Analysis of the Conversational Implicature in <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i> from the Violation of Cooperative Principle

The Catcher in the Rye is regarded as a classic work in contemporary American literature after World War II, and it later created a new literary style and trend, which is loved by a wide range of readers. In the process of people’s communication, both sides of the dialog seem to follow the Cooperative Principle consciously or unconsciously, in order to cooperate effectively and thus complete the communication task. However, in literary creation, in the need of characterization and plot development, authors will intentionally violate the Cooperative Principle, so as to make the characters more distinctive and the plot more attractive. This paper analyzes a large number of dialogues in The Catcher in the Rye in which the characters violate the Cooperative Principle to deduce their hidden messages and study their real conversational meanings. This study thus further judges the psychological state of the characters in the work and then studies the character traits of the characters’ images to help readers better appreciate this classic.