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（甘肅民族师范学院 甘肃 747000）
【摘要】 《比尔的女儿》是一篇散文，该文章的措词、句式、修辞和语篇结构都值得人们去欣赏和分析，读者能够从它朴实简约的语言和自然流畅的写作手法欣赏到它的文体美，同时也被伟大的父爱所深深感动。
【关键词】 《比尔的女儿》;词汇;特色
Stylistic Analysis on “Bill’s Little Girl”: Lexical Features
Qu Wen
【Abstract】 “Bill’s Little Girl” is a prose. This article analysis’s its stylistic features of language in the aspects of lexical. While analysis, we can further appreciate its plain and simple language, its natural and fluent manner of writing and its complete discourse, meanwhile we can deeply understand that love is great, father’s love is great.
【Key words】“Bill’s Little Girl”, lexical, feature
【中图分类号】G623.31【文献标识码】B 【文章编号】1001-4128（2011）05-0013-02
1 An Introduction to “Bill’s Little Girl”
Father’s love is great. Bill was only thirty and his daughter was only four when his wife died. He had a carpenter shop in the yard of his house, so he thought that he could keep house for Minna and himself. All day while he worked in his shop, she played in the yard. Minna was six when Bill fell ill. The doctor had told him that he would be dead in six months. When she came to kiss him that night, he made an excuse, for he must never kiss her. The other doctor made him sure. He tried to think what to do. He wished that he could hear of somebody who would understand her. And he had only six months. And he knew that he had to decide. One whole night he thought. Then he advertised in a newspaper.
“A man with a few months to live would like nice people to adopt his little girl, six, blue eyes, curls. References required”
2 A Brief Survey of Literary Stylistics
2.1 The definition of Style
Stylistics, the study of style, more explicitly, the study of the use of language in literature is a discipline mediating between linguistics and literary criticism.“It’s generally supposed that the literature cannot be examined in any depth apart from the language, any more than the language can be studied apart from the literature”（Leech, 1969:1）. This involves different layers or dimensions of the text. Which dimension or dimensions are brought under focus in one particular analysis depends on factors such as the linguistic models used, the stylistic properties, or the analyst’s own interest.
2.2Methods Used in Analysis of Literary Style
To find out what is distinctive about the style of a certain corpus or text, we work out the frequencies of the feature of a certain corpus or text it contains and then measure these figures against equivalent figures which are then to be measured in terms of deviations. Modern linguists try to study the language through a scientific and objective description of language, then put forward some hypothesis or generalization, use language evidence to prove its validity. The process seems to be Description-Interpretation-Evaluation.
3 A Stylistic Analysis of “Bill’s Little Girl”: Lexical sets
3.1 A General Survey of “Bill’s Little Girl”
In the prose style of “Bill’s Little Girl”, the author uses the oldest and shortest words, the simplest constructions, but gives them a new value ——as if English were a strange language that he had studied or invented for himself and was trying to write in its original purity. Meaning beneath a few, spare words signals a profound inner life of which the reader has only a mere glimpse.
3.2 Features of lexical sets
Readers will retain a deep impression of a writer, if his language is full of individual characteristics.These characteristics are usually successfully obtained by the NORM that the author achieved consciously or unconsciously in the decision of lexical sets, pacification, grammar, tenor field, mode of discourse, dialects, etc. The FRENQLTENCY of the above mentioned factors systematically establishes the author’s characteristic patterns of language.
Careful studies have found that “Bill’s Little Girl” follows the following patterns of language: （a） among word choices, monosyllables or two syllables are more often used than those of polysyllables; （b） less adjectives and adverbials have been used. The following studies will be carried out in lexical unit.
3.2.1 Words
The very first sentence of the article announces itself: “Bill was thirty when his wife died and little Minna was four”. The words are plain, there are no elaborate formations and rhetoric words, simple everyday English words dominate all the article, plain and simple style is shown through telling a simple story.
3.2.1.1 Frequently used monosyllable words
Every kind of words has different functions, and it will appear in certain frequency. Most monosyllable words belong to everyday spoken English, they are more easily understood compared with written English, while relaxed reading, great love is shown to readers. There are 590 words in all, 90 percent of which are monosyllable words. It’s easy to see that the author tries to use some specific, familiar words to tell a moving story. Let’s look at these sentences: “Bill was thirty when his wife died and little Minna was four. Bill’s carpenter shop was in the yard of his house, so he thought that he could keep house for Minna and himself. All day while he worked in his shop, she played in the yard, and when he had to be absent for a few hours, the woman next door looked after her.” Though there are no rhetoric words, it draws us a picture of father and daughter’s everyday life, full of warm and love.
3.2.1.2 Few Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs could hardly be found in this article, and those adjectives that could be found are vague, flat and static in nature. Thumbing through this article, only such rare adjectives could jump into our eye, as “little”, “long”, “nice”, and “big”. These adjectives are too broad in meaning, both descriptive and commentative that their exact definitions are very hard to decide.
Henry James, a famous American writer, once said, “Adjectives are the sugar of Literature and adverbs the salt.” In this article only the bones are shown to readers while the flesh has been detracted. The author just presents the event or action as it was to readers. See: “When she came to kiss him that night, he made an excuse, for he must never kiss her now. He looked in her eyes and said: “Minna’s a big girl now, she doesn’t want father to kiss her.” But her lip curled and she turned away sadly, so that next day Bill went to another doctor to make sure. The other doctor made him sure.” There is only one adjective in this paragraph, big. It shows the father doesn’t want his little daughter to suffer from loving his father after his death though he is sure his daughter needs it very much. He wants his daughter to be used to live without him.
3.2.1.3 the use of personal pronoun
There are only four kinds of personal pronouns: he, she, you and I. “he” and “she” are used to narrate the story to refer the father and daughter, “you” and “I” also refer to them but are used in their dialogues: “I am a little girl tonight——kiss me,” she had said, but he shook his head. “a big girl, a big girl,” he told her. It is a face-to-face dialogue using “I”, but in When she came to kiss him that night, he made an excuse, for he must never kiss her now. He looked in her eyes and said: “Minna’s a big girl now, she doesn’t want father to kiss her.”, though it is a face-to face dialogue, “she” is used here. It shows the father tells his daughter just like another person says.
4 Conclusion
To sum up, “Bill’s Little Girl”, as a plain and beautiful prose, shows its language features in lexical, forming its unique style. It is well worth analysis. We can further appreciate its plain and simple language, its natural and fluent manner of writing and its complete discourse, meanwhile we can deeply understand that love is great, father’s love is great.
參考文献
［1］ Cook, G.Discourse and Literature.Oxford：Oxford University.Press.1994.
［2］ Cummings, M.&D.U. Simmons.The Language of Literature.Oxford：Pergamon Press.1983.
［3］ Crystal, D.&D.Davy.Investigating English style.London: Longman.1969.
［4］Halliday, M.A.K.Descriptive Linguistics in Literary Studies. Edinburgh：Edinburgh University Press.1964.
［5］Halliday, M.A.K.Language as Social Semiotic：The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning.London：Edward Arnold.1978.
［6］Leech, G.N.&M.Short.Style in Fiction.London：Longman.1981.
［7］任绍曾.语篇中语言型式化的意义［J］.外语教学与研究，2000（2）.
［8］ 申丹.叙述学与小说文体学研究［M］.北京：北京大学出版社，1998.
［9］王佐良，丁往道.英语文体学引论［M］，北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1987.
［10］性情人生，《英语学习》编辑部主编，外语教学与研究出版社，2002
【摘要】 《比尔的女儿》是一篇散文，该文章的措词、句式、修辞和语篇结构都值得人们去欣赏和分析，读者能够从它朴实简约的语言和自然流畅的写作手法欣赏到它的文体美，同时也被伟大的父爱所深深感动。
【关键词】 《比尔的女儿》;词汇;特色
Stylistic Analysis on “Bill’s Little Girl”: Lexical Features
Qu Wen
【Abstract】 “Bill’s Little Girl” is a prose. This article analysis’s its stylistic features of language in the aspects of lexical. While analysis, we can further appreciate its plain and simple language, its natural and fluent manner of writing and its complete discourse, meanwhile we can deeply understand that love is great, father’s love is great.
【Key words】“Bill’s Little Girl”, lexical, feature
【中图分类号】G623.31【文献标识码】B 【文章编号】1001-4128（2011）05-0013-02
1 An Introduction to “Bill’s Little Girl”
Father’s love is great. Bill was only thirty and his daughter was only four when his wife died. He had a carpenter shop in the yard of his house, so he thought that he could keep house for Minna and himself. All day while he worked in his shop, she played in the yard. Minna was six when Bill fell ill. The doctor had told him that he would be dead in six months. When she came to kiss him that night, he made an excuse, for he must never kiss her. The other doctor made him sure. He tried to think what to do. He wished that he could hear of somebody who would understand her. And he had only six months. And he knew that he had to decide. One whole night he thought. Then he advertised in a newspaper.
“A man with a few months to live would like nice people to adopt his little girl, six, blue eyes, curls. References required”
2 A Brief Survey of Literary Stylistics
2.1 The definition of Style
Stylistics, the study of style, more explicitly, the study of the use of language in literature is a discipline mediating between linguistics and literary criticism.“It’s generally supposed that the literature cannot be examined in any depth apart from the language, any more than the language can be studied apart from the literature”（Leech, 1969:1）. This involves different layers or dimensions of the text. Which dimension or dimensions are brought under focus in one particular analysis depends on factors such as the linguistic models used, the stylistic properties, or the analyst’s own interest.
2.2Methods Used in Analysis of Literary Style
To find out what is distinctive about the style of a certain corpus or text, we work out the frequencies of the feature of a certain corpus or text it contains and then measure these figures against equivalent figures which are then to be measured in terms of deviations. Modern linguists try to study the language through a scientific and objective description of language, then put forward some hypothesis or generalization, use language evidence to prove its validity. The process seems to be Description-Interpretation-Evaluation.
3 A Stylistic Analysis of “Bill’s Little Girl”: Lexical sets
3.1 A General Survey of “Bill’s Little Girl”
In the prose style of “Bill’s Little Girl”, the author uses the oldest and shortest words, the simplest constructions, but gives them a new value ——as if English were a strange language that he had studied or invented for himself and was trying to write in its original purity. Meaning beneath a few, spare words signals a profound inner life of which the reader has only a mere glimpse.
3.2 Features of lexical sets
Readers will retain a deep impression of a writer, if his language is full of individual characteristics.These characteristics are usually successfully obtained by the NORM that the author achieved consciously or unconsciously in the decision of lexical sets, pacification, grammar, tenor field, mode of discourse, dialects, etc. The FRENQLTENCY of the above mentioned factors systematically establishes the author’s characteristic patterns of language.
Careful studies have found that “Bill’s Little Girl” follows the following patterns of language: （a） among word choices, monosyllables or two syllables are more often used than those of polysyllables; （b） less adjectives and adverbials have been used. The following studies will be carried out in lexical unit.
3.2.1 Words
The very first sentence of the article announces itself: “Bill was thirty when his wife died and little Minna was four”. The words are plain, there are no elaborate formations and rhetoric words, simple everyday English words dominate all the article, plain and simple style is shown through telling a simple story.
3.2.1.1 Frequently used monosyllable words
Every kind of words has different functions, and it will appear in certain frequency. Most monosyllable words belong to everyday spoken English, they are more easily understood compared with written English, while relaxed reading, great love is shown to readers. There are 590 words in all, 90 percent of which are monosyllable words. It’s easy to see that the author tries to use some specific, familiar words to tell a moving story. Let’s look at these sentences: “Bill was thirty when his wife died and little Minna was four. Bill’s carpenter shop was in the yard of his house, so he thought that he could keep house for Minna and himself. All day while he worked in his shop, she played in the yard, and when he had to be absent for a few hours, the woman next door looked after her.” Though there are no rhetoric words, it draws us a picture of father and daughter’s everyday life, full of warm and love.
3.2.1.2 Few Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs could hardly be found in this article, and those adjectives that could be found are vague, flat and static in nature. Thumbing through this article, only such rare adjectives could jump into our eye, as “little”, “long”, “nice”, and “big”. These adjectives are too broad in meaning, both descriptive and commentative that their exact definitions are very hard to decide.
Henry James, a famous American writer, once said, “Adjectives are the sugar of Literature and adverbs the salt.” In this article only the bones are shown to readers while the flesh has been detracted. The author just presents the event or action as it was to readers. See: “When she came to kiss him that night, he made an excuse, for he must never kiss her now. He looked in her eyes and said: “Minna’s a big girl now, she doesn’t want father to kiss her.” But her lip curled and she turned away sadly, so that next day Bill went to another doctor to make sure. The other doctor made him sure.” There is only one adjective in this paragraph, big. It shows the father doesn’t want his little daughter to suffer from loving his father after his death though he is sure his daughter needs it very much. He wants his daughter to be used to live without him.
3.2.1.3 the use of personal pronoun
There are only four kinds of personal pronouns: he, she, you and I. “he” and “she” are used to narrate the story to refer the father and daughter, “you” and “I” also refer to them but are used in their dialogues: “I am a little girl tonight——kiss me,” she had said, but he shook his head. “a big girl, a big girl,” he told her. It is a face-to-face dialogue using “I”, but in When she came to kiss him that night, he made an excuse, for he must never kiss her now. He looked in her eyes and said: “Minna’s a big girl now, she doesn’t want father to kiss her.”, though it is a face-to face dialogue, “she” is used here. It shows the father tells his daughter just like another person says.
4 Conclusion
To sum up, “Bill’s Little Girl”, as a plain and beautiful prose, shows its language features in lexical, forming its unique style. It is well worth analysis. We can further appreciate its plain and simple language, its natural and fluent manner of writing and its complete discourse, meanwhile we can deeply understand that love is great, father’s love is great.
參考文献
［1］ Cook, G.Discourse and Literature.Oxford：Oxford University.Press.1994.
［2］ Cummings, M.&D.U. Simmons.The Language of Literature.Oxford：Pergamon Press.1983.
［3］ Crystal, D.&D.Davy.Investigating English style.London: Longman.1969.
［4］Halliday, M.A.K.Descriptive Linguistics in Literary Studies. Edinburgh：Edinburgh University Press.1964.
［5］Halliday, M.A.K.Language as Social Semiotic：The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning.London：Edward Arnold.1978.
［6］Leech, G.N.&M.Short.Style in Fiction.London：Longman.1981.
［7］任绍曾.语篇中语言型式化的意义［J］.外语教学与研究，2000（2）.
［8］ 申丹.叙述学与小说文体学研究［M］.北京：北京大学出版社，1998.
［9］王佐良，丁往道.英语文体学引论［M］，北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1987.
［10］性情人生，《英语学习》编辑部主编，外语教学与研究出版社，2002