Towards A Pragmastylistic Study Of George Bernard Shaw's Early Problem Plays

Early problem plays occupy a significant position in George Bernard Shaw's works.Major deficiencies lying in the current research are displayed in two aspects.Few studies have been carried out to explore Shaw's language techniques in plays from modern stylistic perspective.In addition,not many studies have approached the writing technique in Shavian early problem plays from linguistic perspectives.To address the deficiencies,the present study aims to investigate the general writing features of Shavian early problem plays within a pragma-stylistic framework.Drawing on the interpersonal pragmatic theory and the characterization theory,an analytical framework that examines lexical,syntactic,and discourse language features is constructed and applied to two early problem plays by Shaw(i.e.Widower's Houses and Mrs.Warren's Houses).Taking interpersonal conflicts as contexts,the present study focuses on interpreting interpersonal meanings,which forms a basis for interpreting characterization and plot development.The features of characterization and plot development will account for the theme construction and major writing techniques of Shaw's early problem plays.The quantitative and qualitative analysis gives rise to the following major findings.In the family relations,the parents boldly perform face-threatening acts in order to control the children.After verbally struck back by the children,the parents employ emotional strategies to display their emotions or attitudes in order to persuade the children.The conflict between parents and children is manifested as domination and anti-domination,and deteriorates with the increasing face-damaging force in utterances.The conflict ends in mitigation because parents' use of emotional strategies.Parents employ more discourse strategies.They change from unreasonably bossy parents into pretentiously emotional ones.The children however,change from revolting and unfilial men into a ‘reasonable' or a fighting man.In the romantic relations,the male characters try to dominate the conversation and their utterances imply face-threatening force.To the impolite words,the female characters then politely and strategically present their response or rejection,which seems inferior them in terms of discourse power.However,verbal conflicts arise because of the males' ignorance of the face-threatening message in their utterances,which empowers the females and leads them to win the verbal battle.Comparatively speaking,male characters are simple-minded.The females are self-composed and smart,which makes them the “New Woman” in Shavian plays in a certain way.In the business relations,interpersonal conflicts arise from the interest pursuit of people with different social powers.The socially powerful party boldly threatens the less powerful party's face,while the inferior party just weakly defies it.Both the parties finally throw off their morality and dignity and reconcile to each other in a certain way in order to protect their own interests.As for characterization,three types of characters(i.e.idealists,realists,philistines)are vividly and subversively portrayed in the two plays.Each character displays his or her personality traits in interpersonal conflicts.What they behave turn down the traditional images of their social roles.As for the plot development,interpersonal conflicts that result from different views primarily drive the plot.However,to realize personal goals,some characters deliberately change their discourse strategies which result in plot subversion.The outcomes of interpersonal conflicts in the two plays are unpleasant since they subvert the conventional morality.On the basis of the general features of characterization,plot development and the outcomes of interpersonal conflicts,it can be found that the theme of the two plays is to disclose the unpleasant social reality which arises from the unpleasant interpersonal relations.Therefore,it can be said that by adopting the subversion technique,Shaw disclosed the cruelty and ugliness of the real world.The contribution of the present study is as follows:(1)It enlarges the application field of interpersonal pragmatics by applying interpersonal pragmatic theories to the stylistic analysis of drama conversations;(2)The present study constructs a framework to account for the interpersonal meanings at three linguistic levels(i.e.lexical,syntactic and discourse levels),which is expected to promote the description and interpretation of drama conversations.(3)The present study systematically interprets interpersonal conflicts in Shavian early problem plays within a stylistic framework and points out that subversion is a primary writing technique in the selected plays,which will provide a new perspective for deeply exploring Shaw's writing techniques and language artistry in the future.