A linguistic analysis of the first-person narrative novels – “Flowers for Algernon” as an example 从语言学角度分析第一人称小说——以《献给阿尔吉侬的花束》为例开题报告

Thepeculiarity of Daniel's first-person novel lies not only in his use of thefirst person throughout the whole novel, but also in the fact that eachchapter is in fact a record of an experiment, a self-talk to the camera, verydirect, and with obvious linguistic variations between chapters.

Thefirst-person perspective is a private expression of social experience as wellas an informal writing of personal images.[Carlisle, 2015] From the personaldiscourse we can see the narrative structure of a plural discourse, includingthe narrative expression of personal discourse, the presentation of populardiscourse, the cultural structure of social discourse[Holly, 1986]; we can also see ashift in the focus of the narrative perspective, including the experientialnarrative of self-consciousness and psychology, the scenes of social insightand behavior[Corb, 2010];we can also see in the first-personnarrative the linguistic variations in the narrator''s social background,gender and class, as well as the changes in the narrator''s social relationswith these people due to changes in the narrator himself.[Manson, 2012] Furthermore, the search for individualism, personal dilemmas andself-awareness has become a trend due to the increasing level of science andtechnology and the growing material conditions of our lives.

Througha linguistic exploration of the first person in the Flowers dedicated toAlgernon, this thesis hopes to reproduce the socialized expression ofpersonal emotions, the formation and change of social relations, to show theredemption of the self''s psyche, and to provoke social reflection on thevalue of the self''s life in the general public. Moreover, there have been fewlinguistic analyses on the first person novels so far, so I want to explorethe first person narrative on a linguistic view based on existing literatureanalyses and linguistic theories.

Thefirst person narration in the novel Flowersfor Algernon helps better demonstrate the variations of Charlie’sidiolect and his social relations with others by a clearer insight into Charlie’sspeech act and dialectal varieties when facing different people.

This essay will analyze the speech acttheory, principle of conversation, cross-cultural pragmaticfailure and dialectal varieties in the novel and find out what benefits thesetools help better present the work.

Asfor speech act theory, I will divide it into Model of Speech Acts, Classificationof Speech Acts, Indirect Speech Acts and Speech Act Theory Reflected in Flowers for Algernon.

As for dialectal varieties, I willlist for causes, including Sociolect, Gender and Class, and I will furtherillustrate the Idiolect of Charlie. Meanwhile, I will also illustrate the Relationsbetween the First Person and Dialectal Varieties, including The First Personand Sociolect, The First Person and Gender , The First Person and Class and TheFirst Person and Idiolect.

In The Modernity of the Art Form of the Late Qing Novel, Shi QiuXian states that 'Wu Woyao''s Twenty Years of Witnessing the StrangeSituation was the first novel in vernacular literature to adopt thefirst-person narrative.”[石秋仙, 2004] The first person wasintroduced to China by Western literature, and because Wu was able to makethe vernacular novel accept the first-person narrative style of the Westernnovel, his Twenty Years of Witnessing the Strange Situation can be seen as alink between the critical novel of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuriesand the modern Chinese novel. However, it was not until the 1920s and 1930sthat the first-person narrative was fully developed and matured artistically.

In the semantics of thenovel, Zhang Han examines the loosening of the tradition of the first-personnarrative in The Trek of I: AnExploration of First-Person Narrative in the Late Qing and May Fourth Periods.In The Double Narrative Voice of LoveCannot Be Forgotten, Liu Lijuan points out that ''the essence of the bookis the potential dialogue between the first-person narrator ''I'' (Shanshan) and the implied author, which adds a kind of polyphonic beauty tothe text''''. [刘利娟, 2020]

In his study of Knowledge Strategies and Identity Constructionin Press Conferences, Cao Rujie uses the perspective of discursiveidentity theory to find that in the international discourse of diplomaticpress conferences, speakers choose to use first-person pronouns and nationalor institutional nouns to refer to themselves in order to meet differentcommunicative needs, strategically constructing a dual identity of thespeaker as an individual and a nation.[曹如洁 amp; 王雪玉,2021]

Zhu Panpan discusses theuse of plural first-person indicatives in different contexts, demonstratingthat the first person plural has different referential functions, both interms of widening and shortening the psychological distance between people,and in terms of reflecting the subjectivity of language.[朱盼盼, 2019] Finally, it is suggested that comfortable communicationcan be achieved if people choose the right indicative depending on theoccasion.

Cao Jing in 'TheNon-Indicative Usage of First Person Indicative and its LinguisticAnalysis' says 'At present, the research on the non-indicativeusage of person indicative mainly focuses on the cross-referencing, borrowedreferencing and curved referencing of person indicative, while the researchon the non-personal usage, ambiguous usage and dramatic usage of first personindicative is less.'[曹静 amp;张结根, 2015]

Many authors, both ancient and modern, have used the first-person pointof view and left the public with many popular works, some of which can beconsidered classics. In To Kill aMockingbird, Harper Lee's use of the child's point of view of a younggirl, Scott, is one of the key reasons why the novel is so appealing andhelps the reader to better understand the author''s intentions.[Furberg, 1993] Theuse of the child's first-person point of view filters out some of thecomplexity of the adult perspective, restoring as much of real life aspossible and revealing habits of thought and ways of perception that aredifficult for adults themselves to perceive.[袁英哲, 2013]

Many of Leskov's best novels use the first-person narrative and havedeveloped their own style. The ''I'' as narrator is not just a matter ofnarrative perspective; it has become a structural element of the novel. Insome of Leskov's novels, the complexity of the first-person narrative is alsoevident in the fact that the writer often introduces another ''I'' through thememories of the first-person narrator '''I'' or through an acquaintance, acoincidental encounter or a certain cause.[曹云, 2021] This ''I'' is also the main character, the informant or the bystander inthe story. [杨玉波, 2004] In the narrator ''I'', the author also portrays an intellectual withcertain ideas. As the first-person narrator, 'I' is not limited tothe objective presentation of the story, but also makes some judgments aboutthe various narrative subjects, and through these judgments, furtherestablishes the narrator as 'I' is not limited to the objectivepresentation of the story.

Reminiscence is also common in Lu Xun's first-person intra-focusnarrative novels, appearing at various points in the novels and often closelyassociated with the representation of characters.[周涛, 2003] In specific works, recollections sometimes appear as a mere narrativeelement, while at other times they play an important role in framing thenarrative.[McGeer, 2008] In LuXun's short stories, which use first-person internal focus narratives,recollection plays a very effective role in both the telling of the story andthe composition of the text. [洪丽霁, 2006]

Lu Xun''s first-person narrative novels are also intrinsically andprofoundly linked to Enlightenment thought. The adoption of the first-personnarrative perspective in Lu Xun''s novels is not merely a narratological move,nor is it an artificial change in ''''storytelling'''', but an inevitable choice toprofoundly convey the deep and broad ideas of the Enlightenment.[陈士部amp;梁文, 2007]

In Bakhtin''s novels, which adopt the first-person internal focusnarrative mode, the genre forms of diary and epistolary are used extensivelyThe novel''s protagonist''s suppressed passionate outbursts and the salientfeatures of the diary form, self confessionality, are perfectly combined. [李树槐, 2004]

While the ancient vernacular novel avoids first-person narrative forvarious reasons, the new period novel has multiple first-person narrativemethods.[李颖, 2008]The narrator''s limited perspective presents different sides of the samestory that relate to him or her, presenting himself or herself as he or shetells the story of others, referring to each other as he or she tells thestory, with the subjective consciousness of the self and the evaluation ofothers mirroring each other, constituting a kind of polyphonic dialogue. [张霞, 2009]These fragmentary narratives are incomplete fragments that can only beintegrated to form a meaningful whole and reflect a richer connotation.

There have been few linguistic analyses on the first person novels sofar, so I want to explore the first person narrative on a linguistic viewbased on existing literature analyses and linguistic theories. Furthermore Iwant to take the interesting and valuable Flowersfor Algernon as an example to analyze deeper the use of first person innovels.

Introduction

1 Literature Review

1.1Previous Studies on First Person Narrative Novels

1.1.1 The First Person in Novels

1.1.2 Reasons of adopting the first personperspective in novels

1.2The First Person Perspective Used in Flowers for Algernon

2 Speech Act Theory

2.1Model of Speech Acts

2.2Classification of Speech Acts

2.3Indirect Speech Acts

2.4Speech Act Theory Reflected in Flowers for Algernon

3 Principle of Conversation

4 Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure

5 Dialectal Varieties under the First Person Perspective Narration

5.1Dialectal Varieties

5.1.1 Varieties Caused by Sociolect

5.1.2 Varieties Caused by Gender

5.1.3 Varieties Caused by Class

5.1.4 Idiolect of Charlie

5.2Relations between the First Person and Dialectal Varieties

5.2.1 The First Person and Sociolect

5.2.2 The First Person and Gender

5.2.3 The First Person and Class

5.2.4 The First Person and Idiolect

Conclusion

References:

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