Functional Stylistic Analysis On Lady Chatterley's Lover

Stylistics studies the language of literary works, especially those linguistic phenomena chosen by authors for achieving the emergence and strengthening on thematic significance and aesthetic effect. The method of Stylistics is to use the linguistic models as an analytical tool to interpret the text. Functional Stylistics which is based on Halliday's Functional Grammar is one of the most influential schools of literary Stylistics.As early as 1964, Halliday analyzed Yeats W. B. Yeats' poetry Lida and the Swan from two aspects—three functions of the definite article and verbal nominalization phenomena. And he analyzed three fragments of the novels written by J. Braine, D. Thomas and A. Wilson from noun phrase patterns, vocabulary and cohesion aspects. By 2000, Halliday studied in detail the characteristics of the narrative structure in foreign literary works, such as The Armies of the Night by N, Mailer and The Luncheon by Somerset Maugham. Such studies can help readers aware the author's creative intent and the language structures scientifically, especially the close relations between the recurring structures and character shaping. So the readers can understand the semantic connotation of language and the author's way of thinking which are usually ignored.According to Systemic-Functional Grammar,language is a meaning potential and representing meaning in lexico-grammatical form, a speaker or an author makes his choice among the three metafunctions—ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function, which exist in any context of situation. Functional stylists in the early stage focused on the study of one of the three metafunctions of language, for example, the study of the author's choice on the transitivity system, etc. In recent years, more functional stylists have paid more attention to make stylistic analysis on the three levels (Shen Dan, 2001).In this thesis, the writer test and verify the applicability of Halliday's functional Stylistics by applying the three metafunctions to the analysis of Lady Chatterley's Lover.Firstly, the writer applies the transitivity analysis in interpreting the characterization in the novel;Secondly the writer applies the mood and modality analysis in interpreting how interpersonal function works in discourse;Thirdly, the writer applies the thematic analysis in interpreting the organization of the novel.Finally,the writer will evaluate the novel by combining the results of the analysis and the three variables of context to show the theme and style of the novel.Through the analysis of the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover by employing Halliday's Functional theory,this thesis further proofs that functional Stylistics is a brand new and scientific theory and method for stylistic analysis. It can provide us a new perspective to appreciate and evaluate literary works.