ABSTRACT

Over the past fifty years, Grice’s cooperative principle has been severing as a golden rule in people’s interactions. While due to diplomatic needs on many occasions, such as complexity and sensitivity, confidentiality, violation of Cooperative Principle does occur, especially on the regular press conferences of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

This thesis discusses the violations of cooperative principle based on the data collected from the regular press conferences of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Study shows that most non-cooperative cases violate the maxim of quantity, then followed by violations of maxim of relevance, and the violations of maxim of manner are the least. A research on the combination of the cooperative principles with diplomatic discourse can not only enable us to gain more insight into the volatile international affairs, but also offer us a clear picture of China’s independent foreign policy. Meanwhile, it is also conducive in providing advice and reference to all levels of government to create a sound diplomatic language theory.

Key words: Diplomatic Activities   Diplomatic Language   Cooperative Principle  Violations of Cooperative Principle

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

中文摘要

Chapter One    Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Purpose and Significance-1

1.3 Structure of the Thesis-2

Chapter Two    Literature Review-3

2.1 The Development of Chinese Diplomatic Language-3

2.2 Study about the Phenomenon of Vagueness, Redundancy, Euphemism Counterfactual in Diplomatic Language-3

2.3 Explanation of Language Phenomenon (Vagueness, Redundancy, Counterfactual, Euphemism) from the Perspective of Leech’s Politeness Principle-4

2.4-Grice’s Cooperative Principle-5

Chapter Three    Data Collection and Analysis-7

3.1 Data Collection-7

3.2 Data Analysis-7

Chapter Four    Analysis and Discussion-9

4.1 Analysis of typical cases-9

4.1.1 Violations of maxim of Quantity-9

4.1.2 Violations of maxim of Quality-11

4.1.3 Violations of maxim of Relevance-11

4.2.4 Violations of maxim of Manner-13

Chapter Five     Conclusion-15

5.1 Major Findings-15

5.2 Limitations-15

BIBLIOGRAPHY-17

APPENDIX-18