A Functional Stylistic Approach To A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man

James Joyce (1882—1941) is one of the most influential novelists in the history of world literature. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (A Portrait hereafter), as his first important novel, is abundant in meaning that can never be fully explained. Although all those countless interpretations and comments in existence do lead to better understandings of this novel, none of them has actually exhausted its meaning. In another sense, the existence of such interpretations can also assure readers of the enormous possibilities and great potentials to further understand A Portrait.Experiments and innovations on language in Joyce's works compose an important part of his literary achievements. Joyce's own idea about form as an important medium to express meaning is clearly revealed in A Portrait. Thus the study of linguistic features on the part of stylistics to gain access to the style of literary works can shed much light on the interpretation of this novel. Functional stylistics represented by Halliday aims to analyze the formal state of language, studying both how linguistic practice is involved in its relationship with text and how social ideology finds its expression in the textual structure of literary works. This thesis attempts to make a systematic analysis of Joyce's autobiographical novel A Portrait by applying the three metafunctions of functional stylistics to conveying the theme of growth in the novel and discuss the relationship between its style and theme.This thesis falls into six chapters.Chapter One gives a brief introduction to the study and the thesis proper. It consists of three major aspects: James Joyce's life and his literary career, the theme of A Portrait as well as the aim and objectives of this thesis.Chapter Two makes a literature review of the researches at home and abroad on A Portrait, and establishes a theoretical basis of functional stylistics for this thesis.Chapter Three makes a study of the psychological development of the protagonist Stephen in his childhood, adolescence and manhood from two aspects: family and religion. It is conducted from the perspective of transitivity system in terms of the ideational function. The analysis of the language structure can not only expose the conflicts between Stephen and other characters, but also reveal the process of how Stephen escapes from the authorities and confinement of his father and his religious belief after he sees through their nature.Chapter Four analyzes the author's attitude towards the main characters and significant events with the interpersonal function, in which interpersonal comment system is used to explore Stephen's painful tortuous psychological developments. Modality, another aspect of interpersonal function, is also analyzed to depict the personalities of the main characters and the relationships among them.Chapter Five discusses how micro-repetition and macro-repetition are powerfully employed to help reveal the theme of growth and make the whole novel coherent. It is demonstrated from the perspective of textual function, with particular reference to the technique of repetition. Both of them contribute to the organization the text and help readers to dig up the deep meanings of the text.Chapter Six concludes the thesis and points out that functional stylistics can reveal the theme of the text by analyzing the language structure. It also makes clear the limitations of the research and offers suggestions for further study.This thesis is only a tentative approach to understanding A Portrait from a functional stylistic perspective. This analysis expects to further demonstrate that functional stylistics is an effective way in analyzing the theme of literary works. It can also display the relationship between the theme and style, and provide objective evidence, enabling readers to understand and appreciate the significance and artistic value of literary works better.