Three Different Life Stages, Three Different Linguistic Styles

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel of Irish modernist James Joyce, which consists of various styles to match with the growth of the hero Stephen Dedalus. From baby-talk as its beginning and diaries as its ending, stylistic variation plays a critical role in this novel and is hence the foregrounded feature of it. However, despite the fact that some critics abroad and in China notice such a feature, they do not analyze or study it specially. Thus this thesis is to expound it through stylistic analysis.Style in this thesis is defined as foregrounding, referring to incongruity in quality and deflection in quantity of language. Based on it, this thesis is to objectively describe, precisely interpret and reasonably evaluate those foregrounded linguistic features of Stephen at three different life stages from the levels of phonology, lexis and grammar in order to conclude his three linguistic styles: early informal style, transitional style and formal style.This thesis is composed of seven chapters. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction of Joyce and A Portrait. Chapter 2 reviews criticism abroad and in China, especially some critical topics concerning it. Chapter 3 introduces the theoretical foundation, including style, foregrounding, formality, stylistic variation and stylistic analysis. Chapter 4 illustrates Stephen's early informal style by analyzing his favorite clichés and slang, and his preference for coordinators, interrogatives and similes, etc. Chapter 5 illustrates his transitional style through analysis of his foregrounded linguistic features like alliteration, various lexical fields and different figures of speech, etc. Chapter 6 illustrates his formal style through analysis of his preference for complex lexis of Latin or Greek origin, symbolism and long complex sentences, etc. Chapter 7 is the conclusion of this thesis including summary of it, and significance and some limitations of this study.Through the study, this thesis finally concludes that Joyce, by intentionally making Stephen's linguistic features at three different stages foregrounded, naturally represents his three styles during the process of growth, which hence vividly depicts a portrait of a growing Irish young artist and thus sublimes its theme. Besides, the approach of applying stylistic analysis to literary appreciation helps readers better understand A Portrait and also sets a good example for them to appreciate Joyce's other canons.