An Analysis Of Wang Xifeng’s Characters In The English Version Of A Dream Of Red Mansions From The Perspective Of Transitivity

A Dream of Red Mansions,ranking the first of the four great masterpieces of China,has been claimed to be an encyclopedia of the late feudal era.Since this novel condenses the politics,economy,and civic life of the Qing Dynasty,and covers various aspects of cultures,such as landscape architecture,poems,regimens,delicacies,operas,management,etc.,it has attracted many scholars to interpret it by applying theoretical knowledge from different disciplines.However,few studies have analyzed the literary figures in A Dream of Red Mansions by adopting the transitivity system of systemic-functional grammar proposed by Halliday.Therefore,selecting the English version translated by Yang Hsien-yi as the research text and taking Wang Xifeng as the research subject,this thesis divides the novel into three periods,namely the heyday period,the decline period,and the impoverished period,picks out the episodes with Wang Xifeng as the main figure,and analyzes the relevant clauses with the definitions of six transitivity processes,aiming at answering the following three questions:(1)What are the proportions of Wang Xifeng’s six transitivity processes in each period?(2)What characters of Wang Xifeng are reflected in these transitivity processes?(3)Do the proportions of each transitivity processes change in the three periods? Why?To address the above three questions,this thesis uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to analyze Wang Xifeng’s characters.Here are the findings of this study:(1)Compared with other literary figures who are either good or bad,Wang Xifeng’s characters are more sophisticated.On the one hand,she was clever,shrewd,and could read people’s minds.And she respected the aged and took good care of the young.Therefore,she lived smoothly in the Jia Family.On the other hand,she was calculating,fiery,and greedy for power.And everything she did aim at defending her benefits.In addition,Wang Xifeng followed most of the feudal ideologies,but also opposed some of them.(2)In the first two periods,with strong management skills,Wang Xifeng was in charge of handling the hundreds of servants and dealing with affairs as she pleased.Therefore,in the first two periods,Wang Xifeng’s material processes rank the top among all the transitivity processes,while her mental processes rank the fourth.But in the impoverished period,Wang Xifeng lost the support and favor of Lady Wang and Lady Xing for various reasons.After the death of the Lady Dowager,Wang Xifeng completely lost her dependence as well as her former exalted and central position in the Jia Family.In order to consolidate her position in the Jia Family,Wang Xifeng had to make more favorable choices,and thus,she looked ahead and behind more frequently when dealing with affairs.Therefore,the proportion of her material processes decreases while the proportion of her mental processes increases.By adopting the theory of the transitivity system,this thesis analyzes the characters of Wang Xifeng,enabling the readers to deepen their understanding of Wang Xifeng and providing a new perspective for analyzing the characters of the other literary figures that appear in A Dream of Red Mansions.