摘 要

《傲慢与偏见》作为简·奥斯汀最著名的小说之一，广受读者喜欢且赢得了很高的赞誉。国内外的很多学者从不同的角度去解读小说中的人物、故事安排、写作技巧及主题。人物对话是这部小说的一个显著特征。作者通过看似平淡的日常对话勾勒出不同人物所具有的不同性格，进而反应了当时的社会现实。会话是指两人或两人以上的人们之间的沟通交流，会话的礼仪、技能对人们的社交至关重要，而且一个人的言语在很大程度上反映了一个人的某种特质。文体学旨在研究小说中人物的语言特征，进而更好地理解、欣赏和阐释作者所要传达的主题意义。本文将从文体学视角，从不同语言表达形式、修辞手法、前景化和会话机制等方面来分析作者如何通过不同人物的会话来展示人物的性格特征，进而从整体上把握小说的主旨。

关键词：《傲慢与偏见》；会话；文体学

Abstract

Pride and Prejudice, as one of Jane Austen’s most famous works, enjoys a high reputation among readers. A large number of scholars at home and abroad have analyzed the characters, plot organization, writing technique and theme of the novel from various perspectives. Conversation is a stark feature of this novel. Although Austen seems to use ordinary and daily conversations, they represent different features of different characters, through which the writer vividly delivers the then social reality. Conversation is the interactive communication between two or more people. Conversational skills and etiquette are important parts for the characters’ socialization. Stylistics aims at studying the linguistic characteristics of literature so as to give a better understanding, appreciation and exposition of the thematic meaning that the writer intends to convey. This paper will focus on the conversations among different characters to display their respective characteristics from the stylistic perspective including different expressive forms of speech, rhetorical device, foregrounding and turn-taking mechanism. Overall, it is helpful for readers to comprehend the theme of novel through studying the characters’ conversations.

Key Words: Pride and Prejudice, conversation, stylistics

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Jane Austen and her works 1

1.2 Literature review 2

2 Stylistics and its features 4

3 Analysis of Examples of Conversations 5

3.1 Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet 5

3.2 Elizabeth and Collins 7

3.3 Elizabeth and Wickham 11

3.4 Elizabeth and Darcy 12

3.5 Elizabeth and Lady Catherine 18

4 Conclusion 23

4.1 Summary 23

4.2 Limitations and further study 23

References 25

Acknowledgements 26

Analysis of Conversations in Pride and Prejudice from the Perspective of Stylistics

1 Introduction

1.1 Jane Austen and her works

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 - 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Her novels’ plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of the favorable social standing and economic security. Austen differs from her contemporary authors who demand emotional responses far in excess of what their fiction required and they distorted human behaviour to fit literary conventions of her time. Her heroes and heroines are fallible with faults and foibles. Her novels are filled with wit and humor instead of sentimentality. Though Austen’s works are called “small square two inches of ivory”, she reflects a wide social reality at that time through the small-scale of daily conversations of gentlemen and ladies. With the publication of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion that were published posthumously in 1818.

Without splendid narrative scenes, Jane Austen’s works largely focus on what takes place in people’s daily life, which depicts an array of lively and vivid characters by her proficiency in manipulation of language about daily conversations. She is also adept in the application of humor and dramatic language to achieve irony, which makes readers appreciate the whole novel in a pleasant and enjoyable way.

The novel Pride and Prejudice is the representative work of Jane Austen. It describes five different kinds of marriage, among which the marriage between Elizabeth and Darcy is the principal line. The writer reveals the attitudes of different people towards marriage in the late 18th century and the early 19th century and explores their personalities through various techniques.

Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet, as parents, played important roles in their daughters’ growth. Unfortunately, they did not make it. Instead of falling in love at first sight, Elizabeth and Darcy left a bad impression on each other at first sight based on Elizabeth’s prejudice against Darcy’s arrogance and Darcy’s disdain for Elizabeth’s appearance and family connections. Wickham was the catalyst and adhesive of the development of relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy. Collins’s proposal to Elizabeth and Lady Catherine’s attempt to thwart the marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy were the additives in the marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy and were the external incentive to improve their own self-recognition. This paper will focus on conversations among different characters to analyze their respective personalities, including the couple of Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, Darcy, Collins, Wickham and Lady Catherine.

1.2 Literature review

Pride and Prejudice, as a masterpiece of Jane Austen, is widely popular among readers and attracts myriads of scholars at home and abroad to study. The previous literature can be mainly divided into four parts: the character, theme, plot and technique.

First, the female characters of Jane Austen are always attractive and charming, so many scholars study the personalities of female characters who dare to challenge the authority and bigwig, revolt against the traditional rites and pursuit their independence and confidence (Liu Yifan, 2018 and Zhou Jie, 2017). Second, the writing technique of irony from different perspectives: the cognitive perspective based on Locke’s epistemology (Yang Lijua, 2019); the stylistic perspective (Zhong Ning, 2019); the linguistic irony, contextual irony and structural irony (Zhao Jihong, 2019) and the like. Third, the females’ attitude towards marriage and money (XITENG WANG, 2016). Fourth, the plot organization of the novel from the structuralist perspective (Jinhua Zhang, 2020) and the dynamic change of the protagonist’s concept of class according to Professor Shen Dan’s invisible narrative perspective (Jiang Runjie and Chen Xinyi, 2019).

Besides, some scholars at abroad study the novel’s literary meaning from the semantic field through analyzing keywords and frequently used phrases (Fischer-Starcke, 2009). The conversations of characters in the novel is vital for readers to discern their psychology, like the study of the interjection in Pride and Prejudice (O’Connell and Kowal, 2010). A new view on analyzing the cognitive transformation of the characters from theological reflection (Marcus, 2016) based on Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth.

Their contributions to the appreciation of Pride and Prejudice provide readers with wide views to understand and appreciate its main characters, narrative technique and theme. This paper will focus on the stylistics to explore and analyze the conversations among different characters and further understand their personalities and the novel’s motif.

Stylistics and its features

Stylistics, a branch of applied linguistics, is used to study all kinds of characteristics of literature and other genres. As a discipline, stylistics links literary criticism to linguistics. It does not function as the autonomous domain on its own, and it can be applied to the understanding of literature and journalism as well as linguistics. Stylistics has become widely popular in the 1960s and appealed numerous scholars to study, develop and innovate, which largely promotes the advancement of stylistics and provides readers with another way to appreciate the literature.