A Study Of Dialects In Gone With The Wind From The Functional Stylistic Perspective

Language is closely intertwined with the society and language meaning can not be properly interpreted without referring to the social context.Gone with the Wind,the only novel of the American novelist Margaret Mitchell,has always been a hot topic in literature research since it was published in 1936.Many studies about the novel focus on the ideology tendency,characters or personalities,versions and translations,feminism etc.However,this thesis is to study dialects in Gone with the Wind from the perspective of Functional Stylistics.Dialect is a language variety classified in terms of users.Not only is it the symbol of a nation,a social hierarchy and a social group,but also it affects a speaker's educational level,social identity and social status.Besides,dialect possesses the function of emotional identification.The thesis,from the perspective of Functional Stylistics,studies dialects(spoken by different social hierarchies)in the context of the plantation slavery of American South during the American Civil War,aiming to reveal the characteristics of different social hierarchies and their interpersonal relationship.The prominence phenomena in dialects of different social hierarchies are analyzed with the help of social-historical context,and language features of these hierarchies then are pointed out.Prominences in dialects of slave owners show their different social background,ranging from nobilities to "overnight rich".Prominences in dialects of White hired laborers reveal their poor education and reflect their deep-rooted hierarchy prejudice against Negro slaves as well.And prominences in dialects of "house niggers" reflect their nontraditional affection for their young slave owners and their sense of honor and superiority.Then the mood/modality in dialects is analyzed.The analysis of mood/modality of a conversation between a slave owner and a Negro slave discloses their nonconventional relationship under the slavery which was the basis for the plantation economy.Through analyzing mood/modality in a conversation between Negro slaves,the inner differentiation in the Negro slaves' hierarchy is also uncovered.Finally,a conclusion is drawn that under a certain social-historical context,the analysis of prominence features in dialects is conducive to grasping features of social hierarchies,and the mood/modality analysis of dialects contributes to the disclosure of relations among the social hierarchies.