Abstract:
As one of the most important processes in business activities, the Business Negotiation plays a significant role in the establishment and maintenance of trade relationship. Any business owner or business entrepreneur knows that the difference between companies’ survival and failure comes down to dollars and cents; a successful negotiation is the key to the mutual development. Therefore, any party involved attaches much importance to it. While in the course of negotiation, the participants must first of all be willing to cooperate with each other; otherwise, it would not be possible for them to carry on the talk. The conversational implicatures will occur when the violation of the four maxims concerning the Cooperative Principle happens. The intention of this paper, based on the study of Cooperative Principle suggested by Grice, is to explore the application of the four maxims, i.e. the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner, in Business Negotiations. Also it explains the resultant implicatures when the violation of these four happens. This thesis may be of some help to those who are engaged in Business Negotiations and also those business English teachers in their teaching practice. Many a scholar of different fields, such as sociolinguistics, pragmatics and sociology, have studied the Cooperative Principle from different perspectives, but none of them has applied it to Business Negotiations. So the author will make her first venture to fill this gap.

Key Words: Cooperative Principle; the four maxims; conversational implicatures; Business Negotiations

摘  要：
商务谈判乃商务活动中的重要过程之一，对双方贸易关系的建立或维持起着举足轻重的作用。任何一个企业家或企业主都非常清楚公司的成败意味着金钱的得失；成功的商务谈判会使双方获利。因此，谈判双方高度关注商务谈判的成功与否。然而在商务谈判过程中，会话双方必须有意愿与对方合作交流；否则谈判将无法进行。当会话双方中的任何一方违背了四准则中任何一条，将会产生会话误解。本文以格赖斯合作性原则为理论基础，以商务谈判实际案例为支撑，旨在分析四准则在商务谈判中的运用及其被违背时的会话含义和影响。来自社会语言学、语用学、社会学等领域的学者对合作性原则进行了不同角度的分析。然而至今为止，尚无一人从商务谈判的角度来分析。因此，笔者意欲尝试填补这方面的空白。希望该文能为参加商务活动的人们和涉及商务谈判教学的老师提供些许帮助。

关键词：合作原则；四准则；会话含义；商务谈判

1 Introduction
As one of the most important processes in business activities, the Business Negotiation plays a significant role in the establishment and maintenance of trade relationship. Any business owner or business entrepreneur has the knowledge that the difference between companies’ survival and failure comes down to dollars and cents; a successful negotiation is the key to mutual development. Therefore, any party involved attaches much importance to Business Negotiations. While in the course of negotiation, all participants must first of all be willing to cooperate with each other; otherwise, it would not be possible for them to carry on the talk. The conversational implicatures will occur when the violation of the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle happens.