A Functional Stylistic Analysis Of Rip Van Winkle

Stylistics is a discipline that studies the styles of text As the most important component of stylistics, functional stylistics is based on Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar. It considers language as a meaning potential and analyzes language from social contexts or contexts beyond texts. In this way the analysis of language will be comprehensive based on the theories of Systemic-Functional Grammar. The core of Halliday’s functional stylistics is to analyze language from three metafunctions:ideational, interpersonal and textual functions. This analytical method plays an important role in modern stylistics.Rip Van Winkle is an important work of Washington Irving, the father of American literature. This short story has been studied by many scholars home and abroad from the perspective of literary criticism. But few analyses are from the perspective of linguistics. The present study based on the theories of Functional Grammar analyzes the stylistic features of Washington Irving’s short story Rip Van Winkle. It aims to find out the thematic meaning of the story and the unique writing style of the author. It also hopes to confirm the applicability and usefulness of functional linguistics in the analysis of literary works.This thesis first gives a general introduction to stylistics and functional stylistics and then presents Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar, which is the theoretical framework of this study. At last the author analyzes the stylistic features in the short story Rip Van Winkle by employing language’s three metafunctions. The author analyzes the ideational function of the story from the perspective of transitivity, the interpersonal function from the perspective of mood and modality system and the textual function from the perspective of thematic system and cohesion system.After the analysis, the present study has the following results:1. Through the analysis of ideational function, we know that material process is most frequently used in the story and it is more than the other processes. The use of material process reveals the personality of Rip. Relational processes are just less than material processes in the story. These relational processes show the relationship between Rip and other people, especially about the elationship between Rip and his wife. Mental, behavioral and verbal processes are also frequently used to describe Rip’s mental activity, behaviors and conversations with other characters. Existential process has low proportion in the total processes.2. Through the analysis of interpersonal function, we have a better understanding about the relationship between Rip and other characters. From the mood analysis we know the relationship between Rip and the old gentleman, Rip and his daughter is bad and cold. In terms of modality analysis, we know that Irving used several median value modals and low value modals to show the possibilities of Rip’s actions.3. Through the analysis of thematic system and cohesion system in textual function, we know that unmarked themes are the natural choice of the author. However, the use of marked themes not only attracts readers’attention but also foregrounded these themes. Besides, the cohesive devices such as reference, combination and repetition are frequently used to create a cohesive and unified story.Through the analysis of the short story Rip Van Winkle by employing Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar, this study reveals the personalities of Rip and his relationship with other characters. Meanwhile it also shows the thematic structure and cohesion system through analysis. The study will be an example to prove the usefulness and applicability of functional stylistics in the appreciation and analysis of literary works. It hopes to help the readers to understand the thematic meaning and writing style in the story from a new angle.