Research On Leisure Culture In Chinese Proverbs From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

Leisure is a life state,in which human beings transcend the survival reality and pursue a kind of poetic life.It is also a relatively free life of getting rid of the external pressure brought by cultural and material environment.Leisure culture is a category of endowing leisure with the connotation of culture.It can be regarded as a behavioral manner by which people seek spiritual pleasure and improve themselves.Proverbs are the essence of a national language and can reflect the cultural ideology of a nation.Thus,as an important part of national culture,it is quite natural that leisure culture can also be found in proverbs,which precisely provides feasible bases for this paper to study the leisure culture embodied in Chinese proverbs.Based on interpersonal function theory,Martin and other scholars established Appraisal Theory.Appraisal Theory can be seen as a new lexical-grammatical framework of Systemic Functional linguistics developed in the studies of interpersonal function.It is concerned with various kinds of negotiable attitudes involved in discourses.With Appraisal Theory being taken as the theoretical framework and The Book of Chinese Proverbs written by Wen Duanzheng as the source of Chinese proverbs,this thesis divides and classifies the selected Chinese proverbs according to Attitude,Engagement,Graduation and their subsystems to explore the leisure culture embodied in these proverbs.Through the analysis of the selected proverbs,this thesis sums up different types of leisure culture on the basis of the three subsystems of Appraisal Theory.First,as to Attitude resources,this study analyzes the proverbs from the perspective of affect,judgement and appreciation.Affect resources include “affect as quality”,“affect as process” and “affect as comment”.These three subsystems present the leisure qualities of “following heart”,“being content” and “being open-minded” respectively,embodying the core of “philosophical leisure culture”.Judgement resources mainly consist of social esteem and social sanction.The three subsystems of normality,tenacity and capacity under social esteem respectively display the leisure qualities of“joy of harmonious relationships”,“virtue of loving others” and “coexistence of body and spirit”,all representing the essential characteristics of “harmonious leisure culture”.In addition,veracity and propriety under social sanction also reveal another kind of leisure culture called “self-cultivated leisure culture” characterized by“advocating sincerity” and “insisting kindness”.Regarding to the level of appreciation,this thesis mainly focuses on the three subsystems of reaction,composition and valuation.The leisure qualities of “pursuing spiritual pleasure”,“controlling excessive desire” reflected by the two sub-types of reaction are representations of “detached leisure culture”;balance and complexity under composition reflect the leisure qualities of “being united” and “being determined”,representing the core of “initiative leisure culture”;and the leisure quality of “upholding moral quality” reflected by valuation resources points to “moral leisure culture”.Second,Engagement system is used to study the source of attitude,including monogloss and heterogloss.This thesis centers on heterogloss resources that incorporate dialogic contraction and dialogic expansion.Dialogic contraction consists of disclaim and proclaim.In the disclaim subsystem,deny embodies the leisure quality of “improving self-competence” which belongs to “self-development leisure culture”;and counter is regarded as a representation of “emotional sustenance leisure culture” by reflecting the leisure quality of “being attached to home”.In the proclaim subsystem,concur reveals the leisure quality of “tempering self-temperament” which is seen as an embodiment of“social interacting leisure culture”;and pronounce is regarded as a reflection of“natural leisure culture”,displaying the leisure quality of “co-existence of heaven and man”.Moreover,the distance subsystem in expansion resources is also a manifestation of “philosophical leisure culture”,taking on the leisure quality of“appreciating the present”.Finally,as for Graduation system,the analysis is done from the two aspects of force and focus.The two subsystems of intensification and quantification in force show the leisure qualities of “keeping mental calm” and“maintaining physical life” respectively;while the sharpening and softening subsystems in focus are characterized by the leisure qualities of “relieving mental melancholy” and “keeping mental generous”,which all belong to“health-maintenance leisure culture”.This thesis tries to apply Appraisal Theory to analyze Chinese proverbs,aiming to explore the leisure culture entailed in them.Through such an analysis,it is expected to broaden the research field and scope of Appraisal Theory and leisure culture.