An Analysis Of Beyond The Horizon From The Perspective Of Register Theory

Beyond the Horizon is the magnum opus of the American dramatist Eugene O’Neill, which was completed in 1918 and opened on Broadway in 1920. And it won the playwright the first Pulitzer Prize in the same year. This play has laid the foundation of O’Neill’s premier position in American theatre and earned him the title of “Father of Modern American Drama”. Besides, compared with his other early plays, the writing skills and style of this play are more mature. And it is regarded as a milestone in O’Neill’s early creations. Therefore, it is of great significance to study this play to know about O’Neill as well as his writing skills and style. This thesis attempts to probe into the theme of Beyond the Horizon, the relationship between the main characters and the vehicles used by O’Neill in this play under the guidance of Halliday’s register theory, aiming to reveal the creation intention of the playwright hidden behind the script and the reason for its success.Register theory is an important theory in Systemic-functional linguistics. It is put forward by Halliday on the basis of the researches done by the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski and the linguist John Rupert Firth. And it has been widely used in language teaching, translation studies, stylistics, discourse analysis and many other fields since it was put forward. Halliday’s register theory includes three variables of context of situation, namely field, tenor and mode. And the three variables of situational context correspond to the three language meta-functions proposed by Halliday. Specifically, the field corresponds to the ideational function, which is realized by the transitivity system, voice and polarity. And the tenor corresponds to the interpersonal function, which is realized by the mood system, modality system and intonations. While the mode corresponds to the textual function, which is realized by the theme structure, information structure and cohesive relations.In the light of Halliday’s register theory, this thesis intends to explore the register features of Beyond the Horizon and how these features are realized by adopting both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study is carried out from both the situational level and the lexico-grammatical level. Firstly, at the situational level, the register features of Beyond the Horizon are explored from the three aspects of field, tenor and mode. And then at the lexico-grammatical level, the text features of Beyond the Horizon are analyzed from the realization ways of the three meta-functions, revealing how these register features of this play are realized through the semantic system of language.At the situational level, through the analysis of the field, it shows that the theme of this play is a tragic story about three youths’ pursuit of dreams and the disillusionment of their dreams. Besides, the settings of this play are on a farm in the countryside of America. And by analyzing the tenor, it demonstrates that the characteristics of the three youths are different, the relationships among them are intimate, and that their social statuses are equal. While via the mode analysis, it illustrates that this play is of written form. And the scenic descriptions and other stage instructions are written to be read, while the dialogues between the characters are written to be spoken. In addition, this play also encompasses many figures of speech, such as simile, personification, metonymy, hyperbole, etc.At the lexico-grammatical level, the register features of this play are mainly realized by the transitivity system, mood and modality system, theme and information structure as well as cohesive relations. Specifically, the analysis of the transitivity system represents that all the six types of processes are involved in this play. And the material processes are in the highest frequency; the relational processes are in the second place; the mental processes and behavioural processes are in the third and fourth place respectively; while the verbal processes and existential processes appear relatively less. The analysis of the mood system indicates that all the three kinds of mood are used in this play. And the declarative mood is used most; the second is the interrogative mood; while the imperative mood is used least. As for the modality system, both types of modality — modalization and modulation are involved in this play. And modalization owns different scales of usuality or probability, which makes up a larger proportion, while modulation possesses different degrees of obligation or inclination. As to the theme structure, the clauses in this play involve both the simple themes and the multiple themes, and the simple themes are in the majority. Besides, among these themes, most are the unmarked themes, while only a few are the marked themes. The analysis of the information structure displays that most clauses in this play put the given information in front of the new information. And only a few clauses place the new information in front of the given information. As for the cohesive relations, this play involves six types of cohesive devices: reference, ellipsis, substitution, repetition, synonymy and meronymy. The first three devices are the grammatical cohesion, while the following three are the lexical cohesion. And among these devices, reference is in the highest frequency, which is followed by ellipsis and substitution. Repetition is in the fourth place, while synonymy and meronymy are used relatively less.Through the analysis of the register features of Beyond the Horizon at the situational level, the playwright’s creation intention will be excavated, which can help readers understand this play better. While by analyzing the realization ways of these register features, the writing skills of the playwright will be found, which can provide some guidance for the creation of other playwrights. In addition, applying register theory to the analysis of Beyond the Horizon can provide a new perspective for the study of English plays on the one hand, and it can also broaden this theory’s application scope on the other hand.