摘 要

马克·吐温是十九世纪后期美国最杰出的批判现实主义作家之一，他最具代表性的作品《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》以一个十三岁小男孩哈克为主人公，从他的自叙中描绘了他在流浪过程中的所有经历。该小说具有鲜明的语言特色，即运用美式方言来铺叙情节，展开对话。本文将从小说的社会背景、文化启蒙、作者个人因素这三个方面，分析马克·吐温美式方言的形成原因。同时，本文将结合语言学，通过举例分析的方法对小说中的美式方言进行研究，从而总结出方言的语言特点，包括夸张的遣词、口语化风格、有意的重复、无限制的语法和松散的句子结构，以及语意特色，如土话语言、乡土色彩和幽默与讽刺。本文旨在探索方言这种语言形式在文学中的使用，并使之丰富文学作品的表现形式。

关键词：《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》；美式方言；文学作品；人物

Abstract

Mark Twain is one of the most outstanding American critical realistic writers in the late 19th century. His most representative work Adventure of Huckleberry Finn set Huck, a thirteen-year-old boy as one of the main character. From Huck’s self-narration, he depicts all that happened in his adventure experience. The novel has a distinctive language feature, which is the use of American dialect to elaborate plot and unfold dialogue. The reasons for the formation of Mark Twain’s American dialect will be analyzed in the paper from the perspectives of social background, cultural enlightenment, and individual factors. At the same time, this paper will research the American dialect in this novel by using the case-study method combined with the knowledge of linguistics, the purpose of which is the linguistic features of dialect, including exaggerated phrasing, colloquial style, intentional repetition, unrestraint in grammar and loose sentence structure, as well as the analysis of semantic features such as vernacular language, local color and humor and satire. The purpose of this paper is to explore the usage of dialect in the literature, and make it enrich the form of literary works.

Key words: Adventure of Huckleberry Finn; American dialect; literary work; character

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Mark Twain and his major works 1

1.2 Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 2

1.3 American vernacular dialect 3

2 Factors leading to the formation of Mark Twain’s American dialect 4

2.1 Social background 4

2.2 Cultural enlightenment 5

2.3 Individual factors 6

3 Analysis of American dialect in Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 8

3.1 Linguistic features of dialect in Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 8

3.1.1 Exaggerated phrasing 8

3.1.2 Colloquial style 9

3.1.3 Intentional repetition 11

3.1.4 Unrestraint in grammar 11

3.1.5 Loose sentence structure 12

3.2 Semantic features of dialect in Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 13

3.2.1 Vernacular language 13

3.2.2 Local color 15

3.2.3 Humor and satire 15

4 Conclusion 17

References 18

Acknowledgements 19

Study on American Dialect in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1 Introduction

1.1 Mark Twain and his major works

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known better for his pseudonym, Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835 in a small village of Florida, Missouri. And when he was at four, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, which later became the setting of his many works. As one of the most outstanding realistic writers, he won the respect of intelligent people and affection of children. Furthermore, owing to his splendid contribution to the development of American literature, he established a crucial status in the American literary arena, and was regarded as the father of modern American novels.

Mark Twain began his writing in the period of American Civil War, and shot to fame in 1865 by the publication of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Later, he wrote a few pieces of travelogues about his journey, such as Roughing It. At his mid-time of his literary creation, he combined abundant humor, sarcastic narration, and social criticism in his later works, like The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today(1873), co-operated with his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner. After that, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer depicted on Mark Twain’s youth was published in 1876. Then years later, Mark Twain finished the offshoot of the novel named Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which was regarded as the first Great American Novel.

In the last period, Twain’s works expressed a kind of despairing pessimism, for example, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Sketches (1900), To the Person Sitting in Darkness(1901), and The Mysterious Stranger(1916). Mark Twain’s last work was his autobiography, which was regarded as a classic of American literature, and was bracketed together with Henry Adams’ and Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography.

1.2 Adventure of Huckleberry Finn

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first came into publication in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and then in the United States in February 1885, which was conceived for up to eight years and published at Mark Twain’s peak time. It was a direct sequel to his previous novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. This novel was told in the first person by Huckleberry Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer. It mainly represented about the adventure experience of two boys, Huckleberry Finn, a kind but naughty white boy and Jim, a virtuous and diligent black slave. The two boys shared the same bad condition of living environment, met by chance on their escaping way, and built their close friendship during their company time.

It was evident that the publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has aroused widespread debate varying from person to person. On one hand, some readers objected to the strong and somewhat racist language, regarding it as an attack on racist. What's worse, it was banned by many public libraries for the criticism of a systematic use of bad grammar and an employment of inelegant expressions. On the other hand, a large number of reputed writers regarded it as a milestone of American literature for its marvelous thoughts of both race and identity, and innovative attempts in both character and language.

Frankly speaking, it was Mark Twain that turned the ordinary citizens even the vulgar ones into the main characters in literary works; that combined folk culture with formal literature; and that promoted wildly use of dialect even slang and jargon in this novel. It goes without saying that Mark Twain’s all efforts on shaking off the rules of inflexible wording are worth praising. Therefore, the famous poet T.S. Eliot (1935) had ever spoken highly of this novel, especially of the consistency and perfect adaptation of its writing, "This is a style which at the period, whether in America or in England, was , a new discovery in the English language." Besides, Ernest Hemingway(1934) also said, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." In fact, such a high valuation is not exaggerated; the mixed usage of several kinds of American dialect with Black English is not only an adventurous attempt but also an influential innovation, which is worth studying and developing. Up till now, the studies on this novel about the humor style, language characteristics, local culture or the contrast technique have been conducted every year.

1.3 American Vernacular Dialect

Vernacular dialect is used to refer to local or native languages of common communication, which contrasts with the official language or languages of a country. (Wolfram amp; Schilling, 1998:16) As various social and regional factors are associated with vernacular dialect, it`s hard to define it in a single dimension. In general, vernacular dialect is used for spoken communication and informal written language.

It is well known that American English derives its origin from British English of 17th century. From the first colony created in America to the outburst of the American Revolutionary War, England Isles had settled thirteen colonies in North America, brought with the English of Shakespeare and Milton. (Wolfram amp; Schilling, 1998) This old English absorbed the Indian dialect and other languages of European immigrants, and continued to develop and eventually formed a kind of mature and complete language mixture, American English.

Early American English was influenced by various languages such as French in New Orleans sea and German in Pennsylvania.(Fred, 1999) In addition, during the centuries of development, American English was affected by the contact among speakers originated in different places. In consequence, numerous distinct dialects arose and were continually enhanced in some areas. In addition, owing to different kinds of reasons, the phenomenon of migration was prevalent, which contributes to the merge of different dialects, so as to develop a new kind of dialect.