An Analysis Of Commentaries Of A History Of Britain:from The Perspective Of Functional Stylistics

The Information Age has witnessed the popularity and development of history documentaries, by virtue of which history could be perceived by people worldwide. Up to now, the study of history documentaries concentrates on the academic study within the framework of audio-visual communications including cultural inheritance, humanistic value as well as the realization of national consciousness, and the theoretical discussions and practical analysis in terms of filming techniques and methods. In the audio-visual system of a documentary, commentaries play a crucial role for the reason that they make up for the deficiency of visual images, integrate information, display explicit reference, and reveal emotion as well as demonstrate reality. In comparison with visual images, commentaries express the theme more accurately. Additionally, with commentaries, audiences could be aware of information displayed by visual images objectively and accurately. Accordingly, the significance of commentary is evidently reflected. Nevertheless, the fact that comparatively few researches on commentaries are conducted indicates that further and in-depth explorations are necessary. A History of Britain filmed by BBC vividly reconstructs the advancement of the Great Britain in terms of civilization from the Neolithic Age characterized by megalithic culture to glorious Elizabethan Age. Commentaries of that series are both rigorous and amusive, professional and vivid. Complementing visual images, it is considered as a typical example in history commentaries, and therefore has been widely acclaimed. By virtue of commentaries, explicit reference and accurate interpretation should be performed efficiently. Moreover, the consistency of the style of commentaries and the integral style of documentaries needs to be maintained. Thereafter, commentaries embrace unique stylistic features. A systemic analysis from the perspective of FS is essential in analyzing how the commentary is formed cohesively and how the implied meanings are expressed.Taking Systemic Functional Grammar (it is, hereafter, abbreviated to SFG) as the theoretical framework, the present thesis directs towards interpreting the realization of three metafunctions of commentaries of A History of Britain and summarizing foregrounded stylistic features by virtue of combining prominent features with the context.In the present thesis, the integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches together with quantities of illustrations ensures the relatively objective analysis.As to the realization of the textual function, lexical cohesion and reference are the main cohesive devices. Moreover, endophoric enjoys higher proportion than exophoric does, which makes the referential relation explicit and ensures the relatively better comprehension for audiences. However, the strong dependence of the commentary on visual images is the reason why a certain proportion of exophoric is used. In respect to thematic structure, the simple theme and unmarked theme are more widely used which ensures explicitness, formality and directness as well as the comparatively more profound comprehension of commentaries. Meanwhile, more unmarked themes enable audiences to perceive information faster.In terms of the interpersonal function, a large amount of formal expressions are used for the reason that the narrator and audiences are not intimate and they embrace the maximum social distance. Nonetheless, commentaries possess characteristics of spoken discourse, hence, informal words appear to a certain extent. Furthermore, a large proportion of declaratives signify that information offering is the main speech function. And very few interrogatives aim to cause suspense so as to catch the attention of audiences and evoke thoughts. Moreover, modality is expressed mainly by modal operators, most of which are medium-and-low-value modal verbs, which enhance the reliability and objectiveness.The ideational function is principally realized by material process, relational process as well as mental process, among which material process occurs with the highest frequency. The fact that material process is mainly adopted to objectively describe events and activities of characters reflects that commentaries center on depicting objective reality. Nevertheless, the adoption of relational process which involves the evaluation and judgment of characters and actual incidents makes the commentary subjective to a small extent. In addition, the reconstruction of characters and direct quotation in mental and verbal process enhance the credibility, ensuring more vivid description. Furthermore, past tense is the major type for the reason that history documentaries record and reconstruct the past. Moreover, a large amount of active voice assists audiences with the comprehension.The present thesis, for one thing, aims to provide reference for further analysis in commentaries of history documentaries. For another, major findings of this thesis are applicable in relevant fields including the interpretation and instruction of history documentaries as well as the composition and translation of commentary for both professionals and amateurs, and are expected to accelerate the advancement of history documentaries in China.