This extract deploys a richly implicational style whose complex messages can be uncovered through the application of stylistic analysis. One major tool employed is speech and thought presentation, which turns out to reveal that what appears on paper to be omniscient third person narrator is actually (hidden) free direct speech/thought representing the main character “speaking” in the first person singular. The passage is thus dialogistic, with the protagonist recounting his life to the reader to gain the latter’s sympathy/respect, but concurrently trying to secrete the uglier aspects of his behaviour in order not to lose that sympathy. Through the deployment of Gricean maxims the deeper, uglier messages can be uncovered, a task facilitated by the recurrent parallelism in certain forms of flouting the maxims, yielding further implicatures. The application of modality analysis produces the result that the passage is very heavily modalised – a clear indication that point of view is operating trenchantly in the text, thereby: a) reinforcing the hypotheses deriving from speech and thought presentation analysis and b) helping to uncover the fact that the value judgments the character makes on a formal, literal level, actually serve to expose what he is attempting to hide, hence rendering the text highly ironic, and, consequently, introducing another voice, that of the author, who is deeply critical of the protagonist. The application of functional grammar - process types, participant types, theme-rheme – adds further evidence reinforcing the idea that the protagonist is self-centred, claiming he appreciates others, but actually showing he uses them for his own ends. This paper also has a theoretical by-product. The analysis of modality produces a critique of modality studies, showing these are generally limited to identifying codifed modality markers and their operation, whereas following Austen’s speech act theory it is not surprising to discover that linguistic items which are not codified as modality markers can, in a given text and context, take on the function of modalisers. What is surprising, however, is the density of modalisers in this text, as well as their covertness.
Coetzee's "Disgrace": a Linguistic Analysis of the Opening Chapter
DOUTHWAITE, JOHN
2005-01-01
Abstract
This extract deploys a richly implicational style whose complex messages can be uncovered through the application of stylistic analysis. One major tool employed is speech and thought presentation, which turns out to reveal that what appears on paper to be omniscient third person narrator is actually (hidden) free direct speech/thought representing the main character “speaking” in the first person singular. The passage is thus dialogistic, with the protagonist recounting his life to the reader to gain the latter’s sympathy/respect, but concurrently trying to secrete the uglier aspects of his behaviour in order not to lose that sympathy. Through the deployment of Gricean maxims the deeper, uglier messages can be uncovered, a task facilitated by the recurrent parallelism in certain forms of flouting the maxims, yielding further implicatures. The application of modality analysis produces the result that the passage is very heavily modalised – a clear indication that point of view is operating trenchantly in the text, thereby: a) reinforcing the hypotheses deriving from speech and thought presentation analysis and b) helping to uncover the fact that the value judgments the character makes on a formal, literal level, actually serve to expose what he is attempting to hide, hence rendering the text highly ironic, and, consequently, introducing another voice, that of the author, who is deeply critical of the protagonist. The application of functional grammar - process types, participant types, theme-rheme – adds further evidence reinforcing the idea that the protagonist is self-centred, claiming he appreciates others, but actually showing he uses them for his own ends. This paper also has a theoretical by-product. The analysis of modality produces a critique of modality studies, showing these are generally limited to identifying codifed modality markers and their operation, whereas following Austen’s speech act theory it is not surprising to discover that linguistic items which are not codified as modality markers can, in a given text and context, take on the function of modalisers. What is surprising, however, is the density of modalisers in this text, as well as their covertness.
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
