Chapter 6Pragmaticlevel stylistic analysis.docx

Chapter 6Pragmaticlevel stylistic analysis.docx

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Chapter6Pragmaticlevelstylisticanalysis

Chapter6Pragmatic-levelStylisticAnalysis—Pragmastylistics

Revisionofthelastchapter

1.Introduction:

literallanguageandfigurativelanguage

2.Contradiction

3.Transference

4.Deception

5.Ambiguity

6.Amodelforanalyzingsemantic-levelstylisticfeatures

7.Suggestedareasforfurtherstudy

Contentsofthischapter

1.Introduction

2.Pragmastylistics:

itsdefinition,disciplinarycharacteristicsandresearchmethodology

3.Speechacttheoryandliterarylanguage

4.Cooperativeprincipleandliterarylanguage

5.Turn-takingandliterarylanguage

6.Pragmaticsandthoughtinliterarylanguage

7.Suggestedareasforfurtherstudy

8.Summary

1.Introduction

Thischapterdealswithpragmastylisticsorliterarypragmatics,whichstraddlesbetweenthetwosubjectsofpragmaticsandstylistics.

2.Pragmastylistics:

itsdefinition,characteristicsandresearchmethodology

ThediscussionofthissectionisbasedonFengZongxin’s（2002:

1-40）.

2.1Concernsofpragmatics

Differentscholarsgivedifferentdefinitionsonwhatpragmaticsis.Somepeopleseeitasatheoryoflanguageinuse,othersseeitasatheoryofcommunication,andstillothersseeitasastudyofhowpeoplemeanorhowpeopledowithlanguage.Variousformulaehavebeenproposedtoexplicatethenatureofthisdiscipline.Forexample,

Pragmatics=Meaning–Semantics

Pragmatics=Semantics+Context（Simpson,1993:

120）

Pragmatics=Meaning–TruthConditionsofUtterances（Gazdar,1979）

Therepresentativepioneeringattemptsofpragmaticstaketheformofthefollowingtheories:

speechacttheories（Austin,1962;Searle,1969）,indirectspeechacttheory（Searle,1975）,CooperativePrinciple（Grice,1975）,PolitenessPrinciple（Leech,1983）,RelevanceTheory（Sperber&Wilson,1986）,andNeo-GricianPrinciples（Levinson,1987）.

2.2Tasksofstylistics

AccordingtoLang（1987）andToolan（1990）,therearethreetasksforstylisticstudies:

1）servingthepurposeofteachingandlearningforeignlanguages;2）providingabasefortheapplicationoflinguistictheories,tobetestedandverified,furtherimprovedandperfected;and3）offeringamethodologyforliterarystudies.AndHuZhuanglin（1996）holdsthattheessentialtaskofstylisticsistorevealthenatureofstyle,tofindeffectivemethodsforstylisticanalysis,therepresentationalformsandcommunicativeeffectsofvariousfeaturesofstyle（poetry,fiction,drama,prose,technicalwritingandjournalisticwriting,etc.）,andtoanalyzespecifictexts.

2.3Troublewithstylistics

Stylisticsisanindependentdisciplineinthesenseofbeingtheoreticallyfoundedandpracticallyoperated;itisnotanindependentdisciplineinthesenseofbeinginterdisciplinaryandmulti-disciplinary.However,thestatusofstylisticsasadisciplineisembarrassinglycontroversial,partlyduetothepolysemyofthetermandpartlyduetoitsamphibiousnatureofbeingbasedonlinguisticsandhavingliteratureasitsobjectofstudy.Thus,stylisticscanbesaidtobeofanembarrassingstatusofstraddlingbetweenthetwodisciplinesoflinguisticsandliteratureontheonehandandisbothdependentandindependentasadisciplineontheotherhand.

2.4Pragmastylisticsasaninterdisciplinaryapproach

1）Literarytextsmistakenlytakentobedivorcedfromcontext

Muchofthestylisticandlinguisticanalysishasbeenformal;itonlyconcentratesonobservablefeaturesoflanguageandeffectsrealizedinthetext.Atraditionofformalistlinguisticstreatslanguageasasystem.Thecharacteristicsofthiskindofinvestigationarethatitisformalandsyntactic,ratherthanpragmatic.Languageisthusnottreatedascommunicativeordynamicdiscoursebutasabstractorstatictext.Whenthisconceptionoflanguageismappedontoliterarystudieswiththesamekindofformalism,itiseasytoviewliterarytextsasdivorcedfromanycontextofuse.

2）Validityofthepragmaticapproachtoliterarydiscourse

InlightofHuZhuanglin（1980）,pragmaticscanserveasapowerfultoolinthelinguisticanalysisofliterature.AndvanDijk’s（1976,1985）viewsonsystematicstudiesofliteraturewithpragmaticprinciplescanwelljustifythevalidityofthisapproach.

3）Speechactsinliterature

Althoughpragmatictheoriesandprinciples（suchasspeechacts,conversationalimplicature,andpolitenessprinciple）areoriginallybasedonoralcommunication,studieshavefoundthatwrittencommunicationalsoinvolvestheserulesandprinciples.Inusinglanguage,peopledonotmerelytalkorwritebuttheyalsoperformactions;languageisemployedinsituationsincludingbothalinguisticandnon-linguisticcontext;partoftheglobalcontextconsistsoftheknowledge,beliefsandassumptionsofthepeopleinvolved.Inliteraryworks,charactersareperformingthekindofspeechactsthatareappropriatetothespecificsituationswithallthefictionalfelicityconditionsjustaspeopledoineverydayconversation.Onanotherlevel,theauthor,inhis/herwriting,knowstoowellhis/herreaders’possiblereactiontohis/herspeechstrategieswhichcanbetakenasthesameasthoseemployedwhenaddressinghis/heraudience.

4）Definingpragmastylisticsorliterarypragmatics

Whenpragmaticscombineswithliterarystudiesandstylistics,newinterdisciplinaryfieldshavecomeintoexistence,amongwhicharepragmaticstylistics（pragmastylistics）orliterarypragmatics—theformerbeingasub-branchofstylisticswhilethelatterasub-branchofpragmatics.

AccordingtoHickey（1989:

8-10）,pragmastylisticsisstylisticswithapragmaticcomponentandcanbedescribedasastudyoflanguage-in-usewhichpaysspecialattentiontothechoicesmadefromamongthevariousgrammaticallycorrectwaysofexpressingoneandthesamething,whichissemanticallyortruth-conditionallyequivalent.Italsodescribeshowchoicesrelatetotheoverallsituationwherelanguageisused,includingwhattheinterlocutorsalreadyknowordonotknow,andwhatthespeakerorwriterwhishestoachievethroughhislanguage-use.Itwillalwaysattempttoshowthatthedifferentpossiblewaysofsayingthe“same”thing（style）dependonthefactorswhichcomposethesituation（pragmaticfactors）.Thedomainofthisdisciplineincludesthestudyofalltheconditions,linguisticandextralinguistic,whichallowtherulesandpotentialofalanguagetocombinewiththeconcretefactorsofasituationinordertoproduceatextintendedtobringaboutcertaininternalchangesinthereceiver.Suchstudiesmayfocusonanyexpanseoflanguage-in-use,rangingfromthephraseorclausetoacompletediscourse,conversationortext.

Literarypragmaticsisadisciplineapplyingpragmaticstothestudyofliterarydiscourseintermsofcommunication（vanDijk,1976;Pratt,1977;TraugottandPratt,1980;Sell,1985,1991,&1994）.AccordingtoSell（1991:

xiv）,literarypragmaticsseesthewritingandreadingofliterarytextsasinteractivecommunicativeprocesses.Likeallsuchprocesses,literarywritingandreadingareinextricablylinkedwiththeparticularsocioculturalcontextswheretheytakeplace.（SeealsoMey,2001,236-261;TuJing,2005）

Thedistinctionbetweenliteratureastextandliteratureasdiscourse（Widdowson,1975）highlightsthenatureofliterarycommunicationandprovidesawaytoanalyzingthenatureofliteratureasbeingordinaryastextandspecialasdiscourse.Literatureneednotbedeviantintermsoftextualfeatures,butitmustbedeviantdiscoursallyandcommunicatively.

5）Representativepragmastylisticiansorliterarypragmaticistsandtheirrelevantviews

TheearliestscholarswhoappliedpragmaticmethodstothestudyofliterarytextsarevanDijk（1976）,Ohmann（1971,1973）andPratt（1977）.Theterm“literarypragmatics”firstappearedinOhmann（1971）,elaboratedinPratt（1977）andTraugottandPratt（1980:

255-262）,andbecameadisciplineonlyinthe1980sthroughtheeffortsofEnkvist（1985）andSell（1985）.

AccordingtoWales（1989:

281）,“literarypragmaticslooksatthelinguisticfeaturesoftextswhicharisefromtherealinterpersonalrelationshipsbetweenauthor,textandreaderinrealsocio-culturalcontext….”（FengZongxin:

36-37）

AccordingtoWatts（1991:

27）,“literarypragmaticsmustconcernitselfwithtextualmeaningsbeyondthelinguisticstructureoftheliterarytextitself,eitherintheinward-lookingway…（i.e.thestudyofdeixis…,implicature,presupposition,speechacts,andaspectsofdiscoursestructure）orbylookingoutwardstowardsaspectsofthesocioculturalaffiliationofauthors/readersandthecomplexityofliterarycommunicationbeyondsimplisticassumptionsofmessagetransferencebymeansofcodethroughachannelfromthesendertothereceiver.

Literarypragmaticslooksatliterarytextsintheiruseascommunication.Consequently,literarypragmaticsiscommittedtocontextualization,becausealluseoflanguageisinsomekindofsituationalcontext.Thissuggestsadefinition:

literarypragmaticslooksatliterarydiscourseincontext.

Thepromiseofliterarypragmaticsandpragmaticstylisticsliesinitsinclusionofa“top-down”perspective.Itseesthewritingandreadingofliterarytextsasinteractivecommunicativeprocesses.Oneoftheconceptsisthespeechact（Austin,1962;Searle,1969;andothers）.AnotheristheconceptofpolitenessstudiedbyBrownandLevinson（1978,1987）,Levinson（1983）,Leech（1983）andothers,andappliedtothestudyofvariouskindsofliterarydecorumbySell（1985）.

Viewsofliteratureas（social）discourseandascommunicationwithemphasisonsituationalcontextseemtobeamoveintherightdirection.

6）Researchmethodology

Watts（1991:

27）holdsthatliterarypragmaticsdealswitht