Function-oriented Approach To The Stylistic Prominence Of English Poetry

Since ancient time, the stylistic study has remained a hot issue on controversial ground. Traditional stylistics mainly deals with subjective and incredible intuition analysis which varies from one to another. With the development of modern linguistics, present stylistic study based on functional theory can conveniently solve the problem mentioned above. Halliday regards style as 'meaning potential' or 'motivated prominence', to interpret the nature and goal of style from the perspective of language function.Firstly, Style could be seen as meaning potential. In Halliday's functional theory, language involves three-metafunctions, i.e. ideational function with the writer/speaker as an observer; interpersonal function with the writer/speaker as an intruder; textual function with the writer/speaker as a text-forming organizer. The textual function makes the former two functions relevant with each other in a context. These three functions are interrelated to form the semantic plane of meaning potential, from which the writer/speaker makes a consecutive selection to create a text in a specific context. In addition, these functions upwards interrelate with three register variables: field, mode, tenor. The ideational function is mainly determined by mode, the interpersonal by tenor, and the textual by mode. On the other hand, the alternative of functions downwards activates the selection of lexico-grammatical system, the grammatical structure of a text is formed in this way; reversely, the alternative of lexico-grammatical system activates the option of phonological or graphonological system, and thus forming phonological or graphonological structure. All these selections are to become the decisive factors to the style characteristics.Style, on the other hand, is considered as motivated prominence, which is attributable to language functions and context. Triggered under a specific situation, motivated prominences are foregrounded by way of deflection or incongruity so as to possess its stylistic value. The deflection strategy conforms to and intensifies norm form, whereas, the incongruity strategy violates the norm form, and these two strategies are realized on levels of a text, phonological, graphonological, and semantic. Unlike other genre, English poetry is filled with motivated prominence.Under this framework, Tennyson's poem The Eagle is explored from the two perspectives as 'meaning potential' and 'motivated prominence'. In the process of this function-based case study, firstly, the exploration is made on situational context of this poem, as poetry is a different genre which is free from contextual constraints, but meanwhile in which the poet could create context by implication or the imaginative use of language, therefore a poem quite often involves two levels or multi-levels of register, in this case the correspondent register variables change as well, which has an influence on meaning potential. Secondly, we have analyzed the language structure of The Eagle from aspects of transitivity, theme, mood and modality to unfold on semantic plane the meaning potential and the poet's intention. Finally, we have studied the lexica-grammatical features of The Eagle, to illustrate that the meaning-potential in this poem downward determines the systemic selections of language patterns and results in the stylistic prominence on phonological and graphonological levels. It is the stylistic prominence that reinforces the theme of The Eagle and depicts a symbolic image of the eagle who swirls in heaven but downthrusts into the sea in order to memorize his dearest friend who passed in prime.The function-based case study of The Eagle presents that functional theory provides us with a comparatively comprehensive framework for English poetry appreciation in terms of meaning potential and motivated prominence. Under this framework, the interpretation of English poetry becomes objective without personal judgment on subjective stands.