（英语语言文学专业论文）情景喜剧剧本对白的话语分析——以《老友记》为例.pdf

4 acknowledgements i would like to express my sincere gratitude to those who contributed in one way or another to the process of getting this dissertation written. first and foremost, i would like to express my sincere appreciation to my m. a. supervisor, professor li guonan, who has greatly impressed me with his rigorous attitude in linguistic study, and over the past three years, offered me thought-provoking instructions, invaluable support and constant encouragement as well as insightful comments and suggestions on the drafts of this dissertation. undoubtedly, without his inculcation, i could not have accomplished the present dissertation. i would at the same time express my heart-felt thanks to all the teachers in our college of foreign languages. their instructions have guided me into a world of wisdom and helped me embark on the field of english language studies. i am also indebted to my elder sister and little brother, who have spared no efforts to send me the latest materials and valuable references from abroad. and special thanks also go to my husband, for the spiritual support and encouragement he has been giving me all these years. 5 论论 文文 摘摘 要要 话语分析是跨学科的研究,近些年来,其理论和方法被广泛应用 于解析戏剧文本。 情景喜剧作为戏剧的扩展形式之一,特征鲜明,但长 期以来并未受到戏剧文体学家们的关注。本文是以美国情景喜剧老 友记为个案研究对象,运用话语分析的理论和方法分析情景喜剧剧 本对白的初步尝试。 本文共分五章。第一章为全文简介,介绍本文的研究目标和基本 框架。第二章为理论铺陈,首先探讨文体学的定义、发展历程及其流 派,接着概述文学文体学的分支-戏剧文体学的发展情况,并在综述 前人研究的基础上指出,话语分析的蓬勃发展为戏剧文本研究提供了 崭新的视角,最后探讨话语分析的定义、学派及其研究方法。第三章 阐明本文的研究对象和研究方法。首先分析情景喜剧的一般特征,指 出情景喜剧文本的主体是人物对白,其文体价值在于特定场景下生成 的幽默话语和主要角色鲜明的性格特征,接着简要介绍本文精选案例 老友记,并阐述相关语料的收集和研究方法。 第四章是本文的核心部分。 在比较戏剧对白和日常会话之间的异 同之后,本章分节运用言语行为理论、合作原则、礼貌原则、语域理 论、会话分析理论等话语分析模式,尝试探讨了老友记剧中语言 使用与幽默效果的产生及人物性格刻画之间的内在联系。 最后小结指 出,话语分析的理论和方法为解读情景喜剧文本提供了重要的理论依 6 据和分析工具。 第五章综述全文,列举本文的不足之处,并就情景喜剧文本值得 深入研究的方面提出建议。 本文旨在探索话语分析与情景喜剧文本分析相结合的途径,意在 抛砖引玉。 希望本文所做的研究能吸引更多的学者对这一领域进行更 为深入的探讨和研究,从而丰富戏剧文体学的内容,推动该学科的全 面发展。 关键词:关键词: 戏剧文体学; 情景喜剧;老友记剧本对白; 话语分析 7 abstract discourse analysis (hereinafter da) is an interdisciplinary research, the theory and methodology of which, in recent years, have been extensively applied to the interpretation of the dramatic texts. sitcom, as one of the extended forms of drama with distinctive features, has long been neglected by the stylisticians. this dissertation is an attempt to apply the theory and techniques of da to the analysis of dialogues in the sitcom, taking the american sitcom friends as a case. this dissertation consists of five chapters: the first chapter as an introduction presents the general aims and the framework of this dissertation. chapter 2 is the theoretical preliminaries for later analyses. an introduction is provided first to stylistics, focusing on different interpretations of “stylistics” and “style”, then to the development and models of stylistics, and the scope of our study within dramatic stylistics, a newly-established branch of literary stylistics. based on a summary of the recent works on dramatic stylistics, it is concluded that the burgeoning research in da has offered the possibility for dramatic stylisticians to study the dramatic texts in a new and productive way. at the end of this chapter is an overview of da, concentrating on its three 8 schools and its approaches. chapter 3 comes to the object and methodology of our study. in description of the general features of the sitcom, it is pointed out that dialogues are the main body of the sitcom, and that the stylistic significance of the sitcom lies in the humorous discourse generated within certain context of situation and in its markedly different types of characters. then there is a presentation of a synopsis of friends, a case deliberately chosen for study, and an illustration of the approaches taken and the data collected in later analyses. chapter 4 is the main body of this dissertation. it is devoted to comparison of the similarities and differences between dramatic dialogue and daily conversation, and then by means of speech act theory, cooperative principle, politeness principle, register theory and conversation analysis theory, an exploration is made about how the humorous effect is achieved and how the traits of the characters are presented by the use of language in friends. and in the summary section, it is argued that da has provided important theoretical grounds and analytical tools for the interpretation of the dramatic discourse of the sitcom. the last chapter, chapter 5, is a concluding chapter, in which this research is summed up, the limitations are listed, and some suggestions for further study are offered. 9 this dissertation aims to throw out a minnow to catch a whale in searching for the approaches to combining da with the stylistic analysis of the sitcom. it is hoped that the present study can attract more scholars into this field for further research, and thereby enriching the substance for dramatic stylistics and promoting its development. key words: dramatic stylistics, situation comedy, dialogues in friends, discourse analysis 12 chapter 1 introduction literature is the art of language, whereas linguistics is the science of language. apparently, these two fields are two opposing camps due to the irrelevance between art and science. in fact, there is an inevitable connection between linguistics and literature. on the one hand, language is “the material for literary creation and the chief medium for literary communication” (封宗信, 2002:2), and therefore literary works can provide abundant corpora for linguistic studies. on the other hand, the theory and methodology of linguistics can offer new perspectives for literary studies. stylistics bridges linguistics and literature in that it applies the theory and methodology of linguistics to the study of style. since 1958 when the first conference of it was held, stylistics has developed into an independent and intermediary discipline. and over half a century, the development of linguistics has enriched the approaches and substance for stylistic analysis. recently, the complementary relationship between linguistics and literature is, again, indicated in the application of the theory and analytical models of discourse analysis in the exploration of the stylistic values of the dramatic texts, to be exact, the play text representing the dramatic discourse (in contrast to theatrical performance). however, to date, most dramatic stylisticians have largely concerned themselves with drama in its original sense, i.e., drama for the theatre, with little labor on the extended forms of drama, such as films, radio plays, and television plays. this 13 dissertation is written in hope for making up some parts of this vacancy. it attempts to explore the stylistic values of the dramatic discourse of a special type of tv drama, the sitcom, which characterizes humorous utterances as its primary element and always consists of a number of markedly different types of standard characters. rather than develop any comprehensive linguistic theory for analyzing the dialogues in the sitcom, this dissertation aims to apply some analytical models of discourse analysis to the appreciation of the humorous dialogues and the distinct traits of the standard characters in friends, a typical sitcom which has gained global popularity during its ten-year run. and the analytical models of discourse analysis applied here include speech act theory, cooperative principle, politeness principle, register theory, and conversation analysis theory. it needs to be mentioned that as a non-native speaker of english, the present author has experienced great difficulties now and then in employing theories and techniques of such intermediary disciplines as stylistics and discourse analysis to analyze the dialogues in an english sitcom. therefore, this dissertation is written merely as a tentative approach to the combination of discourse analysis and the stylistic analysis of the sitcom, in hope for arousing more scholars interest in further research. 14 chapter 2 theoretical preliminaries this chapter is the indispensable theoretical preliminaries for our later analyses, and it is started by investigating some terminological issues with respect to stylistics and style. then a brief introduction is given to the development and models of stylistics, and followed by the discussion of dramatic stylistics, a branch of literary stylistics which has now gained its popularity among scholars home and abroad. after that, there is an overview of discourse analysis, the theory and methodology of which has been extensively applied to the study of the dramatic texts, and will also be employed in this dissertation to analyze the sitcom, a type of tv drama which has long been neglected by dramatic stylisticians. 2.1 stylistics jackobson (1960) considers style as “poetic function”, while turner (1973) views style as “the linguistic choice” (林文治、刘家荣, 2000); leech ii) the discussion of texts according to objective criteria rather than according purely to subjective and impressionistic values; iii) emphasis on the aesthetic properties of language. all the above discussions taken into account, this definition is preferred for our present study: stylistics is the systematic study of literary texts with the purpose of exploring their aesthetic values by applying the theory and methodology of linguistics. 2.2 development and models of stylistics the history of stylistics can be traced back to the ancient “rhetoric”. however, 1 lanham, r. a. 2004. analyzing prosem. beijing: peking university/ continuum. 17 before the 20th century, the discussion on style was nothing more than subjective and impressionable commenting, and more often than not, appeared only within the study of rhetoric, literature or grammar analysis (申丹, 2000). modern stylistics started at the beginning of the twentieth century, namely in 1909, when french scholar charles bally, under the influence the saussures structuralism, published his traite de stylistique francaise. consequently, a number of more coherent and systematic works were published, and many theories such as russian formalism, prague school and french structuralism contributed a lot to the development of stylistics (申丹, 2000). in 1958, the first conference of stylistics was held at indiana university of america, which is regarded as the milestone of the development of stylistics. it was at this conference that jakobson, the founder of modern linguistic poetics, in his closing statement: linguistics and poetics (1969:377), made the frequently quoted statement about the relationship between linguistics and literary studies (see leech leech, 2001; 封宗信, 2002; 王虹, 2006; etc.): “if there are some critics who still doubt the competence of linguistics to embrace the field of poetics, i privately believe that the poetic incompetence of some bigoted linguists has been mistaken for an inadequacy of the linguistic science itself. all of us here, however, definitely realize that a linguist deaf to the poetic function of language and a literary scholar indifferent to linguistic problems and unconversant with linguistic methods are equally flagrant anachronism.” from then on, stylistics became well established as an academic discipline, and 18 so far has developed into an independent and intermediary discipline. nowadays, the stylisticians are still incorporating various linguistic and other scientific theories to develop this subject. since different theories and techniques of linguistics are applied to the study of style, the western critics have distinguished several different models of stylistics. according to carter and simpson (1989) (申丹, 2000), there are six models: “formal stylistics”, “functional stylistics”, “discourse stylistics”, “socio-cultural and socio-historical stylistics”, “literary stylistics” and “linguistic stylistics”. shen dan (2000) argues that this division is based on two different standards: the division of “formal stylistics”, “functional stylistics”, and “discourse stylistics” relies on different linguistic models, whereas “socio-cultural and socio-historical stylistics”, “literary stylistics” and “linguistic stylistics” are discriminated according to different research purposes. although the co-existence of these two different standards might result in ambiguity or overlap, they do present the significant and distinctive features of different models. to be specific, “formal stylistics” is based on bloomfields descriptive linguistics, saussures structuralism and chomskys transformational-generative linguistics, and it was the mainstream before the 1960s; “functional stylistics” carries out its study based on hallidays systemic-functional grammar, and has become prosperous since the 1970s; “discourse stylistics” has gained its development since the 1980s, and it mainly adopts pragmatics, discourse analysis, and textual linguistics to analyze the text; “socio-historical and socio-cultural stylistics” aims to disclose the 19 discourses ideology, and stresses on the context of culture; “linguistic stylistics” intends to improve the language modes and develop the linguistic theories by means of studying the style and language. and “literary stylistics” has a definite purpose of understanding, appreciating and interpreting literary works (申丹, 2000). xu youzhi (2000) further points out that these six models belong to two different lower levels: stylistics is the first or original level; “linguistic stylistics” and “literary stylistics” are located at the second level; while “formal stylistics”, “functional stylistics”, “discourse stylistics” and “socio-cultural and socio-historical stylistics” are built at the third level, and they are subordinate either to linguistic stylistics or to literary stylistics, or to both. in fact, as elaborated above, the models of stylistics at the third level, without any exception, concentrate on the study of literary texts by means of linguistics. therefore, we propose that all these models aforementioned, in a broad sense, be categorized into literary stylistics. so far, some basic problems concerning stylistics, including its definition, development and models, have been discussed. the next section will be devoted to a newly-developed branch of literary stylistics, i.e., dramatic stylistics. 2.3 dramatic stylistics literary stylistics bridges linguistics and literary criticism. on the one hand, literary stylistics shares the same ground with linguistics in that they are both concerned with the linguistic form, but they are different in that the former only focuses on those linguistic features that have stylistic effects, whereas the latter 20 describes all the linguistic phenomena. on the other hand, literary stylistics has something in common with literary criticism because of its emphasis on interpretation of the content of text, while it differs from the latter seeing that it focuses both on form and content (cf. 刘世生, 2003; 董莉, 2005:13). literary stylistics, in its narrowest sense, studies literature. since classical times, literature has been generally divided into poetry, fiction and drama. as we know that although drama has something in common with poetry and fiction, it is much more complicated in that it not only appears in written form, but is meant to be performed on the stage, and its time scope and setting are necessarily limited. because of its distinctive properties, drama ought to have been of particular interest to linguists. nevertheless, with the prosperity of literary stylistics, poetry and fiction have been subjected to extensive linguistic analysis, while drama has long remained a neglected field for detailed study. it is only in recent years that some stylisticians2, burton (1980), short (1989, 1996), simpson (1989), leech (1992), herman (1995), thornborrow 王虹 (2006:3-4) 21 modern dramas. herman (1995) discusses the interactional function of dialogues in plays within different frameworks of da. and short (1996), after discussing the differences and similarities between daily conversation and dramatic dialogue, classifies the theory and techniques of da, such as speech act theory, conversation analysis theory and politeness strategies, into the “tool box” for dramatic stylisticians (王虹, 2006:4). thornborrow drama as fiction, which means to analyze the characters or plot in a play; drama as conversation, which means to apply linguistics to analyze the exchanges between characters. they argue that drama as conversation is the most appropriate approach, since the crucial aspect in which drama differs from the other two genres is “in its emphasis on verbal interaction, and the way relationship between people are constructed and negotiated through what they say” (ibid.:121). accordingly, by adopting linguistics techniques, da techniques in particular, to analyze the exchanges between characters, we can better understand the text, and see how conversation works. moreover, we can appreciate better the skill the playwrights have demonstrated in the way they have written the speeches of their characters, and see things in the text that other forms of analysis might have allowed us to miss. some chinese scholars, yang xueyan (1989, 1991)3, yu dongming (1996, 2001 封宗信(2002:50) 23 following section will be devoted to an overview of da. 2.4. an overview of discourse analysis attempts to define academic fields are rarely wholly satisfactory, since they are congeries of preferred methods, implicit assumptions, and focal problems or subject matters (levinson, 2001:5). it is true of da. the term “discourse analysis” was first used by zellig harris in the journal “language” in 195