On Sun Wukong's Discursive Power In Journey To The West From The Perspective Of CDA

Developing out of critical linguistics,critical discourse analysis is a branch of modern linguistics.Critical discourse analysis first appeared in the late 1970s,with the mission of exploring the ideology hidden in discourse which is in service of power from the perspective of linguistics,psychology and sociology,and with the aim of revealing the relationship among language,power and ideology.In the past four decades,linguists tended to pay more attention to the discourse of news and government reports in the research of critical discourse analysis,but pay less attention to literary discourse.Based on the analytical tool of Halliday's systemic functional grammar and the framework of Fairclough's three-dimensional model,the present study aims to analyze Sun Wukong's discursive power in The Journey to the West translated by Anthony C.Yu from the perspective of CDA,and tries to solve the following problems:1)How does Wukong produce and maintain his power in discourses with people in higher status?2)How does Wukong produce and maintain his power in discourses with people in equal status?3)How does Wukong produce and maintain his power in discourses with people in lower status?As a masterpiece of Chinese traditional novels concerning gods and spirits,The Journey to the West is endowed with prominent artistic value and ideological value.The author presents a fictional hierarchical world filled with gods and spirits and shapes many a vivid character,among which Wukong is the most distinctive one.Being the hero of this novel,he hates injustice like poison.Surviving in a class society,he has a passion for power and knows much about flattering and pandering.As a kind of social practice,language can be used to deliver power and ideology.According to the status of his listeners,Wukong's discourses are sorted into three types:discourses with people in higher status,discourses with people in equal status and discourses with people in lower status.People in higher status are those like his first master,the Patriarch,and the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea;people in equal status are Wuneng and Mr.Gao;monsters like the Black Bear and Zhu Ganglie are identified as people in lower status.Wukong's discourses with these characters are examined in the present study from aspects of transitivity,mood,and modality,to disclose the power and ideology hidden in his discourses.The result shows that Wukong strategically chooses his transitivity,mood,and modality according to his listeners.As to transitivity,in discourses with people more powerful,material process,mental processes and relational processes are involved to give information and show Wukong's submission and consideration to please the listener.In discourses with people in equal status,material processes are chosen to give information and suggestion,and relational processes are utilized to honor him and show his nobleness.In discourses with people in lower status,material processes play a part in giving orders and threats;yet relational processes function as a reminder of his dominant status and powerfulness.As to mood,in discourses with people more powerful,declarative clause is selected by Wukong to answer his listeners' questions and give information.Exclamatory clause is employed to show his blessing and flattery,and imperative clause is used to express his thoughts and suggestions.In discourses with people in equal status,declarative clause and imperative clause are mainly chosen.Sometimes,to get information he wants,interrogative clause is also used.In discourses with people in lower status,declarative clause is put behind an imperative clause,with the former to give orders and the latter to threaten others.As to modality,when Wukong has discourses with people in higher status,modality of median and low value is frequently used.Modality of high value is used to describe himself to express his certainty and volition to impress his counterparts,while modality of median value and modality of low value are used to deliver his submission and humbleness,which rarely appear in his discourses with people in equal status and lower status.In discourses with people in equal status,median modality and low modality are applied to indicate his nobleness and politeness,while in his discourses with people less powerful,modality is rarely used,for his attitude and opinion are rather definite.Only several median-value modal operators are chosen to indicate the chance and reward the listener might be given on the premise of obeying Wukong.The conclusion shows that the language and ideological theme can be better understood through the theory of CDA.Based on relevant theories of Halliday's systemic functional grammar,with the corpus of a traditional novel,the present study certifies that CDA is quite feasible to traditional Chinese literature in English version.