A Preliminary Study Of Language And Power On The Book A Dream Of Red Mansions

This thesis attempts to explore the relationship between language and power through discourse analysis in the Chinese greatest masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansions. In this thesis I apply critical language study, which aims to unveil the complicated and hidden relationship between social factors and linguistic forms. Critical language study states that language is socially constitutive as well as socially conditioned. I try to interpret the conversations included in the book, and aim to carry out a detailed study of the relationship between language and power in the feudal society described in the book. The conversations have been analyzed in the point of discourse structures, language features and discourse contents etc. Through the detailed analyses of the relationship between language and power in the feudal society, I attempt to verify that language helps express and regulate speakers' power, and contributes to the maintenance and change of social structures.