On Pragmastylistic Features Of Filmic Text American Beauty

The film, as a channel of mass media, provides a genre of discourse that roots in the society and reflects social reality. It is presented to the audience in expectation of offering both artistic appreciation and recording of social trends. The western academia has long history in conducting linguistic researches on filmic texts from the1960s.In the present thesis, the stylistic and pragmatic features of the filmic text American Beauty are analyzed under the framework of pragmastylistic method. As the integration of stylislies and pragmatics, this method is capable of supporting an overall study on texts from multi-levels.Aiming to improve readers’understanding on the film and to prove the function of pragmastylistics in exploring the plot development, characters of different figures and their interpersonal relationships, the present thesis analyzes this filmic text from both dynamic and static levels. And here are the major findings:the development of plot and changes of interpersonal relationships are reflected through the observance and violation of Cooperative Principle as well as Politeness Principle; the pragmaslylistic method is capable of revealing the character of different figures through analyzing their speech styles; and the combination of the above two aspects contributes to the theme of the film.In chapter one, the research background, significance and structure of this paper are briefly introduced. Chapter two is literature review of the past researches on pragmatics, stylistics and pragmastylislics at home and abroad. The mair idea of American Beauty and the major pragmatic methods are presented in chapter three. Chapter four and chapter live are concerned with the application of pragmastylistics to the case study from dynamic and siatic levels respectively. Dialogues selected from American Beauty are analyzed with Cooperative Principle, Politeness Principle and Speech Act Theory. Based on CP, four violations of maxims are elaborated. Finally, chapter six concludes research findings from chapter four and five, introduces limitations of the present thesis and proposes suggestions for future relevant researches.