A Functional Stylistic Analysis Of Life Of Pi

Yann Martel is a Canadian author best known for the Man Booker Prize-winning novelLife of Pi. In this seemingly castaway novel, Martel tells readers a marvelous story about howa sixteen-year-old Indian boy called Pi shares a lifeboat with a fully-grown Bengal tigernamed Richard Parker in the endless Pacific Ocean for227days and finally survives. Therehave been many reviews on Yann Martel and his work, however, most researchers analyze hiswork from literary aspects rather than linguistic aspects. This thesis concentrates on thestylistic analysis of the novel Life of Pi using systemic functional linguistics as a theoreticalframework.The thesis firstly presented the basic framework of the functional stylistics where thethree metafunctions were reviewed. Then the theory was applied to the analysis of the novel.Chapter four analyzes the novel Life of Pi from the three metafunctional perspectives:ideational (the transitivity system), interpersonal (the mood and modality), and textual(thematic structure). Some findings are derived from the detailed sample analysis andstatistical analysis.Firstly, the author applied the transitivity analysis in interpreting the process in which ourprotagonist being changed into maturity. We can find that Yann Martel is good at descriptionin a precise and meticulous way. Secondly, detailed analysis of the dialogues between Pi andother people indicates that different social relationships can be revealed by mood andmodality system. In addition, it can also reflect the theme of this novel: the living conditionreshapes a person’s disposition, and the ocean changes Pi into maturity. Thirdly, analysis ofthe thematic structure of this novel enables us to get a clear view of how the whole story isdeveloped. Meanwhile, Martel’s philosophical background also leaves traces within the thematic structure of this novel.Through the stylistic analysis of the novel Life of Pi in terms of Halliday’s Functionaltheory, the thesis probes into the theme of the novel, the characteristics of its language, therelationship between Pi and other characters, and the thematic structure of the novel. All theseindicate that functional stylistics is a helpful tool for stylistics analysis. It provides us a newperspective to appreciate and evaluate literary works.