Analysis and Translation Insights of American Drama Lines Guided by the Cooperative Principle—Taking “Friends” as an Example

本文以格赖斯合作原则为理论框架，分析美剧《老友记》中角色对话的语用特征及其会话含义生成机制，并探讨其对台词翻译的指导意义。研究发现，剧中角色常通过有意违反合作原则，制造幽默、讽刺等戏剧效果。因此，译者在翻译此类台词时需具备语用意识，灵活采用增译、语体转换及文化适配等策略在译文中显化隐含信息，还原原剧的喜剧效果和情感张力，帮助目标观众跨越文化差异，准确理解台词深层含义。本研究为情景喜剧的翻译实践提供了理论参考与方法论启示。Taking Grice’s Cooperative Principle as a theoretical framework, this paper analyzes the pragmatic features of the dialogues in the American drama “Friends” and its mechanism of conversational implicature generation, which guides the line translation. It is found that the characters in the play often create dramatic effects such as humor and irony by intentionally violating the Cooperative Principle. Therefore, translators need to have pragmatic awareness when translating such lines, and flexibly use strategies such as amplification, stylistic transformation, and cultural adaptation to reveal the hidden information in the translated text, restore the comedic effect and emotional tension of the original drama, and help the target audience to cross the cultural differences and accurately understand the deeper meanings of the lines. This study provides theoretical references and methodological insights for the translation practice of sitcoms.