Evaluation In The Classical Chinese Short Story "Ye Sheng"-From The Perspective Of Engagement

This thesis is located within the paradigm of SFG. Specifically, it studies the evaluation in the classical Chinese short story"Ye Sheng"from the perspective of ENGAGEMENT.Evaluation in this study covers such terms as interpersonal meaning, attitude, stance, etc. It is the central concern, or rather, the research subject of the present study.ENGAGEMENT, i.e. the theoretical framework of the study, is originally a component of APPRAISAL which is the latest theory in SFG systemically treating interpersonal meanings. ENGAGEMENT is traditionally regarded as the means indicating the sources of evaluation and aligning the readers. However, the present thesis argues that ENGAGEMENT on its own reveal evaluative meanings, especially those covert ones concerning social ideologies and identities. In other words, the ultimate aim of this thesis is to reveal the evaluative meanings in the classical Chinese short story via ENGAGEMENT. It also aims to enrich the linguistic components of the ENGAGEMENT system. Moreover, at the level of literary appreciation, it hopes to deepen the understanding and appreciation of this literary work.The text analyzed in this study is the classical Chinese short story"Ye Sheng". That is to say, the linguistic data in this study are the engagement resources in this short story. As to research methodology, this study is primarily a qualitative inquiry via describing and analyzing engagement resources mainly under the guidance of ENGAGEMENT. It needs to be pointed out that the model of ENGAGEMENT is modified on the basis of White (2001). However, the quantitative method is also applied in the text analysis. Since in most cases, a single linguistic feature can not reveal anything. One has to count its frequency and compare the frequencies of different linguistic features.According to the modified model of ENGAGEMENT, we firstly examine the extra-vocalized engagement resources in"Ye Sheng"and then look into the intra-vocalized ones. Analyses find that most of the engagement resources are highly evaluative, which supports our argument that ENGAGEMENT has the evaluative functionality. Analyses also find that the evaluative meanings range from the characters'or the author's attitudes, feelings, social status, interpersonal distance to social ideologies. A noteworthy feature of those evaluative meanings is that most of them tend to be covert and subtle. As to the linguistic components of ENGAGEMENT, some new engagement resources, for example literary allusions, are found. Still another finding is that some existing engagement resources yield evaluative meanings if treated with special care. For example, in the inserted speech projection, seemingly distinctive voices are intertwined and thus reinforce the manipulation of the textual voice.All in all, this study contributes to the improvement of ENGAGEMENT in three aspects: 1) to verify its evaluative power; 2) to find out new engagement resources; 3) to modify its structure. Another contribution of this study is that it enriches the study of evaluation in general. Furthermore, it yields a refreshingly new interpretation of the classical Chinese short story"Ye Sheng"and deepens readers'understanding of the author Pu Songling and the society at his time. Finally, such an interpretation of a classical Chinese short story is very likely to enlighten literary appreciation and teaching in general.Despite all the encouraging findings through the analyses, it is necessary to point out that the present study has been the only work so far to apply ENGAGEMENT into a literary work in classical Chinese, as well as the only work that systemically reveals evaluation from the perspective of ENGAGEMENT. The too-limited evidence can in no way be called conclusive. Therefore, we call for more efforts in this area.