A Study Of The Interpersonal Meaning From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Ideational, interpersonal and textual functions are generally acknowledged as three metafunctions of systemic functional grammar. The interpersonal meaning refers to language has the interactive function. We use language to establish and maintain relations with other people, to have influence on other’s behavior, to express our own world view. Interpersonal meaning can be realized through mood system, modality system and appraisal system and so on. This thesis uses the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics to analyze William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily. By analyzing the mood, the modality and attitude systems, study what resources are employed in the realization of interpersonal meaning and what important role it played in depicting the characters.Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is commonly regarded as an excellent representative of his fictional world since its first publication. Main character, Emily Grierson is one of the typical representatives in Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha saga. Traditional literary analysis of A Rose for Emily does literal reading from literal criticism and finds literary theories relatively abstract and ambiguous for application. Through the general theory of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics, better examination of how language works in literary texts can be achieved, and relatively objective and fundamental perceptions for appropriate interpretations of literary works can also be expected.The thesis adopts a methodology as a combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. Research questions of thesis focus on resources the story employs to realize interpersonal meaning in mood, modality and attitude system. Mood analysis reveals the cold relationship between Emily and other people on the base of declarative clauses, interrogative clauses and imperative clauses from the only two conversations between Emily and others. In the modality system part, the author uses large amount of low possibility modal auxiliary “could” and median possibility modal auxiliaries “would” “will” to show the uncertainty of the prediction townspeople made towards ending of Emily and Homer. From the attitude resources analysis of the story, Affect resources distributes least in the story while judgment and appreciate resources appears almost equal. The author evaluates Emily from Emily’s behavior and objective things relative to her rather than express author’s real emotion to Emily. The thesis analyzes A Rose for Emily under the theoretical framework of systemic functional linguistics, to explore how interpersonal relationship between characters be realized in the story from the perspective of linguistic angle of view. The purpose of an objective explanation of literature text can be achieved.