再别康桥文体分析田兵.DOC

A Stylistic Analysis of 再别康桥 1. Introduction In this paper I attempt to make a literary stylistic analysis on a poem--再别康桥, by Xu Zhimo, a representative poet of the 1930s in China. The analysis will be carried out following mainly the model proposed by G.Leech (1965), which has been widely employed in analyzing English literary works, such as poem and fictions. The model is proved successful since it bases an analysis on linguistic evidence which could lend more objectivity to the analysis. When the analysis is completed, we will then turn to a model proposed by a Chinese scholar, 王国维，and approach the poem from a different perspective. Finally we will compare the strengths and weaknesses of the two models to see which one is more advantageous for the appreciation of a Chinese poem. 2. The linguistic underpinnings of Leech’s model Leech’s model is directly based on the systemic-functional approach to the study of language. In his model, the aim of the analysis is to make “statements of meaning.” Then, what is meaning? The systemic-functional approach to meaning was first developed by J. R. Firth and subsequently more fully elaborated by M. Halliday. Firth affirms that meaning consists of “situational relations in a context of situation and in that kind of language which disturbs the air and other people’s ears, as modes of behavior in relation to other elements in the context of situation”(1957:19). Meaning is “the whole complex of functions which a linguistic form may have”(1957:33). It is present at all levels in language, not just in complete sentences and longer stretches of discourse. Even the quality of the voice is part of meaning in what he terms the “phonetic mode”. Words themselves vary in meaning without limit, to the extent that “each word when used in a new context is a new word”(1967:190). What Firth sets out to attain is a study of language as a feature of the total human environment where every piece of language forms an integral part o