A Study On A House For Mr. Biswas From The Perspective Of Engagement In Appraisal Theory

The novel A House for Mr. Biswas published in1961is considered themasterpiece of V. S. Naipaul. Since its publication, it has drawn the attention ofscholars both abroad and in China. Most of the previous studies on the novel arecarried out from the perspective of traditional literary criticism for the interpretationof its thematic meaning while few of them pay attention to the interpersonal aspectof this novel. Appraisal Theory, as a further development of the study oninterpersonal meaning in the field of Systemic-Functional Linguistics, is a newlexical-grammatical framework that focuses on all kinds of negotiable attitudes indifferent discourses. Engagement, one of the three subsystems of Appraisal Theory,focuses on those locutions that provide the means for the authorial voice to positionitself, and hence to engage with the other voices and alternative positions.The present thesis aims at studying the engagement resources in A House forMr. Biswas by investigating their distributions and frequencies, describing theirmajor features, and also exploring their construction of interpersonal meaningsbetween the writer, the characters and putative readers. The major research findingsfollowing the detailed analyses are as follows: all kinds of engagement resources areemployed by the writer Naipaul, yet with uneven occurrences. With the percentageof52.86%, the dialogic contraction resources slightly outnumber the expansionresources which account for47.14%. To be more specific, the contractingsubcategory Disclaim (50.09%) is the most salient feature in this novel, theexpanding subcategory Attribute (31.71%) the second, followed by Entertain(15.43%) for dialogic expansion, and Proclaim (2.17%) for dialogic contraction isthe least used feature in the work. Attribution resources are widely employed by thewriter to give up his dominant role and maintain an equal status with the leadingcharacter. The withdrawal of the writer makes readers achieve a sense of objectivityon this work, by which Naipaul manages to establish his stance as an indifferentbystander. As for Entertain, the writer allows for characters’ subjective angle of view as well as the perspective of a dominating omniscient narrator, hence obtaining anequal status with the characters. In terms of the most frequently used resourceDisclaim, large amounts of negation and counter-expectation are employed by thewriter for the alignment of readers into his position that Mr. Biswas is a nonentityand exiler who cannot live a satisfying life in that colonial Trinidad and also to makethe plot more dramatic and appealing to readers. Proclaim resources are scarcelyused by the writer for the purpose of being objective as a bystander and leavingspace for readers’ own evaluation.