ABSTRACT

Cooperative principle is an essential part of pragmatics and it refers to that in people’s conversations, the two sides follow a certain principle intentionally or unintentionally in order to cooperate with each other to complete the communicative tasks.

The corpus of this thesis is the film Vanity Fair which revised from the famous English novel Vanity Fair in the 19th century. The thesis analyzes the dialogues in the film from the perspective of the four maxims in cooperative principle, i.e. the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relevance and the maxim of manner. Through the study, it is found that in the film people often violate cooperative principle which creates implication. The violations of cooperative principle cause many different figures of speech. The figures of speech caused by the violations of the maxim of quantity are overstatement, irony, hints and contradiction; the figures of speech caused by the violations of the maxim of quality are irony and metaphor; the figures of speech caused by the violations of the maxim of relevance are euphemism and repetition; the figures of speech caused by the violations of the maxim of manner are pun and oxymoron. All these plump the characters’ personalities. The reason why they are different in personality is that they live under different backgrounds and have different experience. Besides, their disparity in social background and status makes them behave differently in conversations.

Key words: cooperative principle; Vanity Fair; figure of speech

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION-1

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW-2

2.1 Studies on Cooperative Principles at Home and Abroad-2

2.2 Studies on Vanity Fair at Home and Abroad-3

Chapter Three VIOLATIONS OF CP IN VANITY FAIR-5

3.1Violation of the Maxim of Quantity-5

3.1.1 Overstatement-5

3.1.2 Irony-6

3.1.3 Hints-7

3.1.4 Contradiction-8

3.2 Violation of the Maxim of Quality-9

3.2.1 Irony-9

3.2.2 Metaphor-10

3.3 Violation of the Maxim of Relevance-11

3.3.1 Euphemism-11

3.3.2 Repetition-12

3.4 Violation of the Maxim of Manner-13

3.4.1 Pun-13

3.4.2 Oxymoron-14

Chapter Five REASONS FOR THE VIOLATION OF CP-16

4.1 Becky: Ambition and Falsity-16

4.2 Amelia: Loyalty and Purity-17

4.3 Joseph: Shyness and Cowardice-18

4.4 Rawdon: Loyalty-19

4.5 Summary-20

Chapter Five CONCLUSION-21

REFERENCES-23