The Study Of The Pigman

The Pigman, authorized by Paul Zindel who is an American writer and a Pulitzer Prizewinner, is one of the outstanding works for teenagers. The Pigman tells a story about two highschool student, John and Lorraine, who recall the days they spent with a kind but lonely oldman——Mr. Pignatti. After experiencing some events about life and death, they begin togrow more mature. Therefore, the theme of the novel is unveiled——growth needs to pay alot. Since published in1968, The Pigman had received recognition from literature worldmany times. And it had been examined by some Chinese from perspective of traditionalliterary criticism and stylistics, but being neglected characteristics of language itself. In thisthesis, the selected dialogues are analyzed in the theory of appraisal. Thus, it can be seen thathow the author deals with growing–up of the leading character John by using variouslanguage methods.The appraisal theory is an extension to the interpersonal meaning in Halliday’s SFL,which developed by Martin in1990s. It mainly resolved in the relationship among texts orspeaker’s expression, negotiation and naturalized subjects, and language recourses onideology. It consists of three sub-systems, i.e., attitude, engagement, graduation, which are theperspective of this thesis.The leading character’s growth journey is up to the water by the analysis of the appraisalresources in discourse. The thesis not only profoundly betters the understanding of the novel’stheme and language characteristics, but further proves the application and practicality of theappraisal theory in literature analysis and offers a new perspective to appreciate literatureworks.