A Study Of Muslim’s Funeral From The Perspective Of Pragmatics

Muslim’s Funeral’is an elegy of era and fate, which presents the impact of the traditional and modern times, the conflict between east and west, and the deviation from real identity and root culture. Still, every individual’s choice affects the times and people’s fate as well. Meanwhile, Muslim’s Funeral is also a lament of humanity, in which the stage of human tragedy is set up by the blind faith and the narrow mindedness as well as the obsession to desire.Based on previous researches, the thesis makes a five-dimensional analysis of the novel’s plot and its characters from a pragmatic view with assistance of conversation clues in the text.Firstly in Chapter One, the thesis finds the key to the development of characters’ tragedy through the analysis of conflicts in conversation structures. Therefore, the mutual relationship between characters is clarified and their personalities are revealed, thus making clear what transitional conversations are. Then Chapter Two makes an investigation of relevance and compliance. On one hand, it illustrates the coexistence of characters and the social cultural environment in the novel. On the other hand, the narrative context is manifested in conversations. In the following chapter, a discussion is made on lies and polite words that appear in characters’conversations. Under the guidance of the politeness principle and the conversation principle, conversational behaviors are analyzed, such as how Mrs Han violates the conversation principle to break up Han Tianxing and Rong Guifang, and what national features are reflected in characters’conversations. In Chapter Four, the author conducts a detailed pragmatic analysis of the conversational wording and its language efficacy so as to better understand connotations of characters’conversations and details in the novel. Finally, the pragmatic effect of rhetoric devices is expounded in Chapter Five. Rhetoric devices, as deviations from the normal language, possess affluent pragmatic values and their appropriate usage can facilitate the novel profoundly and depict characters vividly.