Research on phonological features in stylistics —comparative analysis of two audio forms of the chapter 1 from Pride and Prejudice

【Abstract】Phonological features contribute to stylistic analysis from such perspectives as pitch， length， loudness， stress， rhythm， intonation， tone， pause， tempo. This paper takes a comparative analysis of two different versions of audio form， aiming to illustrate the different features and techniques in portraying the vivid characters in two different audio versions.

【Key words】phonological features； portraying characters

【作者簡介】黄莹颖（1993.06- ），女，汉族，湖北襄阳人，西安电子科技大学外国语学院，2016级在校研究生，研究方向：心理语言学。

I. Introduction

Phonological levels in stylistics originates from Leech， whose book A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry probes into verbal repetition， formal repetition， patterns of sound and metre （Leech， 1969）. In Introduction to Stylistics， the Phonological theory evolved from Prosody， mainly studying suprasegmental features and essential characteristics of rhythm in modern linguistics， which could be called phonological features（Liu， 2006）. Therefore， the Phonological theory is the research on the phonological features of a literary text. The phonological features can be analyzed from four aspects： phoneme， syllable， rhyme， tone（Zhang， 1998）.

The texts chosen for analysis in this paper are from the book pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen， noted for its fluency and witty language. With simple language and conversational dialogues， the pictures of characters are vividly depicted and everyone comes alive by displaying the trivial incidents of the everyday life.

II. Background of audio texts

Pride and Prejudice contains one of the most cherished love stories in English literature： the courtship between a rich， proud young man Fitzwilliam Darcy and the beautiful and intelligent Elizabeth Bennet. The development of whole stories has close relationship with the warping effects of hierarchical society.

Mr. Bennet， the patriarch of the Bennet family， a gentleman of modest income with five unmarried daughters. He has a sarcastic， cynical sense of humor that he uses to purposefully irritate his wife. He is skeptical of conventional marriage and has no good words for his beautiful daughters except Elizabeth， preferring to withdraw from the never-ending marriage concerns of the women around him rather than offer help. Mrs. Bennet， a foolish， noisy， emptyheaded， snobbish and vulgar woman whose only goal in life is to marry her five daughters to rich， handsome young man. Because of her low breeding and often unbecoming behaviors， Mrs. Bennet often repels the very suitors whom she tries to attract for her daughters.

III. The Analysis of comparison between the audio versions

Foxs version for imitating Mrs. Bennets tone is much vivid than Savages fast and little emotion pattern， because Fox is better at expressing the variation of tempo and intonation， and the treatment of pause. For example， in “and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week”， Foxs version slows down the pace on purpose at the place “by the end of next week”， indicating Mrs. Bennet pays particular attention to the arrival time， and therefore listener can comprehend Mrs. Bennets excitement to desire for the arrival day Mr. Morriss arrival. In Savages version， through the speech， the emotional flow of Mrs. Bennet cannot be so well received for its generally constant speed， except for the end of the sentence， high pitch for “next week”.

The contrast between the couples speech style in conveying personal characters， both in Foxs and Savages version can be reflected. The general high pitch and loudness， various intonation in the utterance of Mrs. Bennet， to portray the pushy， noisy， superficial， emotional image， meantime， the low， tiresome， indifferent， even sometimes sarcastic tone from Mr. Bennet are all present in two versions. The constant speed， low voice， calm tone in Mr. Bennet style， variation in pitch like “design”， loudness， short pause for some words like “nonsense” construct sharp contrast in two versions， contributing a lot to the construction of typical image of the couple.

IV. Conclusion

To sum up， compared with Savages version， Foxs version handles the couples speech in more elaborate way through the slow but emotional dialogue between the couple. Savages version roughly reflects the features of couple， but detailed treatment is not so perfect owing to its fast rhythm and low amplitude of the pitch， lack of appreciable pause and stress and so on.

References：

[1]Leech，G.A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry[M].London：Longman，1969.