An Analysis Of The Indicators Of Metapragmatic Awareness In The Old Man And The Sea

Language using is a significant process that language users constantly makelinguistic choices. Before making a linguistic choice, language users, consciously orunconsciously, consider what language should be chosen to fulfill theircommunicative goals effectively from various perspectives according to diversecontexts and communicative purposes, and make the corresponding negotiation andregulation, then make appropriate lingustic choices. The process of choices-makingand adaptation of language are consciously or unconsciously under the control oflanguage users’ consciousness, which is known as metapragmatic awareness. All theprocess may reflect a certain degree of metapragmatic awareness. With variouscommunicative goals, the salience of language users’ metapragmatic awareness variesfrom situation to situation. Correspondingly, the linguistic traces, also known as theindicators of metapragmatic awareness, left on the pragmatic level are different.This thesis summarizes the domestic and foreign studies on metapragmaticawareness, finding that the previous studies are not comprehensive and systematic andmainly focus on the speech discourse, news discourse and advertisment. Few studiescombine the indicators of metapragmatic awareness with the appreciation of literaryworks. Grounded on the previous studies, the author tries to apply metapragmaticawareness to the analysis of literary works. Taking The Old Man and the Sea as a caseof study, which is the innovative point of this thesis. The novel was awarded theNobel Prize in Literature in1954, which established Hemingway’s position in theworld literary arena. The language of this fiction is distinctive and expressive. Thesimple language and concise style make a deep impression on readers. In the processof creation, Hemingway selected and designed the words and expressions elaboratelyand delibarately. The choice-making is under the guidance and monitoring ofmetapragmatic awareness, which reflects Hemingway’s cognition, ideology and worldview.Exploring the indicators of metapragmatic awareness in The Old Man and theSea, the author of the thesis illustrates metapragmatic awareness manifested in thefiction from the level of code, vocabulary and sentence respectively and explains thefeatures and pragmatic functions of these indicators in literature. This thesis is oftheoretical and practical significance. The study aims at analyzing the workingmechanism and manifestation of metapragmatic awareness in literary works, which proves that the application of metapragmatic awareness to literature is feasible andoffers a new perspective for scholars to interpret literary works. At the same time, thisthesis is the complement to the existing research on metapragmatic awareness andprovides the groundwork for the thorough understanding of the fiction.