Studies On Literature Language View Of J.Hillis Miller

Miller is a famous contemporary literature theoretician, and has a lot of great achievements in the fields of phenomenological criticism and deconstruction criticism. This thesis surveys the criticism theory proposed by Miller from the perspective of literary language, revealing Miller’s different views on literary language during different stages and the source of these views. During the twentieth century, the study of humanities pays more attention to language. Specific to literary theory, deconstruction criticism shows a unique attention to literary language. The core of Miller’s deconstruction criticism is related to the literary language. Only showing Miller’s views about literary language systematically, can we understand Miller’s shift from phenomenological criticism to deconstruction criticism and make clear his position and strategy during the stage of deconstruction criticism.The introduction of this paper mainly describes Miller’s lifetime, the current researches to Miller’s thoughts and the significance of this thesis. Miller has full academic experiences in the studies of literary criticism. His criticism has a distinct character of that age. The literary theories proposed by Miller are an indispensable part of the history of American literary criticism.The first chapter of this paper investigates Miller’s early thoughts and New Criticism’s views to literature language. Miller’s early studies began in the New Criticism’s prosperous period, and his university education was also influenced by the theoretical education of the New Criticism. The problem New Criticism concerned about and the way New Criticism used, are reflected in Miller’s deconstruction criticism, such as paying the same attention to the rhetoric of literature, and the method of rhetorical reading based on the method of close reading. However, Miller did not become a member of the New Criticism. His early thoughts also got influence from William Empson and Kenneth Burke, which shows the different research angle different from that of the New Criticism.The second chapter of this paper investigates Miller’s views on the literary language during the period of phenomenological criticism. Miller, at Johns Hopkins University, got important influence from Georges Pulet and took the way to phenomenological criticism. Phenomenological criticism surveys the reading behavior through a kind of phenomenological way, and believes that the reader’s consciousness can identify the author’s consciousness during reading so that the critics can reveal the author’s consciousness of the literary works through this kind of identity, especially the structure of author’s consciousness. Phenomenological criticism ignores the investigation to the literature language. On the one hand, phenomenological criticism takes the literary language as a media used to express the author’s consciousness. On the other hand, phenomenological criticism takes the language of the critics as the extension of text language. Miller reflected on some phenomenological criticism’s views about the consciousness and language, and then gradually turned to the deconstruction criticism.The third chapter of this paper focuses on Miller’s view about the literary language of deconstruction criticism. In the first quarter of this chapter, it points out that Miller’s deconstruction criticism emphasizes the rhetorical and performative properties of the language. Through the investigation to the source of these two concepts, this quarter shows Miller’s thoughts to the nature of language. Because language has the rhetorical and performative properties, all the languages are literary language. The second quarter illustrates Miller’s investigation to prosopopoeia and catachreses. Miller gave a new understanding of the meaning and effect of the specific rhetorics basing on his understanding to the rhetorical and performative properties. Prosopopoeia and catachreses not only show that the rhetoric has the function of tropes, but also has the performative effect. Therefore, they can express the content of tropes.The forth chapter based on the third chapter talks about Miller’s development of the views about the literature language of deconstruction criticism. Miller talked about the problems about ethics and others in literature theory based on his literature language views on deconstruction criticism. Miller paid much attention to the Ethical problem in literature. Through this question Miller not only dismissed that deconstruction was accused as nihilistic, but also tried to establish a kind of ethical position of deconstruction criticism. Miller showed that the ethical requirements in literature mostly lay in the inherent requirements of literary language’s rhetorical and performative properties. The rhetoric property of the literary language made us have different understanding of the same things in literature, and the performative property of the literature language made us be responsible for what we understand. He thought the problem of others in literature were the problems of the referential object. What literary language paid to refer to the others. Others as an unknown and the unknowable being can be shown only through the rhetorical and performative properties of the literature language.The conclusion part tries to evaluate Miller’s literary language concepts and point out the insufficiency. The attention to literary language shows that Miller has been paying much attention to the internal research of literature, and his literature language views on deconstruction criticism have become a systematic overall. However, Miller’s literary language concept also has some insufficiencies, such as the theoretical presumption of the language building of the world, ignorance to conventional language and specific context of literature language, and the weakness in dealing with specific ethical problems.