A Sociolinguistic Study Of Vulgar Language In Big Breasts And Wide Hips

Mo Yan(1955--)is a famous contemporary Chinese writer,whose literary works are favored by readers and concerned by literary critics.Big Breasts and Wide Hips is one of Mo Yan’s famous novels,which takes the life of mother Shangguan Lu as the main line,describing the magnificent history of Chinese society from the War of Resistance against Japan to Reform and Opening up in the 20 th century.In addition to mother Shangguan Lu,there are more than twenty named characters in the book.The characteristics of different characters using vulgar language are very obvious and the connotation is rich.The use of vulgar language can not only help the author to better set off the social background,shape the characters and express the feelings of the characters,but also is an important mirror image reflecting the social factors,which has great research value.Sociolinguistics is a subject that studies the relationship between language and society.According to the viewpoint of sociolinguistic theory,a person’s language expression contains social meaning and shows its social characteristics,so it is of great significance to study the vulgar language in Big Breasts and Wide Hips from the perspective of sociolinguistics.Therefore,based on the sociolinguistic perspective,this paper analyzes and explores the use of vulgar language in Big Breasts and Wide Hips,in order to provide a new sociocultural perspective for the study of vulgar language in Mo Yan’s works.Taking the vulgar language in Mo Yan’s Big Breasts and Wide Hips as the research object,this paper comprehensively analyzes and explores how these three factors affect the expression of vulgar language from three social factors,such as social identity,social context,language purpose and result.Through the sociolinguistic analysis of the characters who use vulgar language in Big Breasts and Wide Hips,we can see that: First of all,from the point of view of social identity,people with lower social identity are more likely to use vulgar language;Men are more likely to use vulgar language than women;Those in the same social network are vulnerable to the influence of each other and then use vulgar language.Secondly,from the point of view of social context,under the specific influence of social context,it may promote people to use a specific vulgar language,and under the influence of social small context,it may prompt people who do not use vulgar language to use vulgar language.Finally,under the influence of language purpose and result,the speaker will also use vulgar language for the purpose and result of “keeping apart”,“inspiring”,“releasing emotions”,which further confirmed that social factors will affect the expressions of vulgar language.The study of the vulgar language in Big Breasts and Wide Hips from the perspective of sociolinguistics can not only broaden the research perspective of literary criticism,but also provide reference and guidance for writers in the process of narrative creation.In accordance with the aesthetic requirements of literature,the rational use of vulgar expressions can better highlight the uniqueness of the narrative style of the work,the innovation of the content expression,and the depth of the thought disclosure.