Holden Caulfield's Implicature

Speranza

There is something Griceian about Holden Caulfield.

The novel, “The catcher in the rye,” was published in 1951,  when Grice was teaching at Oxford. That was the first coincidence.

Apart from their respectively philosophical and literary interests, H. P. Grice’s oeuvre and J. D. Salinger's novel, can also justified on the basis of their linguistic significance. 

"The Catcher in the Rye" has been compared by many critics with 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' on various counts. Grice’s oeuvre hasn’t.

'Huckleberry' is not only as a great work of literary art, but also a valuable study in 1884 “dialect.” “The Catcher in the Rye” is an example of 1951 dialect – and implicature!

Most critics who looked at The Catcher in the Rye at the time of its publication thought that its language was a true and authentic rendering of colloquial speech – as most tuttees who attended Grice’s tutorials thought that Grice’s speech was an authentic rendering of a don’s dialect.

The language of Holden Caulfield, the narrator, strikes the ear as an accurate rendering of the informal speech of an intelligent, educated, North-eastern type.

One commonly noted feature of the novel’s language has been its comic effect or implicature. As Salinger asks the editors in the biopic film “Rebel in the rye,” “But you didn’t find it at least funny?”

And yet there has never been an extensive investigation of the language itself – and its implicatures.

Even though Holden's language is authentic speech, recording it was certainly not the major m-intention of Salinger (By “m-intention,” we mean the intention behind Salinger’s uttering his novel. It’s a term of art introduced by Grice – ‘m-intention’ stands for the intention an utterer has to mean this or that).

Salinger’s primary task was NOT that of reproducing the exact speech of this or that population.

Yet Holden Caulfield speaks a recognizable language.

Salinger achieves the goal of giving Holden an extremely typical speech, yet overlaid with strong personal idiosyncrasies.

There are two major speech habits which are Holden Caulfield’s s own, which are endlessly repeated throughout “The catcher in the ryle’, and which are, nevertheless, typical enough of the speech of his population, so that Holden Caulfield can be both typical and individual in his use of these ‘habits’.

It is certainly common to end thoughts with a loosely dangling 

“and all”

just as it is common to add an insistent 'I really did,' 'It really was.'

But Holden Caulfield uses these phrases to such an overpowering degree that they become a clear part of the flavour of “The catcher in the rye.”

They become a part of Holden Caulfield himself, and actually help to characterize him. 

Holden's 

'AND all' 

and its twins, 

'OR something,' 

'OR anything'

serve no real, consistent linguistic function, some logician might say. Their value is in the implicature.

The expressions give a sense of looseness of expression – especially the disjunctive expressions, “or something,” “or anything”. “And all” has a different logic, admittedly.

Often these expressions signify that Holden knows there is more that could be said about the issue at hand, but he is not going to bother going into it: he'll leave it at the level of the implicature.

Some examples:

I won’t go into how my parents were occupied AND ALL before they had me.

They're nice AND ALL, my parents are. I'm not going to tell you my whole autobiography OR ANYTHING.

That’s splendid and clear-thinking AND ALL.

But, alas, for the Griciean, just as often, the utterance of these expressions by Caulfield, is purely arbitrary, with no apparent discernible meaning or implicature.

Consider:

He's my brother AND ALL. 

It was in the Revolutionary War AND ALL.

It was December AND ALL.

No gloves OR ANYTHING.

It was right in the pocket AND ALL.

This habit seems, if anything, indicative of Caulfield’s tendency to “generalize”, to find the “all” in the one. 

Salinger has an ear not only for idiosyncrasies of diction and syntax, but for the psychological processes behind them.

Let us examine one of Holden Caulfield's favourite phrases already mentioned, “and all”. Some examples:

She looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around in her blue coat -- AND ALL.

as if each experience wore a halo. 

Caulfield’s trope seems to be “ab uno disce omnes.”

Caulfield abstracts and generalizes wildly.

Regarding Holden Caulfield’s *second* most obvious idiosyncrasy, it would be as if, in a phony world, Holden Caulfield feels compelled to re-inforce his sincerity and Griceian truthfulness and candour constantly with

"It really is" or 

"It really did.”

There seems to be something of a double function (to echo Buehler, a language philosopher favoured by Popper) about these quasi-perpetual insistences of Holden's.

Caulfield is so aware of the danger of slipping into “phoniness” himself that he has to repeat over and over 

‘I really MEAN it’ – note the Griceian use of ‘mean,’ as applied to the utterer himself.

and ‘t really does.’

Holden Caulfield uses this idiosyncrasy of insistence almost every time that he makes an affirmation. 

Allied to Holden's habit of insistence is his phrase that J. O. Urmson (a colleague of Grice) would call a parenthetical:

“if you want to know the truth.”

One is able to find a Griceian characterisation in this habitual parenthetical too. 

Caulfield uses this conditional parenthetical phrase – what J. L. Austin would have as a ‘biscuit conditional’ – “If you’re hungry, there are biscuits in the cupboard” -- only AFTER affirmations, just as he uses 

'It really does'

but he restricts “if you want to know the truth” usually after the personal affirmations, where he is consciously being frank or candid.

Some examples:

“I have no wind, if you want to KNOW the truth.”

Seeing that one of Grice’s maxims is “Try to make your conversational contribution one that is true,” it’s a bit like, “Honestly” – or as Albritton would say, ‘otiose’, unless we implicate.

“I don’t even think that bastard had a handkerchief, if you want to KNOW the truth.

  

This may be contrasted with “That bastard didn’t have a handkerchief, if you want to know the truth.” By using “I don’t even think,” the utterance-ending parenthetical is not THAT otiose, and in any case, it may have the utterer calculating TWO implicatures: That the truth is that the individual referred to did not have a handkerchief, AND that Caulfield does not think that the individual referred to had one (cfr. “p” and “I believe that p.”)

“I'm a pacifist, if you want to KNOW the truth.”
“She had quite a lot of sex appeal, too, if you really want to know [+> the truth].”

“I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to KNOW the truth.”

These personal idiosyncrasies of Holden's Griceian utterances (qua blouts of Grice’s maxims) are in keeping with general language. 

Yet they are so much a part of Holden and of the flavour of “The Catcher in the Rye” that they are much of what makes Holden to be Holden Caulfield.

They are the most memorable feature of the language of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

Although always in character, the rest of Holden's speech is more “typical” than individual or idiosyncratic.

The distinctive quality of Caulfield’s language comes, paradoxically, from its lack of a distinctive quality.

Holden's informal vernacular is particularly typical in its 'vulgarity' and 'obscenity.' 

No one familiar with speech could seriously contend that Salinger over-played his hand in this respect. 

On the contrary, Caulfield's restraint help to characterise him as a sensitive ‘utterer’ who avoids the most strongly forbidden terms, and who never uses vulgarity in a self-conscious or phony way to help him be 'one of the gang.' 

Four-letter expletives, for example, are never used as a part of Holden's direct utterances.  

A four-letter expletive appears in “The catcher in the rye” four times, admittedly, but only when Caulfield disapprovingly discusses its wide appearance on walls. 

The Divine name is used habitually by Holden only in the comparatively weak 

"for God's sake,"

"God,"and 

"goddam."

The stronger and usually more offensive

"for Chrissake"

or

"Jesus"

or 

"Jesus Christ"

are used habitually by Ackley and Stradlater, not by Caulfield.

Holden does use them, granted, but only when he feels the need for a strong expression. 

He almost never uses "for Chrissake" in an “un-emotional” situation. 

"Goddam" seems to be Caulfield’s favorite adjective. 

This adjective is used with no relationship to its original meaning (“damned by God,” that is) OR to Holden's attitude toward the noun to which the adjective is attached. 

The adjective simply expresses an emotional feeling toward the object: either favourable, or “pro” (as Grice’s favourite philosopher, C. L. Stevenson, would have it) -- as in 'goddam hunting cap' --, or unfavourable, as in 'ya goddam moron' -- or (if we go by Strawson’s truth-value gap theory), indifferent, as in 'coming in the goddam windows.' 

The simpler “Damm” is used interchangeably with “goddam.”

No differentiation in its implicature seems detectable.

Other crude words are also often used by Caulfield. 

"Ass" keeps a fairly restricted meaning as a part of the human anatomy.

But it is used in a variety of ways. 

“Ass” can refer simply to that specific part of the body ('I moved my ass a little'), or be a part of a trite expression ('freezing my ass off'; 'in a half-assed way'), or be an expletive ('Game, my ass.'). 

"Hell" is perhaps the most versatile expression in Holden's “procedures,” as Grice would put it.

"Hell" serves most of the meanings and constructions which Mencken lists in his essay on linguistic ‘Profanity.’ 

So far is Holden's use of "hell" from its original LITERAL meaning that he can utter the utterance:

'We had a helluva time.”

to mean (alla Grice) that he and Phoebe had a decidedly *pleasant* time downtown shopping for shoes. 

The most common function of "hell" 

is as the second part of a simile, in which a thing can be either 'hot as hell' or, strangely, 

"cold as hell.” (The implicature here seems to have a rather difficult ‘calculability,’ to use Grice’s jargon).

There’s also: "Sad as hell' or 'playful as hell'; 'old as hell' or 'pretty as hell.' 

Like all of these words, "hell" has no close relationship to its original eschatological meaning (antonym: heaven – cfr. Dante Alighieri on ‘purgatory’).

Both bastard and sonuvab*tch have also drastically changed in meaning – and mean ‘by implicature.’

Neither no longer, of course, in Holden's vocabulary, has any connection with the accidents of birth. 

Unless used in a trite simile, “bastard” is a pretty strong word, reserved for things and people Holden particularly dislikes, especially, as you can guess, 'phonies.' 

Sonuvab*tch has an even stronger meaning to Holden,

He uses it only in the deepest anger. 

When, for example, Holden is furious with Stradlater over his treatment of Jane Gallagher, Holden repeats again and again that he 'kept calling him a moron sonuvab*tch' .

The use of crude language in “The Catcher in the Rye” increases, as we should expect, when Holden is REPORTING a conversation.

When he is directly addressing his addressee, Holden's use of such language drops off almost entirely. 

There is also an increase in this type of language when any of the characters are excited or angry. 

Thus, when Caulfield is apprehensive over Stradlater's treatment of Jane, his “goddams” increase suddenly to seven on a single page.

Holden's utterances are also typical in his use of slang. 

One can catalogue over a hundred slang terms used by Caulfield, and every one of these is in widespread use. 

Although Holden's slang is rich and colourful, it, of course, being slang, often fails at precise communication in terms of explicature, and the addressee is left to calculate the implicature.

Thus, Holden's "crap" is used in seven different ways. 

“Crap” can mean foolishness, as 'all that David Copperfield kind of crap’. Or it can mean a messy matter, as 'I spilled some crap all over my gray flannel’. Or it can mean a merely miscellaneous matter, as 'I was putting on my galoshes and crap.' 

“Crap” can curiously also carry its basic meaning, to wit: animal excreta, as 

“There didn't look like there was anything in the park except dog crap.”

But “crap” can be used as an adjective meaning anything generally UNfavorable, as in:

'The show was on the crappy side.' 

Caulfield uses the phrases “to be a lot of crap” and “to shoot the crap” and “to chuck the crap,” all to mean 'to be untrue, or phony’.

But he can also use “to shoot the crap” to mean simply 'to chat,' with no connotation of untruth, as in:

“I certainly wouldn't have minded shooting the crap with old Phoebe for a while.'

Holden's slang use of "crazy" is somewhat imprecise in its explicature – if its implicature is rich.

‘That drives me crazy.’ 

means that Caulfield violently DISlikes something.

Yet 'to be crazy about' something means just the opposite. 

In the same way, to be 'killed' by something can mean that he was emotionally affected either favourably ('That story just about killed me.') or unfavorably ('Then she turned her back on me again. It nearly killed me.'). 

This use of "killed" is yet another of Caulfield’s favourite slang expressions. 

Heiserman and Miller are, incidentally, certainly incorrect when they conclude: 

Holden often uses “It killed me” with no connection to the necessarily absurd, as has been claimed.

Caulfield may use it for his beloved Phoebe.

The expression simply indicates a high degree of emotion-any kind. 

It is hazardous to conclude that any of Caulfield's slang has a precise and consistent meaning or function. It’s all left to the implicature of the moment.

Holden appends the adjective “old” to almost every character, real or fictional, mentioned in “The Catcher in the Rye”, from the hated 'old Maurice' to 'old Peter Lorre,' to 'old Phoebe,' and even 'old Jesus.' 

The only pattern that can be discovered in Holden's use of the adjective “old” is that he usually uses it only after he has previously mentioned the character. Only then does he feel free to append “old.”

All we can conclude from Holden's slang is that it is typical slang: versatile, expressive and imprecise (as Timothy Williamson has it in  his “Vagueness”), and often crude.

Holden has many favourite slang expressions which he overuses.

In one place, he admits to his abuse:

'Boy!' I said. 

I also say 'Boy!' quite a lot. 

Partly because I have a lousy vocabulary and partly because I act quite young for my age sometimes.

But if Holden's slang shows the typically vocabulary of even the educated person, this becomes more obvious when we narrow our view to Holden's choice of adjectives and adverbs. 

The choice of adjectives and adverbs is indeed narrow, with a constant repetition of a few favourite words: 

lousy

pretty

crumby

terrific

quite

old

stupid

-- all used, as is the habit of the vernacular, with little regard to any specific meaning. 

Thus, most of the nouns which are qualified with 'stupid' could not in any logical framework be called 'ignorant,' and, as we have seen, “old” before a proper noun has nothing to do with age.

Another respect in which Holden is correct in accusing himself of having a 'lousy vocabulary' is discovered in the ease with which he falls into what Grice would have as a figure of speech. 

We have already seen that Holden's most common simile is the worn and meaningless 'as hell' (as in “cold as hell”).

But Caulfield’s often-repeated 'like a madman' and 'like a bastard' are also unrelated to their literal meaning.

Even Holden's non-habitual figures of speech are obvious at the explicature level, if not the implicature level.

Consider a few:

'sharp as a tack'; 'hot as a firecracker'; 'laughed like a hyena'; 'I know old Jane like a book'; 'drove off like a bat out of hell'; 'I began to feel like a horse's ass'; 'blind as a bat'; 'I know Central Park like the back of my hand.'

Repetitious as Holden's vocabulary may be, it is nevertheless, highly effective in terms of Grice’s account (“the purpose of conversation is to influence others.”)

For example, when Holden piles one adjective upon another, a strong power of invective is often the result. Some examples:

“He was a goddam stupid moron.”

“Get your dirty stinking moron knees off my chest.”

“You are a dirty stupid sonuvab*tch of a moron.”

And his limited vocabulary can also be used for good comic effect via implicature.

Holden's constant repetition of identical expressions in countless widely different situations is often hilariously funny.

But all of the humour in Holden's procedures does not come from its alleged un-imaginative quality. 

Quite the contrary, some of his figures of speech and implicatures are entirely original.

And these are inspired, dramatically effective, and terribly funny. 

As always, Salinger's Caulfield is basically typical, with a strong overlay of the individual:

“He started handling my exam paper like it was a turd or something.”

“He put my goddam paper down then and looked at me like he'd just beaten the hell out of me in ping-pong or something.”

“That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddam toilet seat.”

“Old Marty was like dragging the Statue of Liberty around the floor.”

Another aspect in which Holden's language is typical is that it shows the general characteristic of adaptability, apparently strengthened by his teen-age lack of restraint. 

It is very easy for Caulfield to turn a noun into an adjective, with the simple addition of a “-y”: 

'perverty,' 'Christmasy,' 'vomity-looking,' 'whory-looking,' 'hoodlumy-looking,' 'show-offy,' 'flitty-looking,' 'dumpy-looking,' 'pimpy,' 'snobby,' 'fisty.' 

Caulfield’s language shows a versatile combining ability: 

“They gave Sally this little blue butt-twitcher of a dress to wear.”

and

“That magazine was some little cheerer upper.”

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the adaptability of Holden's idiosyncratic procedures is his ability to use a noun as an adverb: 

“She sings it very Dixieland and whorehouse, and it doesn't sound at all mushy.”

Holden shares, in general, the repetitive vocabulary which is typical.

But as there are exceptions in his figures of speech.

So are there exceptions in his vocabulary itself, in his stock of expressions (Cfr. Searle, “Meaning and expression”).

An intelligent, well-read (“I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot”), and educated person, Holden possesses, and can use when he wants to, many words which are many a cut above Basic English, including 'ostracized,' 'exhibitionist,' 'unscrupulous, 'conversationalist,' 'psychic,' and 'bourgeois.' 

Often Caulfield seems to choose his words consciously, in an effort to communicate to his addressee clearly and properly, as in such terms as 'lose my virginity,' 'relieve himself,' 'an alcoholic'.

Upon occasion, he also uses the more vulgar terms 'to give someone the time,' 'to take a leak,' or 'booze hound.' 

Much of Caulfield’s humour arises, in fact, from his habit of expressing himself on more than one level at the same time. 

Thus, we have such phrases as:

“They give guys the ax quite frequently at Pency.” 

“It has a very good academic rating, Pency.”

Both utterances show a colloquial idiom, but with an overlay of consciously selected words.

Such a conscious choice of expression seems to indicate that Salinger, in his attempt to create a realistic character in Caulfield, wants to make Caulfield aware of his idiosyncratic utterances.

Another piece of evidence that Holden is conscious of his idiosyncratic procedures and, more, realizes a difficulty in communication, is found in his habit of direct repetition – an apparent flout to Grice’s “Do not be more informative than required”:

“She likes me a lot. I mean she's quite fond of me.”

and 

"She can be very snotty sometimes. She can be quite snotty."

Sometimes the repetition is exact: 

“He was a very nervous guy -- I MEAN he *was* a very nervous guy.”

And

“I sort of missed them. I MEAN I sort of missed them.”

Sometimes, Caulfield stops specifically to interpret slang terms, as when he wants to communicate the fact that Allie liked Phoebe: 

“She killed Allie, too. I MEAN: he liked her, too.”

There is still more direct evidence that Holden is conscious of his idiosyncratic procedures.

Many of his comments to his addressee are concerned with what Grice would have as “manner of expression.” 

Caulfield is aware, for example, of the 'phony' quality of many expressions, such as 'grand,' 'prince,' 'traveling incognito,' 'little girls' room,' 'licorice stick,' or 'angels.' 

Holden is also conscious, of course, of the existence of 'taboo words.' 

Caulfield makes a point of mentioning that the girl from Seattle repeatedly asked him to 'watch your language, if you don't mind', and that his mother told Phoebe not to say 'lousy'. 

When the prostitute says 'Like fun you are,' Caulfield comments:

It was a funny thing to say. 

It sounded like a real kid. 

You would think a prostitute AND ALL would say 'Like hell you are' or 'Cut the crap' instead of 'LIKE FUN YOU ARE.’

In what Grice calls “grammar,” too, as in vocabulary – or ‘expression repertoire’, as Grice would have it, Caulfield possesses certain self-consciousness. 

Caulfield is, in fact, not only aware of the existence of 'grammatical errors,' but knows the social taboos that accompany them. 

For example, Caulfield is disturbed by a friend who is ashamed of his parents' grammar, and he reports that his teacher, Antolini, warned him about picking up “just enough education to hate people who say, ‘It's a secret between he and I’.”

Caulfield is typical enough to violate (or as Grice would prefer, flout) the grammar rules, even though he knows of their social importance. 

Caulfield’s most common rule violation is the misuse of “lie” and “lay.”

But Caulfield is also somewhat careless about:

n  relative pronouns ('about a traffic cop that falls in love')

n  the double negative ('I hardly didn't even know I was doing it')

n  the perfect tenses ('I'd woke him up')

n  extra words ('like as if all you ever did at Pency was play polo all the time')

n  pronoun number ('it's pretty disgusting to watch somebody picking their nose'), and

n  pronoun position ('I and this friend of mine, Mal Brossard'). 

More remarkable, however, than the instances of grammar rule violations is Caulfield's relative 'correctness.' 

Caulfield is always, as Grice would say, “intelligible,” and is even 'correct' in many usually difficult utterances: 

Grammatically speaking, Caulfield’s language seems to point up the fact that language is the only subject in which he was not failing. 

It is interesting to note how much more 'correct' Holden's speech is than that of Huck Finn. 

But then Holden is educated, and since the time of Huck there had been sixty-seven years of authoritarian schoolmarms working on the likes of Caulfield.

Caulfield has, in fact, been over-taught, so that he uses many 'hyper-correct' forms:

I used to play tennis with he and Mrs. Antolini quite frequently.
She would give Allie or I a push.
I and Allie used to take her to the park with us.
I think I probably woke he and his wife up.

Now that we have examined several aspects of Holden's expression-repertoire and syntax, it would be well to look at a few examples of how he puts these elements together into fuller utterances, with an effect for implicature:

The _structure_ of Caulfield’s sentences indicates that Salinger thinks of “The Catcher in the Rye” in terms of spoken speech.

Holden's faulty structure is quite common and typical in vocal expression.

E.g.: the afterthought in:

“It has a very good academic rating, Pency.”

or the repetition in:

“Where I lived at Pency, I lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new dorms.”

There are other indications that Caulfield’s speech is vocal. 

In many places, Salinger mildly imitates spoken speech. 

Sentences such as

“You could tell old Spencer'd got a big bang out of buying it.”

and

“I'd've killed him.”

are repeated throughout “The Catcher in the Rye.”

Sometimes, too, emphasized expressions, or even parts of expressions, are italicised, as in:

“Now shut up, Holden. God damn it -- I'm *warning* ya'. 

This is often done with good effect, imitating quite perfectly the rhythms of speech, as in the typical:

“I practically sat down on her lap, as a matter of fact.”

“Then she really started to cry, and the next thing I knew, I was kissing her all over-anywhere-her eyes, her nose, her forehead, her eyebrows and all, her ears-her whole face except her mouth AND ALL.”

The range of implicatures in “The Catcher in the Rye” is, as we have seen, an authentic artistic rendering of a type of informal, colloquial, register.

It is strongly typical, yet often somewhat individual; it is crude and slangy and imprecise, imitative yet imaginative, and affected toward standardization.

But authentic and interesting as this language may be, it must be remembered that it exists, in The Catcher in the Rye, as only one part of an artistic achievement. 

The language was not written for itself, but as a part of a greater whole – or Grice’s “meaning.”

Like the great Twain work with which it is often compared, a Griceian study of the implicatures in “The Catcher min the Rye” repays.

In both “Finn” and “Catcher”, 1884 and 1951 speak to us in the idiom and accent of two travelers who have earned their passports to immortality – or something!