A Functional Approach To Interpersonal Meaning In Jane Eyre

On the basis of the purpose of language use,Halliday proposes that language use could be categorized into three different kinds of functions.The first kind is ideational function,the second type is interpersonal function and the third kind is textual function.In systemic functional grammar,these functions are interrelated.As far as the interpersonal function is concerned,it could be understood as that as for language,it could be used for conveying message,building up different types of relationships among people,and revealing the different characteristics and attitudes of different people.According to Halliday,lexico-grammatically speaking,interpersonal function could be realized by means of mood and modality system.Nowadays,there is an increasing number of scholars who are attaching more importance to language use,especially the interpersonal aspects.Jane Eyre is the representative work of the famous British novelist,who is called Charlotte Bronte,in the nineteenth century.There are different angles of researches which are made by many scholars on the work.On the basis of the general theory in interpersonal meaning,the current research attempts to make an analysis of the interpersonal meaning in the dialogues of the protagonists in Jane Eyre.A brief introduction is mentioned in the first chapter.Literature review is mentioned in the second chapter.The third chapter is about the basic theory that would be used,which includes mood and modality system.In the fourth chapter,the author analyzes the interpersonal meaning in the literary work Jane Eyre.The fifth chapter is a summary.The objective of the thesis is to discuss how the writer builds up character and demonstrates the status and relationships among the characters by means of mood and modality system.The research also wishes to provide a new perspective for readers to understand the novel.The major findings of the research include the following aspects.First of all,different figures have different selections of mood types,speech roles and modal operators.Secondly,there are some divergence in the selection of mood types and speech roles when Jane communicates with different characters.Last but not least,in different phases,the personalities of the characters are not the same.The dialogues chosen in the paper,contain abundant resources in mood and modality.In terms of the manifestations in mood,in the conversation between Jane and Reed,the number of declarative and interrogative clauses used by Jane are three and one,and the number of declarative and interrogative clauses used by Reed are ten and three.Therefore,it could be inferred that Jane provides far less information than Reed does,and Reed possesses a higher position than Jane does.In the conversation between Jane and St,John,the number of interrogative clauses used by St.John is fourteen,and the number of interrogati’ve clauses used by Jane is three.St.John dominates the conversation.However,in the conversation between Jane and Rochester,in the first part,the number of declarative clauses that Jane uses is thirty six and the number of declarative clauses used by Rochester is thirty five.In the second part,the number of declarative and interrogative clauses that Jane uses are fifty two and thirteen,and the number for Rochester are sixty seven and twenty.Therefore,it could be inferred that Jane becomes more and more courageous in expressing her inner voice and in defending for her free will.In terms of the manifestations in modality,in the dialogues between Jane and Brocklehurst,Jane only uses one operator of median and high value,and the operators used by Brocklehurst is seven.In the conversation between Jane and St.John,the number of high value modal operators used by Jane is four,and the number for St.John is seventeen.In the dialogues between Jane and Rochester,the number of high value operators that is used by Jane is forty one,and the number for Rochester is fifty seven.In the former two dialogues,Jane has little control over the direction of the conversations.And while talking with Rochester,Jane gradually obtains equal rights.Jane is becoming more and more courageous,tenacious rational and confident in the pursuit of equality and true love.All of these different choices play a big part in building up the image of the character,demonstrating the relationships among the characters,and reflecting the subject of the novel.By means of analyzing the dialogues in the novel Jane Eyre within the framework of interpersonal function,the research further demonstrates the significance of interpersonal function in analyzing novels,as well as highlighting the potency of systemic functional linguistics in explaining literary works.