A Transitivity Approach To The Stylistic Analysis Of The Old Man And The Sea

Systemic-Functional Grammar (SFG) is deep-going in stylistic study as it goes beyond language itself and deals with the social environment of language and considers language system a meaning potential. It is both highly theoretical and highly practical, so there appears the quick development of functional stylistics.With the text serving as information, the content of the novel corresponds to ideational function which is realized by transitivity. This paper intends to render insight into the internal structure of Hemingway's world-famous novel The Old Man and the Sea from a discourse-stylistic, specifically, the transitivity, perspective, hoping to prove that the theories of SFG can be used to analyze literary works.This thesis attempts to place context of situation and modified transitivity into stylistic analysis and aims to offer a new insight into the novel from the functional perspective. It first gives a situational description of the novel and collects the data accordingly,and then analyzes the materiality of the samples in detail. By comparing the four parts, it works out the plot and double levels of literary themes of the novel.Since the novel is analyzed from the perspective of transitivity, a system of ideational function of the meta-functions of SFG, there must be some kinds of limitation about the analysis. However, the approach further confirms that systemic functional linguistic analysis is a very powerful tool in analyzing literary stylistics and it can also provide us with a new perspective to appreciate and evaluate literary works.