Systemic Functional Stylistic Analysis Of The Cop And The Anthem

Nowadays the literary criticism and stylistic analysis are the two main means to analyze the literal works. The analysis of the literal works has already existed. But most of the works are analyzed from the respect of literal criticism, and very few are analyzed by using the systematic functional linguistics developed by Halliday, M.A.K.Halliday's systemic functional linguistics sees language as a social semiotic system. It is based on a systemic theory, by which a language, or any other semiotic system, is interpreted as networks of interlocking options. Halliday thinks "system" combined with "system" by delicacy becomes system network. And what system should appear in network depends on language function. The functional linguistics claims that all languages are organized around three main kinds of functional components which are called metafuctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual. The three functions are of equal importance. Halliday thinks of them as the "meaning potential".Using the systemic functional linguistics as an instrument in text analysis has two achievements to aim at, which are achieved by description, analysis, and evaluation. One is to the understanding of the text: the text analysis enablesto show how and what the text means. The other is the evaluation of the text: the text analysis enables to show the main theme and deep meaning of the text.The short story The Cop and the Anthem written by O Henry is one of his classic works. The discussions about its theme especially from the aspect of literary criticism have been a lot. This paper attempts to do the further discussion about how the theme is expressed via language in terms of Halliday's systemic functional linguistics. Hence, we can represent the SFL is good way and approach for the literal analysis and test the applicability of it in discourse analysis.The paper consists of five chapters:The first chapter is the introduction, which presents the basic framework of the systemic functional linguistics and the detailed framework of this paper. This paper attempts to explore discourse analysis in terms of systemic functional linguistics in order to understand the deep meaning of the discourse.Chapter Two reviews the basic theoretical framework of SFL and its applications. It not only covers the discussion of the metafunctions: idcational, interpersonal, and textual functions, but also deals with the practical applications to discourse analysis by others as well as the attempts which have already been done upon this short novel by others.Chapter Three and Chapter Four are the most important parts of this thesis. In Chapter Three, the author makes the analysis and commentary of the short story from the three metafunctional perspectives. The clauses in this story arc analyzed from three perspectives: ideational, the transitivity system is analyzed;interpersonal, the mood and modality are analyzed;textual, the thematicstructure is analyzed. Besides, in Chapter Four, it is also discussed at the level above the clause: the respect of context and the patterning of the text. Its purpose is to explore the theme meaning and the stylistic characteristics of the story.Tn the final chapter, this paper comes to the conclusion that with the analysis and interpretation, the character's development is revealed;the pathological social relationship is showed and the theme of the story is explored. The author proves that (1) through the analysis and interpretation by using SFL, it can provide deep and profound understanding for the insight into the characteristics of language and the theme of the text;(2) this paper using the short novel as the analytical material represents systemic functional linguistics can not only be applied in the Ldd of linguistics, but also can provide the objective measure for the analysis of the literal works, which makes the readers' subjective comprehension towards the literal works base on the objective criterion.