英语本科毕业论文-The Rhetorical Means and Functions of Puns in English Literature.doc

第 15 页The Rhetorical Means and Functions of Puns in English LiteratureI. IntroductionLanguage, the ship of ideology, is a tool for human communication, on which people rely and enrich by creativeness during their social activities. Paronomasia, or just call it pun in an informal way, in nature, a world-play. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word pun did not appear in English language until 1662 with Dryden; yet this word-play as a practice has been found in English literature since earliest times. In English language, there are many words that are pronounced alike or spelt alike, or both. A pun, in essence, is an ambiguity. A pun involves the use of a polysemous word to suggest two or more meanings, commonly literal meaning versus figurative meaning, or involves the use of homonyms, i.e. different words which look or sound the same but have different meanings. The whole point of a pun is the users intent to produce a humorous or witty effect from the juxtaposition of meanings. As a unique phenomenon of language using, puns are rhetorical means of using words and phrases which contain two different ideas, conceptions, things or emotions at the same time, making the sentence include different meanings. There is a famous example from the Linguistics Master Noam Chomsky: Flying planes can be dangerous.a. Sentence = Noun Phrase (Someone flies planes) + Verb Phrase (can be dangerous) b. Sentence = Noun Phrase (Planes fly) + Verb Phrase (can be dangerous)In English, the very concentrate occasion of puns is in the literature. It is very early that pun shows up, when it turns to the Shakespeares era, the using of this phraseology in literature has in its period of great prosperity. According to a statistics, puns in his works have reached an amount of 3000. Many writers like to use it, treat it as a serious, graceful, high-ranking art with plenty of lingering charm. In Websters New World Dictionary, pun is defined as: The humorous use of a word, or of words which are formed or sounded alike but have different meanings, in such a way as to play on two or more of the possible applications. We can see that words with the same or similar sound and words with more than one meanings or other forms of language materials in various interpretations widely exist in humans language, they are the prerequisite of puns that could be tenable. As a unique phenomenon in language using, puns naturally become common in human languages.While the English poet and dramatist John Dryden (1631-1700) has given a humorous definition to puns: Pun-to torture one poor word ten thousand ways.II. The Means of Puns Used in Literature2.1 Phonological MeansPhonological pun means using language materials which sound the same or similar with multiple implications to form a pun. And the puns formed by phonological means mainly appear on the lexical arrangement. Although sentences sounding the same can form a pun in theory, but in truth, limited by language system or social language using or some language users condition, the percentage of occurrence is not comparatively so large.Here are several forms through which puns are constructed by phonological means.2.1.1 HomophonesA homophone is a word that is identical to another in pronunciation but not in spelling and meaning. For example:(1) for they pray continually to their saint, the commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots.(W. Shakespeare, Henry IV)As homophones, Shakespeare use the totally different meanings of pray and prey, perfectly expressed the satirizing of the thief Gai Cixier to the nobles who seems praying to the country, but preying indeed, which is much worse than his stealing. (2) Romeo: Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling; being but heavy, I will bear the light.Mercutio: Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.Romeo: Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes with nimbler soles; I have a soul of lead so stake me the ground I cannot move.(W. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)Shakespeare use the homonyms of soles and soul formed a homophone, with the adjective of nimbler and lead, described the heavy and worried emotion of Romeo in the masquerade appropriately. (3) How is bread made?I know that! Alice cried eagerly. You take some flourWhere do you pick the flower? the White Queen asked, In a garden, or in the hedges?Well, it isnt picked at all, Alice explained: Its groundHow many acres of ground? said the White Queen.(Lewis Carrol, Alices Adventures in Wonderland)For the similar pronunciation of flour and flower, ground (the past participle of grind） and ground, they formed the puns in the dialogue.(4) King: my cousin Hamlet, and my sonhow is it that the clouds still hang on you?Hamlet: Not so, my lord, I am too much in the sun.（Shakespeare, Hamlet）In this example, son has the same pronunciation with sun in different meanings, Hamlet does want to use this feature to express his indignation tactfully. The king pretended affectionate by calling Hamlet son, but the reaction of Hamlet was too much in the sun (son). On the surface it was talking about staying too long in the sunshine, but in fact he wanted to express that he has been the son of the king for too long time. It might be expressed only in this way could the author describe the deeply going psychological action.2.1.2 Homophonic Phrases or SentencesBecause of courses, assimilation, tone, even coincidentally, some irrelevant English phrases and sentences can have the same effects with homophones. This sort of means is commonly used in humorous statements as answers. For example:(1) Why dont you starve in the desert?Because of all the sand which is there.The sound of sand which is is just like sandwiches, while the question is that about desert which has two meanings at the same time, one is the sand land and another is the food waiters served after meal.(2) Woman: What is the brightest idea in the world?Man: Your eye, dear.It is an example in the same situation with e.g.1. The similar sounds of idea and eye, dear are the key point of forming the pun.2.1.3 Paronomasia Words, Phrases and SentencesDifferent words, phrases, formations or sentences may be sound similar under the influence of variety of elements. In certain language environment, it can be homophonic puns too. For example:(1) The Cuckoo then, on every treeMocks married men: for thus sings he Cuckoo Cuckoo, Cuckoo. Oh word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!(Shakespeare, When Daisies Died)Cuckoo is the sound of cuckoos, the sound can easily be related with Cuckoo (a man whose wife has proved unfaithful).(2) And then theres that woman with the Pagan name, said my aunt, that Peggotty, she goes and gets married next(Charles Dickens, David Copperfield)Pagan and Peggotty sound alike, we can easily feel the ironic tone from my aunts words.(3) Lady Macbeth: Infirm of purpose!Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the deadAre but as pictures: tis the eye of childhoodThat fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,Ill gild the faces of the grooms withal; For it must seem their guilt.(Shakespeare, Macbeth)The background of this sentence is after Macbeth killed Duncan, and took the lethal weapon home, Mrs. Macbeth required him to send it back, while Macbeth had no courage to go back. Then Mrs. Macbeth said the sentence in the example. Gild and guilt have similar pronunciations, and the pun has presented the blackheart of Mrs. Macbeth that murdering people and doing it away with a witness, creating a false scene and shifting the misfortune onto others.2.2 Semantic MeansFrom the view of Semiotics, the language communication of human beings involved both coding and decoding, which might cause a dislocation. Because the process of coding is exactly the opposite of the process of decoding, the former is a process of ideameaningpronunciation, while the later is a process of pronunciationmeaningdeep thoughts. The two totally different processes contain the possibility of the hearers misunderstanding. So most of the linguists think it is negative in semantic understanding. However, in certain occasions with certain reasons, people dont like to express their real meanings directly, so the ambiguity of language needs the means of puns to get the willing linguistic effects.2.2.1 Lexical MeansHomonyms have two forms: one is the word appearing twice or more times with different meanings in one dialogue; the other is the word appearing only one time with double or multiple meanings through the context. For example:(1) To England will I steal and there Ill steal.(Shakespeare, Henry V.)An image of a thief has appears before readers eyes vividly, it is not surprising that people see puns as a high-ranking art in Shakespeares era, because one word can be used in two meaning is really a saving of the length of the writing.(2) Where do fish learn to swim? They learn from a school.(Carroll, Alice Adventures in Wonderland)In this sentence, besides the meaning of the place for study knowledge, school still has the meaning of a shoal of fish.2.2.2 Syntactic MeansAs one means of making puns, syntactic means mainly displays as phrases or sentences with multiple meanings. All factors, including the uncertainty of the rhetoric word in the sentence structure, the variety of the collocation structure and the defects of information caused by the omission means, changes of the sentence order, etc, can produce multi-meaningful language environment and thus form puns. For example:(1) I have designs on you, the tattooist said to his girl.(Walter Nash, The Language of Humor)Have designs on means tattoo originally, when it is used as regular phrase, have designs on has the meaning of have plans for conquest or acquisition. It is not difficult to see that besides tattoo, it still has the intention of I plan to conquer and acquire you.(2) Provost: Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a mans head?Pompey: If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a married man, hes wifes head, and I can never cut off a womans head.(Shakespeare, Measure for Measure)The first head in the dialogue is a means of metaphor, it means the backbone to the married woman; the second head again go back to the conception of the upper part of human body. Therefore, this sentence can be understood as kill the husband is to kill the wife.2.2.3 Contextual MeansContextual means is to make use of the content, specified situation or culture background as its foundation, draw support from the logic, encyclopedic and lexical information, and make the linguistic material contain two or more meanings. For example:Fair is foul, and foul is fair.So foul and fair a day I have not seen.(Shakespeare, Macbeth)Fair is foul, and foul is fair. is the word of the three witches, which is very ambiguous with both the meaning of beautiful or ugly and sunny or cloudy, it still can be understood as good or bad of ones destiny. In the witches view, there has no distinction between them. However, the first line of Macbeth is So foul and fair a day I have not seen. Although the weather was odious with strong wind and rain that day, Macbeth was immensely proud because of the winning of the war he just fought for. The ambiguous words by the witches turn to be the prediction of Macbeth, at the same time, it pointed out the very theme of the drama the dialectical transformation of good and bad.2.3 Graphic MeansDuring literature works, the typical example of using the means of visualization to form a pun should be the talking between the mouse and Alice in Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland. The author uses the homonym tail and tale, puts the word form of the long tale told by the mouse into a print form just like a long tail of a mouse. The clever combination of words and graphic representation, witty and fantastic, integrate both the writing theme and the language style. For example:Tanya handed Amy the soaked towel Sorry it got wet. Are you a P.C.V.?(Der Zee, Love Beyond Reason)P.C.V. is the short form of Peace Corp Volunteer, also the short form of Potential Crime Victim and Poor Confused Virgin. Amy rushed back to Kenya from USA on holiday, wished to have a nice day with her boyfriend, and unexpectedly caused misunderstanding. It is her first meeting with Tanyaher rival in love in her imagination, after the multiplemeaning word spoken by Tanya with no intention, Amys emotion was very difficult to say.III. The Rhetoric Functions of Puns in Literature3.1 Significance in Diversifying the Whole Works3.1.1 Making the Article More Tense Puns can make the structure of article more tense and compact, presenting a refined language to the readers. For example:(1) There is such a sentence as: He halted in the street where by night are found the lightest street, heart, vows and librettos. in The Cop and Anthem written by O. Henry, American humorous writing Master.(O. Henry, The Cop and Anthem)The author used the multiple meanings of light to form a pun. When connected with street, light can be understood as well-lighted street, which belongs to the standard collocation. Then light as the multiple meanings of burdenless, frivolous and entertaining, can collocate with hearts, vows and librettos. O. Henry wrote the work in a terse and concise tone to describe the beautiful night scene of the city, the enthusiastic atmosphere and the romantic sentiment. The work showed a lucid and lively outline to the readers. It harmonized the writing tone and the city night life that the author wanted to express, took the effect of harmony. (2) The tyrant of the ChersoneseWas freedoms best and bravest friend?That tyrant was Miltiades!Oh! That the present hour would lendAnother despot of the kind!Such chains as his were sure to bind.(George Gordon Byron, Don Juan)Byron hoped that there could be another autocratic monarch like Miltiades, because though his chains bind up people, he will still surely made all the Greek be a group to resist the aggressor troops of different nations, to win the freedom and liberation of the nation.3.1.2 Enriching the Content Sometimes we choose a word with multiple meanings to make our language meaningful, and that is one function of puns used in literary works. For example:Indeed I never shall be satisfied.With Romeo til1 I behold him-deadIs my poor heart SO for a kinsman vexed(Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)These sentences contain two meanings obviously, Juliets mother understood it as Juliets intention to kill Romeo to revenge for her cousin. But what Juliet really meant was that only by staying with Romeo could she get satisfied. 3.1.3 Increasing the Concealment of Information Under some circumstances, the authors do not want to tell their intention directly, then they may employ some words with allusions to conceal the information. Only those people who know the allusions can understand what the authors want to express. For example:And I had keys made for the door upstairs. But, no, sir. She had sure cut off my locks. She was a Delilah, say Bill Basset.(O Henry, The Man High up)It is a pun quoted a literary quotation. Locks has two meanings, one is the mechanism for fastening a door, and another is the hair of the head. Therefore this sentence has the meaning of she had cut off my hair, namely she had sure done me some violent treachery. She is a Delilah is a metaphor, refers to a bad woman betrayed her friend. It is a story in the Bible, which is about the story that Samson has seven mystery braids which are the source of his power. His enemy got the secret and bribed Samsons mistress Delilah, cut off his braids when he was asleep. Samson lost his source of power, and was finally killed by his enemy. O. Henry used the multiple meanings of locks, together with the name of Delilah, led the readers to relate locks with its second meaning hair together. This sentence contains the concealment of information, only people who are familiar with the Bible can exactly understand the remains under cover. 3.1.4 Creating a Visualized World Authors with vivid pen can take readers into a visualized world, good pun users can also do that, because puns frequently have several meanings. Making full use of them equals to displaying vivid pictures. For example:There is a sentence in the American satirizes Master Mark Twains great work Millionaire: But every time I made a move to get it, some passing eyes detected my purpose and of course I straightened up then, and looked indifferent, and pretended that I hadnt been thinking about the pear at all.(Mark Twain, Millionaire)Henry, the protagonist in the work, led a wandering life in London because of misfortune with no money in his pocket and no food in his stomach. While walking in the street, he saw a pear on the ground thrown by a child. Author vividly described Henrys psychological action of trying to stop but unable to even he wanted to. Every time he was unable to bear the allure of the pear, so he made moves to get it, then some passing eyes made him fear, he could only straighten up. Here straightened up reflects both his psychological and movement description, Henry straightened up his body and gave up the desire of the pear. Author used only such a phrase that depicted the psychological state of a person who is poverty-stricken and down in the world. He cannot stand the allure of pear after frustration, and did not want to condescend as a beggar incisively and vividly. Puns here save many sentences and