The Research For English Epitaphs From The Perspective Of Stylistics

Epitaphs are last words inscribed on tombstones which were left by the dead themselves or by descendents to record and commemorate the departed. Most of the texts of English epitaphs are short and refined, and they are written either by the departed themselves before their death or by others after their death. Epitaphs in the paper are chosen from a professional website mainly for collecting English epitaphs, in which people can find epitaphs of both famous and ordinary people to make sure the authority of English epitaphs.Till now, the researches for English epitaphs at home and abroad from the perspective of stylistics are rare. Most of the researches are based on epitaphs themselves to elaborate the history of a certain time or just analyze emotions of epitaph writers, or probe into people’s attitudes toward death.Therefore, by applying theories of stylistics, this paper will study English epitaphs from two aspects. First of all, in terms of writing style, a large majority of English epitaphs is written in verse or prose and they are terse and concise, which aims at expressing strong emotions to the deceased, comforting the living with optimistic attitudes, educating descendents with much philosophy, etc. That is, different styles of English epitaphs are used to embody different emotions. In terms of linguistics, English epitaphs possess mixed characteristics of poetry and prose, that is, traditional features of poetry like rhymes and rhythms and modern features of prose like rhetoric devices, ellipsis and repetition are contained in English epitaphs. Therefore, the study of English epitaphs is of great significance to both literature and linguistics.This research helps people to improve the ability of appreciating English epitaphs through analyzing the relationship between styles and meanings in them, which contributes to a fully understanding and better grasp of meanings of epitaph composers. On the other hand, linguistic analyses from different levels would make people be familiar with linguistic features of English epitaphs and be aware of different death culture of western nations, thus strengthen the culture identity of western epitaphs.