A Study Of Philosophical Discourse In Fiction From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Research on fictional discourse has gone through a long history.Traditionally speaking,the studies and of fictional discourse have mainly focused on conversational dialogue in fiction.Discourse analysis,as a method of language research,taking the language units larger than sentences as its object of study,explores the features of organization and use of language through the observation of the actual use of language.Meanwhile,discourse analysis aims to explain the restricting factors in the language from the perspective of communicative function of language and the language users' cognitive characteristics.According to Discourse Analysis by Gillian Brown and George Yule,discourse analysis takes utterance as the concrete units of language and tries to analyze the meaning of utterance in the context.And this kind of analysis is often beyond the sentence level due to the fact that language material is changing in dynamic process.Therefore,the analysis of conversational discourse is of great value in that it contributes to a better understanding of the figures in the original fiction and the emotional attitudes the author wants to convey to readers.From this point of view,the significance of discourse analysis is quite self-evident,and therefore discourse analysis has always been the concern of researchers.Linguists and researchers have analyzed the discourse in fictions from different theoretical perspectives and methods.For instance,many scholars have analyzed the fictional discourse from the perspective of relevance theory.Others adopt different angles to analyze the fictional discourse,including sociology and cognitive linguistics,and have achieved certain results.All of these studies have helped pave the way for subsequent discourse analysis.However,the analysis of the philosophical discourse in fiction is rarely involved.The means of investigation adopted in this thesis is case study.The philosophical discourse in the fiction The Unbearable Lightness of Being is regarded as the research object.From the perspective of adaptation theory,this thesis analyzes and explain philosophical discourse(commentary,argumentative discourse)at a deeper level,which aims to unveil how philosophical discourse in the fiction makes adaptation to the theme of the works and the ideas of the author in the framework of adaptation theory.The study has found that philosophical discourse is different from conversational discourse which is mainly about interpersonal dialogues.Philosophical discourse,involving the attitudes and emotional feeling of writer,plays an important role in fiction.It helps to set the keynote of fiction and contributes to the construction of the theme of fiction.Also,it represents specific social setting and values.On the other hand,the adaptation of philosophical discourse is a dynamic process,which involves variability,negotiability and adaptability of language in order to make adaptation to mental world,social world and physical world.And this thesis has noticed that the adaptation of philosophical discourse relies more on mental world.It is of great value to study and analyze the philosophical discourse in The Unbearable Lightness of Being from the perspective of adaptation theory.First of all,this is a new application of adaptation theory;Secondly,the study of philosophical discourse is a new attempt of discourse analysis,which can expand the perspectives of discourse analysis and provide a new reference for discourse analysis of literary texts.Finally,the research of philosophical discourse in The Unbearable Lightness of Being could help readers to deepen their understanding of the theme of the fiction and the philosophical attitudes the author wants to convey and increase the readability of the fiction.