanation power to translation as well as the reason why the two theories are adopted. The report also analyzes the importance of the four maxims of CP to a good translation and the sub-audition generated by violating the maxims of CP deliberately. What’s more, it explains the essence of translation provided by RT that is two ostensive-inferential processes and reveals the process to remedy the missing cognitive environment between original and target readers. Finally, the report combines the four maxims of CP and the dynamic ratiocination process offered by RT to demonstrate the process of creating an ideal translation.The conclusion of this report is, firstly, the four maxims of CP are important to a translation that has good communicative function. What’s more, it’s a sound strategy to show the sub-audition generated by violating the maxims of CP deliberately.Secondly, the essence of translation advocated by RT is two ostensive-inferential processes. In order to fulfill a communication, one of the most important tasks for thetranslator is to remedy the cognitive environment that target readers lacks. Thirdly, the combination of the four maxims of CP and the dynamic ratiocination process offered by RT can contribute a lot to demonstrate the process of creating an ideal translation.