A Study Of Holden's Profanity In The Catcher In The Rye From The Perspective Of Cooperative Principle And Politeness Principle

Jerome David Salinger has been widely known as the most representative author in the America in 1950 s and his famous work The Cather in the Rye has been regarded as one of the classical works in American literary history.The publication of The Cather in the Rye has attracted a lot of readers.Meanwhile the novel has caused widespread controversy because of the character Holden's profanity.As a trend-setter in American literature,amounts of studies have studied it from the angle of literary criticism,but scholars seldom have analyzed this novel from the perspective of pragmatics.This paper makes a detailed analysis of Holden's profanity in dialogue from Cooperative Principle(CP)and Politeness Principle(PP)and reveals the image of Holden behind his profanity.This paper firstly introduces the author Salinger and The Cather in The Rye briefly,and reviews the studies on this novel at home and abroad.Then,on the basis of Grice's Cooperative Principle(CP)and Leech's Politeness Principle(PP),this paper analyzes Holden's language features in dialogue with others.According to Quality maxim,Quantity maxim,Relation maxim and Manner maxim in CP,and Tact maxim,Approbation maxim,Agreement maxim and Sympathy maxim in PP,this paper investigates the reasons of Holden's violation of the CP or PP in dialogue with his profanity,and reveals the image of Holden from his profanity.The main attempt of this paper focuses on the following two research questions: firstly,why does Holden violate the CP or PP with his profanity? Secondly,what kind of image does Holden have behind his profanity?Through the analysis,this paper finds that,Holden always deliberately violates the CP or PP in dialogue with his profanity,such as “goddam,hell,bitch” and so on,because he tries to relieve his feelings of dissatisfaction,anger and fear.Holden uses the profanity to cover his loneliness,resistance and helplessness inside.Even though Holden hates the hypocrisy in adult world and yearns for the inner beauty,he is incapable of getting rid of the worldly life.It also shapes Holden's image as a lonely catcher,a resister to the adulthood and a compromiser to the society.