Literature as verbal exchange: application of the model of grice's conversational implicatures to the analysis of a narrative text

Abstract

The present work aims to apply the model of Grice's conversational implicatures to the analysis of the story “Footprints,” the Argentine writer Javier Chiabrando, as the literature is also a linguistic manifestation. In this case, the language is used not only to produce a statement, but also to run at the same time, certain social action: the author (sender) wants to be understood to modify knowledge, desires and eventually, the behavior of reader (receiver). That is, literature is not only aesthetic action (it has expressive function) but also social action. For this discourse to fulfill its purpose, both the speaker and listener must share the same linguistic code, and must meet a set of rules that guide communication and make possible what the listener can understand how “the press” is as the speaker wants to communicate. These rules are called the COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE.