An Analysis Of The Main Female Characters In The Thorn Birds From The Perspective Of Functional Stylistics

Based on Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar which considers language as ameaning potential and deals with the social environment of language, functional stylistics isplaying a more and more important role in modern stylistic analysis. But the field of concernof functional linguistics is wider than other linguistic theories, this is mainly becausefunctional linguistic theory emphasizes a great deal on the study of the relationship betweenlinguistic system and the outside world. And the three metafunctions, i.e. the ideationalfunction, the interpersonal function and the textual function are the core of Halliday’sfunctional stylistics.The Thorn Birds is a famous novel written by the famous female Australian writerColleen McCullough. Since its publication, a great number of linguists both at home andabroad have made literal critical analysis on the story from different angles. But there is nothorough and complete analysis of its characters from functional stylistics. Therefore, theanalysis of the personalities of the main female characters from the perspective of functionalstylistics is necessary.This thesis begins with a generalization of the basic theories of stylistics and functionalstylistics. By applying two of Halliday’s three metafunctions, the author makes a tentativeanalysis of the personalities of the main female characters in The Thorn Birds. The analysis ismade from the perspective of transitivity system, mood and modality system. With thetransitivity analysis and mood and modality analysis of these three protagonists, it can be seenthat Fiona is characterized by her silence and indifference, Meggie by her courage anddetermination, and Justine by her independence and rebellion. Furthermore, during ourprocess of analyzing the personalities of the characters, we can also have a better understanding of the theme of this novel from a totally different and new angle: the pursuit oflove and the struggle against fate.The study of this novel bears three aims. Firstly, it is to analyze the personalities of thethree main female characters. Secondly, this study is to imply the modal of systemic-functional stylistics to the analysis of the literary language, and the great number of analysisin the thesis strongly prove that systemic-functional stylistics is a useful tool to explainliterary works. The last one is that the analysis of the personalities of the characters using themodel of systemic-functional stylistics provides a new way to better understand andappreciate this great work.