Language and Literature

Chapter 9
Language and
Literature
What is style?
It is notoriously difficult to give a
satisfactory definition of “style”.
 Simply put, a style is the sum of
linguistic features associated with texts
defined by a set of contextual
parameters.

What is stylistics?

Stylistics is the study of style. It is a branch
of linguistics which studies the features of
situationally distinctive uses (varieties) of
language, and tries to establish principles
capable of accounting for the particular
choices made by individual and social
groups in their use of language.

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Stylistics has a broad and a narrow sense.
In its broad sense, it studies the use of
language in all kinds of contexts and how
language use varies in accordance with
varying circumstances.
In its narrow sense, it studies literary
discourse from a linguistic orientation.
The “styl” component relates stylistics to
literary criticism, and the “istics”
component to linguistics.
Procedures for stylistic analyses



(accurate) description
(reasonable) interpretation
(fair) evaluation
Some Examples
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
— “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns
a’=all; wi’=with; o’=of
My opinion of the coal trade on that river is,
that it may require talent, but it certainly
requires capital. Talent Mr. Micawber has,
capital Mr. Micawber has not.
—David Copperfield by Charles Dichens

The mayor again pressed to his blue eyes
the tips of the fingers that were disposed on
the edge of the wheeled chair with careful
carelessness, after the Cleopatra model and
Mr. Dombey bowed.
 — Dombey and Son

How affected the mayor was!

What seems to distinguish literary from nonliterary usage may be the extent to which
the phonological, grammatical and semantic
features of the language are salient or
foregrounded in some way.
What is ‘foregrounding’?

In a purely linguistic sense, the term
'foregrounding' is used to refer to new
information, in contrast to elements in the
sentence which form the background
against which the new elements are to be
understood by the listener/reader.


In the wider sense of stylistics, text
linguistics, and literary studies, it is a
translation of the Czech aktualisace
(actualization), a term common with the
Prague Structuralists.
In this sense it has become a spatial
metaphor: that of a foreground and a
background, which allows the term to be
related to issues in perception psychology,
such as figure/ground constellations.
Style as Foundgrounding Explained
by Short (1984: 21)
A. When a writer writes he is constantly
involved in making linguistic choices —
choices between one word and another, one
structure and another, and so on.
B. Examination of the choices that he makes
(as opposed to the ones that he rejects) can
help us to understand more fully the
meaning he is trying to create and the
effects he is striving to achieve.
C. He can make choices both inside and
outside the language system. Choices
outside the language system are deviant and
thus produce foregrounding.
D. Overregularity of a particular choice within
the system (e.g. parallelism) also produces
foregrounding.
(Short, 1984: 21)
Devices of Foregrounding

Generally, two categories of devices may be
distinguished, deviation and overregularity.

Deviation corresponds to the traditional idea
of poetic license: the writer of literature is
allowed — in contrast to the everyday
speaker — to deviate from rules, maxims, or
conventions. These may involve the language,
as well as literary traditions or expectations set
up by the text itself. The result is some degree
of surprise in the reader, and his/her attention
is thereby drawn to the form of the text itself
(rather than to its content). Cases of neologism,
live metaphor, or ungrammatical sentences, as
well as archaisms, paradox, and oxymoron (the
traditional tropes) are clear examples of
deviation.


Overregularity is characterized by repetitive
structures: (part of) a verbal configuration is
repeated (or contrasted), thereby being
promoted into the foreground of the
reader's perception.
Traditional handbooks of poetics and
rhetoric have surveyed and described (under
the category of figures of speech) a wide
variety of such forms of parallelism, e.g.,
rhyme, assonance, alliteration, meter, and
semantic symmetry.
Phonological deviation
Omission (1): the omission of the initial part
of a word
Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s
commotion,
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are
shed,
— “Ode to the West Wind” by Shelley


‘mid=amid
Phonological deviation
Omission (2): the omission of the medial part
of a word
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
—“The Solitary Reaper” by Wordsworth
ne’er=never
Phonological deviation
Omission (3): the omission of the final part of
a word
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
— “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns
a’=all; wi’=with; o’=of
Phonological deviation
Mispronunciation and Sub-standard Pronunciation
May God starve ye yet,” yelled an old Irish woman
who now threw open a nearby window and stuck out
her head.
“Yes, and you,” she added, catching the eye of one
of the policemen. “You bloody murthering thafe!
rack my son over the head, will, you hard-hearted,
muthering divil? Ah, ye —”
—Sister Carrie by T. Dreiser
The way of speaking reveals that the speaker is a
working-class woman.

Phonological deviation

Special pronunciation
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
—“Ode to the West Wind” by Shelley
Graphological deviation


By graphology （语相学） is meant the
encoding of meaning in visual symbols.
Graphological deviation can occur in any
sub-area of graphology, such as shape of
text, type of print, grammetrics, etc.

Shape of text
middle
couple
ten
when
game
and
go
the
will
be
tween
40—Love
aged
playing
nis
the
ends
they
home
net
still
be
them

Shape of text
A Christmas Tree
Star
If you are
A love compassionate,
You will walk with us this year,
We face a glacial distance, who are here
Huddled
At your feet
—by Burford
Shape of text
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
—By E.E. Cummings
Shape of text
呆
秀才
吃常斋
胡须满腮
经书揭不开
纸笔自己安排
明年不请我自来

Type of print: Literary writers also choose
to express their ideas by managing the type
of print which may include italics, bold print,
capitalization and decapitalization, etc.

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Me up at does
out of the floor
quietly Stare
a poisoned mouse
still who alive
is asking what
have i done that
You wouldn’t have
(E. E. Cummings)
a poisoned mouse
who still alive
does Stare quietly
out of the floor
up at Me
is asking what
have i done that
You wouldn’t have
Grammetrics refers to the ways in which
grammatical units are fitted into metrical units
such as lines and stanzas.
This is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the ice-box
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Syntactic deviation

Syntactic deviation refers to the
departures from normal grammar.
Syntactic deviation
Behold her, single in the field,
You solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! For the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
— “The solitary reaper” by Wordsworth
Syntactic deviation
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
— “Snowflakes” by Longfellow
Syntactic deviation
Heavy is my heart,
Dark are thine eyes.
Thou and I must part
Ere the sun rise.
— “Slowly” by Mary Coleridge
O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! The
courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue,
sword.
— Hamlet by Shakespeare
This is Ophelia’s lament over Hamlet’s supposed madness.
Here, the sense of derangement is highlighted by the fact that
the order of the genitive nouns does not correspond
semantically to the things possessed. More importantly, the
phrases are structurally deviant n that each possessor is
separated from its possessed, so that both logic and everyday
expectations of speech seem to be mixed up in the disaster.
Lexical deviation

In stylistics lexical deviation refers to a new word
or expression or a new meaning for an old word
used on only particular occasion. Sometimes a
writer intends to reach certain kind of rhetorical
effect, so he will invent some new words based on
the rules of word-formation. But these new words
are seldom or hardly used on other occasions. That
means in literature, some invented new words are
only used by the inventor himself. Surely these
nonce-formations (words invented for special
purpose) bring about certain stylistic effect and
greatly improve the power of newness and
expression of the language.
Lexical deviation
There was a balconyful of gentlemen.
— Chesterton
We left the town refreshed and rehatted.
— Fotherhill
They were else-minded then, altogether, the
men.
— Hopkins
Lexical deviation
“Don’t be such a harsh parent, father!”
“Don’t father me!”
— H. G. Wells
I was explaining the Golden Bull to his Royal
Highness, “I’ll Golden Bull you, you
rascal!”roared the Majesty of Prussia.
— Macaulay
春风又绿江南岸
Deep-structure deviation

The deviations discussed so far are
surface-structure deviations, because
they are superficial.
 Deep-structure
deviations refer to
semantic deviations, which may be defined
as “linguistic effects involving something
odd in the cognitive meaning of a certain
linguistic unit, e.g., a word or phrase”.
Contradiction

Contradiction is a type of semantic
deviation which conveys self-conflicting
information. It includes oxymoron and
paradox.
Contradiction


Oxymoron: the yoking together of two
expressions which are incomparable, so that
in combination they have no conceivable
literal reference to reality
His honour rooted in dishonour stood
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.
他那来源于不名誉的名誉依然如故，
而那并不诚实的诚实保持虚伪的忠诚。
 —Alfred Tennyson
Contradiction

Paradox: a statement which is absurd
because it is self-evidently false.
Nurse: His name is Romeo, and a Montague.
The only son of your great enemy.
Juliet: My only love sprung from my only hate.
Too early seen unknown and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love that it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.
—Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
Transference

In literature, transference of meaning is
the process whereby literary absurdity leads
the mind to comprehension on a figurative
plane. Transference in literature refers to
such traditional figures of speech as simile,
synecdoche, metonymy, and metaphor.
Transference
Simile
O, my luve is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;
O, my luve is like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
—Robert Burns

Transference

Synecdoche: a type of transference of
meaning which involves the substitution of
a part for a whole.
Return to her?
No, rather I abjure all roofs and choose…
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl.
 — The Taming of the Shrew by
Shakespeare
Transference

Metonymy
The glories of our blood and state,
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings;
Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked Scythe and Spade.
—“The glories of our blood” by Shirley
Transference
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Metaphor
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances.
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages …
 — Shakespeare
Deception

Deception is another type of semantic
deviation that is frequently found in literary
texts. By deception is not meant the use of
language that is intended to deceive people.
It simply refers to the deliberate use of
overstatement, understatement and
irony, each of which misrepresents the
truth in some way.
Deception



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Overstatement: hyperbole
For she was beautiful — her beauty made
The bright world dim, and everything beside
Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade.
 — Shelley
Deception

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Understatement: opposite of overstatement
Lady Macbeth: Thou wouldst be great
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it.

— Macbeth by Shakespeare
…there was a loud cry from a number of
voices,and the horses reared and plunged. But
for the latter inconvenience, the carriage
probably would not have stopped; carriages were
often known to drive on, and leave their wounded
behind, and why not?...
Deception



Irony achieves emphasis by misrepresenting
the truth.
It takes the form of saying the opposite of
what is meant.
The intended meaning of the words is the
opposite of their original / usual sense.
譬如说你住在二楼或三楼上吧。楼或小窗下，是人
来人往的街道或汽车如流的马路，那么早、中、晚
你就会被迫“享受”众声汇和而成的噪音流了。
香港舒巷城《噪音篇》
孙占元……肥头大耳的，是猪肉铺的标准美男子。
老舍《也是三角》
哼，多有本事！你在这儿哭吧，多伟大的男子汉！
贾平凹《小月前车》
Ambiguity


Ambiguity refers to the case of “more than one
cognitive meaning for the same piece of language”.
In non-literary discourse, ambiguity is usually
taken to be the opposite of clarity and is therefore
normally considered as a fault. In literature,
however, it is regarded as a virtue, roughly
corresponding to “richness” or “wit”, for in
literature, we are ready to read extra meanings.
Ambiguity
‘How is bread made?’
‘I know that!’ Alice cried eagerly. ‘You take some
flour —’
‘When do you pick the flower?’ the White Queen
asked, ‘In a garden, or in the hedges?’
‘Well, it isn’t picked at all,’ Alice explained, ‘it’s
ground—’
‘How many acres of ground?’ said the White Queen.
— Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Ambiguity
Ben Battle was a warrior bold,
And used to war’s alarms;
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms.
— Thomas Hood
Pun


Pun: intentional ambiguity
The use of a word in such a way as to
suggest two or more meanings or different
association, or the use of two or more words
of the same or nearly the same sound with
different meanings, so as to produce a
humorous effect.
Pun

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
外甥打灯笼——照舅（照旧）
电线杆上插鸡毛——好大的掸子（好大的
胆子）
烂棉花——没法弹（没法谈）
水兵的汗衫——满是道道（办法很多）
一桶天下——统一企业桶装方便面广告
人类失去联想，世界将会怎样？——联想
电脑广告
Phonological Overregularity

Phonological overregularity is characteristic
of literature, especially poetry. It consists of
two aspects: phonemic
patterning
and rhythmic patterning.
Phonemic patterning


Alliteration: the repetition of the initial
consonant cluster in stressed syllables.
CVC / CVC
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat — nay, drink you blood?
— “Song to the men of England” by Shelley
“这些不干活、坐享其成的雄蜂(drones)将榨
干(drain)你们的汗，喝(drink)你们的血。”

Phonemic patterning

Rhyme: repetition of sound between words or

verse lines extending back from the end to the last
fully accented vowel and not further.
CVC / CVC
In theory, a rhyme word may have one, two, three
or more syllables, though in practice rhymes of
more than two syllables are rare in serious
literature.
One-syllable rhymes: masculine rhymes

Two-syllable rhymes: feminine rhymes


Phonemic patterning
The fair breeze blew,
The white foam flew.
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea.
和风吹荡，水花飞溅，
船儿破浪前进，
我们是第一群人，
驶入那沉寂的海洋领域。
Phonemic patterning




Candy
Is dandy,
But liquor
Is quicker.

— by Ogden Nash
Phonemic patterning

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End rhyme: occurring at the end of verse lines
Internal rhyme: occurring within a verse line
Half-rhyme: formed by repeating either the vowel or the
finial consonant cluster
CVC/CVC (assonance); CVC/CVC (consonance)
Para-rhyme: repeating the initial consonant cluster and
the final consonant cluster
CVC/ CVC
Reverse rhyme: repeating the vowel and the initial
consonant cluster
CVC / CVC
Phonemic patterning

End rhyme
The fair breeze blew,
The white foam flew.
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea.
Phonemic patterning


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Internal rhyme
Come with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
Phonemic patterning

Half-rhyme

Come with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
consonance
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Think from how many trees
Dead leaves are brought
To earth on seed or wing …
 — “The compost heap” by Vernon Watkins
assonance
Phonemic patterning

Para-rhyme

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since

scooped

Through granites which titanic wars had
groined

Yet also there encumbered sleepers
groaned
Phonemic patterning

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
Reverse rhyme
Come with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
Phonemic patterning
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Onomatopoeia:
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
 — “The brook” by Tennyson
Rhythmic patterning

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English is a stress-timed language. Its rhythm is
based on the contrast of the stressed and
unstressed syllables.
In English, every word except monosyllabic ones
has one syllable that carries the stress.
To learn the distribution of stress in utterances
consisting of more than one word, it is important
to know what kinds of words are stressed.
in English, there are two major classes of words:
open-class items and close-system items. It is
usually words belonging to the open-class that
bear stress.
Rhythmic patterning
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Foot: the unit of stressed and unstressed
syllables which is repeated to form a
metrical pattern
Iamb: 2 syllables, unstressed + stressed
Trochee: 2 syllables, stressed + unstressed
Anapest: 3 syllables, 2 unstressed + stressed
Dactyl: 3 syllables, stressed + 2 unstressed
Spondee: 2 stressed syllables
Pyrrhic: 2 unstressed syllables
Rhythmic patterning
Iamb: 2 syllables, unstressed + stressed
 In every cry of every man
 In every infant’s cry of fear
 — “London” by W. Blake
 Trochee: 2 syllables, stressed + unstressed
 Never seek to tell thy love
 Love that never told can be
 — “Never seek to tell thy love” by W. Blake

Rhythmic patterning
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Anapest: 3 syllables, 2 unstressed + stressed
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on
the fold.
—Byron’s “The destruction of Sennacherib”
Dactyl: 3 syllables, stressed + 2 unstressed
Take her up tenderly
Lift her with care
 — “The bridge sighs”by Thomas Hood
Rhythmic patterning

Spondee: 2 stressed syllables

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright
 — “Virtue” by G. Herbert
Pyrrhic: 2 unstressed syllables
 Very rare in poetry

Rhythmic patterning

Iambic feet are firm and flat
And come down heavily like THAT.
Trochees dancing very lightly
Sparkle, froth and bubble brightly.
Dactylic daintiness lilting so prettily
Moves about fluttering rather than wittily.

While for speed and for haste such a rhythm is the best

As we find in the race of the quick anapaests.

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Rhythmic patterning

Poetry can exploit the way we use stress to
create rhythms. When stress is organized to
form regular rhythms, the term used for it is
metre.
Rhythmic patterning

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Metrical patterning
Monometre: 1 foot
Dimetre: 2 feet
Trimetre: 3 feet
Tetrametre: 4 feet
Pentametre: 5 feet
Hexametre: 6 feet
Heptametre: 7 feet
Octametre: 8 feet
Rhythmic patterning

Monometre: 1 foot
Thus I
 Pass by
 And die
 As one
 Unknown
 And gone.
 — “Upon his departure hence” by Robert Herrick

Rhythmic patterning

Dimetre: 2 feet
One more unfortunate
 Weary of breath
 Rashly importunate,
 Gone to her death!
 — “The bridge of signs” by Thomas Hood

Rhythmic patterning

Trimetre: 3 feet

Mortal man and woman
Go up on your travel!
 — “A drama of exile” by E. B. Brownig

Rhythmic patterning

Tetrametre: 4 feet

Who fought for freedom, more than life
Who gave up all, to die in strife?


— “Lines on shell, killed at Newport” by John Watkins
Rhythmic patterning

Pentametre: 5 feet

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
 — “Sonnet XIV” by Shakespeare

Rhythmic patterning

Hexametre: 6 feet

Still let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear
Year after year in gloom, and desolate despair.
 — “The prisoner” by Emily Bronte


Heptametre: 7 feet
Octametre: 8 feet

Examples are rare.

Rhythmic patterning

It would be wrong to assume that these
basic patterns are all we need to know about
the rhythm. In fact, if we try to work out the
rhythm by rigidly applying a basic metrical
pattern, we shall soon find ourselves in
difficulties.
Syntactic overregularity

Syntactic overregularity in literature is
revealed mainly in the repetition of certain
linguistic units of a text, in parallelism and
in antithesis.

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Repetition
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold, molten,
graven, hammer’d and roll’d,
Heavy to get and light to hold
 — By Thomas Hood
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Repetition
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.



— “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening” by R. Frost
Not many lives, but only one have we;
One, only one.
Parallelism
 If you prickle us, do we not bleed?
 If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
 If you poison us, do we not die?
 And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
 — The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare
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Parallelism
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.

— “Song to the men of England” by P. B. Shelley
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Antithesis
To err is human, to forgive, devine.
人孰无过，宽恕为上。
Where there’s marriage without love, there
will be love without marriage.
哪里有无爱情的婚姻，哪里就有无婚姻的
爱情。
Ask not whao your country can do for you —
ask what you can do for you country.
把结构相同或相似、意义相关、语气一致的几个词
组或句子并列使用，称为排比。排比句便于表达强
烈的感情，突出所强调的内容，增强语言的气势。
同时，由于句式整齐，节奏分明，也可以增强语言
的韵律美。排比一般由三项或三项以上语句构成，
排比次序一般由轻到重，由低潮到高潮。
把两个或把字数相近、结构相同、意义相关的两个
词组或并列从句对称的排列在一起，用以表示两者
的对比或对照关系，这种特殊的并列称为对偶。
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排比同对偶一样，要求意义相关，形式一
致，合乎逻辑。
对偶只限于两项，排比则至少三项。
对偶结构相同，排比较为灵活。
对偶强调对比，排比强调递进。
对偶不重复重点词，排比却往往借助重点
词的重复以加强语势。
对偶一般以短句的形势出现，而排比则多
以长句形式出现。
Graphological overregularity
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Couplets: 2 lines of verse, usually connected
by a rhyme
Quatrains: Stanzas of four lines
Blank verse: lines in iambic pentametre
which do not rhyme
Sonnet
Free verse
Limericks etc.
The poetic functions
of sound and metre (P 221)
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Aesthetic pleasure
Conforming to a
conventional form
Expressing/innovating
with a form
Demonstrating skill,
intellectual pleasure
For emphasis or contrast
Onomatopoeia
The analysis of poetry
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Information about the poem:
poet, period, genre, topic, etc.
Structure: layout, number of
lines, length of lines, meter,
rhyme, sound effects, etc. plus
general comment on the poem
The language of fiction
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From realism to
modernism
It had been an easy birth, but then for Abel and
Zaphia Rosnovski nothing had ever been easy,
and in their own ways they had both become
philosophical about that. Abel had wanted a son,
an heir who would one day be chairman of the
Baron Group. By the time the boy was ready to
take over, Abel was confident that his own name
would stand alongside those of Ritz and Statler
and by then the Baron would be the largest hotel
group in the world.
Abel had paced up and down the colourless
corridor of St. Luke’s Hospital waiting for the
first cry, his slight limp becoming more
pronounced as each hour passed. Occasionally
he twisted the silver band that encircled his wrist
and stared at the name so neatly engraved on it.
He turned and retraced his steps once again, to
see Doctor Dodek heading towards him.
Jeffrey Archer: The Prodigal Daughter
There is the Hart of the Wud in the Eusa Story
that wer a stage every 1 knows that. There is the
hart of the wood meaning the veryes deap of it
thats a nother thing. There is the hart of the
wood where they bern the chard coal thats a
nother thing agen innit. Thats a nother thing.
Berning the chard coal in the hart of the wood.
That’s what they call the stack of wood you see.
The stack of wood in the shape they do it for
chard coal berning. Why do they call it the hart
tho? That’s what this here story tels of.
Russell Hoban: Ridley Walker
Fictional prose and point of view
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Three levels of discourse in fictional prose:
Addresser 1------ Message ------ Addressee 1
(Novelist)
(Reader)
Addresser 2 ------Message ------ Addressee 2
(Narrator)
(Narratee)
Addresser 3------ Message ------ Addressee 3
(Character A)
(Character B)
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The figure only accounts for the novel “in
general” in the sense that all three levels,
and all three pairs of participants are
needed to explain how the novel works.
Any particular novel may neutralize some of
the distinctions, multiple others, or do both
at the same time. The six participants in the
basic discourse structure for the novel
means that there are more viewpoints to be
taken into account in the novel than in other
genres.
It is no wonder that the novel has become
the genre where writers have explored
viewpoints extensively.
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I-narrators: The person telling the story
may be a character of the novel, relating the
story after the event. First-person or Iperson narrators are often “limited”
because they may withhold some
information, tell the untruth, or don’t know
all the facts.
 Third-person narrators:The narrator is
not a character in the novel. This type of
third-person narrator is arguably the
dominant narrator type.
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Schema-oriented language: Viewpoint is
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schema-oriented. Different participants in
the same situation may have different
schemas, related to their different
viewpoints.
Besides indicating viewpoints by choosing
what to describe, novelists can also indicate
it by how it is described, particularly
through expressions which are evaluative in
nature. (See Ex. 9-25 on P224)
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Given vs new information: At the
beginning of a story, we should be able to
predict that narrative reference to everything
in the fiction except items generally
assumed by everyone in our culture must be
new, and hence should display indefinite
reference. (See ex 9-26 on P224)
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Deixis: egocentricity and deictic projection
Speech presentation
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Direct speech (DS)
Free indirect speech (FIS)
Indirect speech (IS)
Narrator’s representation of speech acts
(NRSA)
Narrator’s representation of speech (NRS)
See Ex 9-28 on P226
More information on free indirect speech
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传统语法一般将引语分为两类，即直接引语和间接引语。
Quirk等人在A Grammar of Contemporary
English一书里认为，除了上述两种引语外，还有一种介
于直接引语和间接引语之间的引语，即“自由间接引语
(free indirect speech)”。
什么是自由间接引语呢?自由间接引语是一种以复杂的方
式转述别人语言——人物语言或思想的，它既具有直接引
语和间接引语的某些特点，又具有自身的独特性。它主要
出现在文学作品中，多用来描述人物的内心活动，让人物
的精神世界，特别是埋藏在内心的细微活动如实地展现出
来。
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Did I want his horse? Oh, what a horse he had, the
finest in Red China! He had very good photos and
they were all mine. His diary? He would send
instructions to his wife, who was still in the Red
areas, to give all this to me and more.
我要他的马吗?哦，多么好的马啊!红色中国最好
的马!他保存了一些很好的照片，那些都是我的。
还有他的日记。他指示还在红色解放区的妻子，
要她把所有这些都交给我。
这一段文字都是自由间接引语。是作者埃德加·斯
诺在Red Star Over China(《西行漫记》)一书中替
红军指挥官邓发的内心独白。
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A. 不同于一般直接引语和间接引语，即在
其前后既没用引号，也没有引述分句和连
接词。再例如： So that was their plan, was
it? He well knew their tricks, and would
show them a thing or two before he was
finished. Thank goodness he had been
alerted, and that there were still a few honest
people in the world! 因而那就是他们的计划
，是吗?他已识破了他们的阴谋，在他临终
前他会教训他们的。谢天谢地，他真的已
经被警觉到了，而且真的还有些诚实的人
们呢! 这一段自由间接引语既没用一般直接
引语的引号，也没用一般引进间接引语的
he said或he thought一类的引述分句。
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B. 具有一般间接引语的特点，即除了人称代词要
作适当的改变外，动词的时态也必须根据时态呼
应的原则作相应的变化。如果将本节前头的那一
段自由间接引语改成间接引语，就不难看出它们
之间的相同之处。试比较： He asked me whether
I wanted his horse. He remarked with admiration
that he had the finest horse in Red China. He said
that he had very good photos and they were all
mine. He also asked me whether I wanted his
diary. He said that he would send instructions to
his wife, who was still in the Red areas, to give all
this to me and more. 改变后的这段文字中的斜体
部分与本节开头的那一段自由间引语在人称和时
态上没有什么区别。不同的是改变后的文字多了
引述分句和连接词而已。
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C. 具有直接引语的特点，即保留了可能存在的直
接引语的句子结构 (如直接疑问句、呼唤语、附
加疑问句等) 。如果把本节开头的那段自由间接
引语改成一般直接引语，就可以看出它们的异同
点。试比较： He said to me, “Do you want my
horse? Oh, what a horse I have, the finest in Red
China! I have very good photos and they are all
yours. My diary? I shall send instructions to my
wife, who is still in the Red areas, to give all this to
you and more.”
总之，自由间接引语在感情与表现力上优于间接
引语，也优于直接引语，它与作者的话融合在一
起，自然，流畅。它不但可以转述人的语言，而
且可以转述。
Thought presentation
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The categories to represent characters’ thoughts
are exactly the same as those to represent a speech.
Narrator’s representation of thought (NRT)
Narrator’s representation of thought acts (NRTA)
Indirect thought (IT)
Free indirect thought (FIT)
Direct thought (DT)
Stream of consciousness (refer to your teacher of
literature)
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He spent the day thinking. (NRT)
She considered his unpunctuality. (NRTA)
She thought that he would be late (IT)
He was bound to be late! (FIT)
“He will be late,” she thought. (DT)
Prose style
 Authorial style: the way of
writing recognizably belonging to a
particular writer.
 Text style: Looking at how
linguistic choices help to construct
meaning.
Analyzing the language of fiction
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Lexis/vocabulary
Grammatical organization
Textual organization
Figures of speech
Style variation
Discoursal patterning
Viewpoint manipulation
The language of
drama
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Drama as poetry
Drama as fiction
Drama as conversation
Analyzing dramatic language
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Turn quantity and length
Exchange sequence
Production errors
The cooperative principle
Status marked through language
Register
Speech and silence
Analyzing dramatic texts
Paraphrasing
 Commentating
 Using theories
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