a study on historical and social background and the newness of language use in pride and prejudice by jane austen = nghiên cứu cơ sở lịch sử, xã hội và tính mới của việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ trong tác phẩm

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies Faculty of Post-graduate studies **************** NGUYỄN KIM OANH A Minor thesis on: A STUDY

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies

Faculty of Post-graduate studies

****************

NGUYỄN KIM OANH

A Minor thesis on:

A STUDY ON HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND AND THE NEWNESS OF LANGUAGE USE IN ‘PRIDE AND PREJUDICE’

HANOI – DECEMBER 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies

Faculty of Post-graduate studies

****************

NGUYỄN KIM OANH

A Minor thesis on:

A STUDY ON HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND AND THE NEWNESS OF

LANGUAGE USE IN ‘PRIDE AND PREJUDICE’

HANOI – DECEMBER 2012

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Acknowledgement i

Abstract ii

Table of contents iii

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Methodology of procedures 3

3 1 Design of the study 3

3 2 Data collection and date analysis 3

4 Scope of the study 4

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Definitions of key terms 5

1.1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis 5

1.1.2 Literary style 9

1.1.2.1 Word choice 10

1.1.2.2 Sentence fluency 10

1.1.2.3 Voice 10

1.1.3 Language use 11

iv

1.1.3.1 Participant 12

1.1.3.2 Social processes 12

1.1.3.3 Collective activities 12

1.2 Previous studies 13

CHAPTER 2 ANALYTICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Introduction to Jane Austen 14

2.2 Introduction to „Pride and Prejudice‟ 15

2.2.1 Summary 15

2.2.2 Themes 16

CHAPTER 3: HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND OF BRITISH NOVELS 3.1 Historical background 17

3.2 Social background 19

3.3 Themes and forms of the late 18 th and early 19 th century novels 19

CHAPTER 4: NEWNESS OF LANGUAGE USE IN ‘PRIDE AND PREJUDICE’ 4 .1 Austen‟s distinctive writing style 23

4 .2 Newness in language use 24

4 .2.1 Language use in the three leading conversations 24

4 .2.1.1 Act 1 25

4 .2.1.2 Act 2 30

v

4 .2.1.3 Act 3 36

PART 5: CONCLUSION 1 Newness of language use 37

2 The matter of love and love expressing 39

3 Contributions of the study 40

4 Suggestions for further studies 40

REFERENCES ……… 41 APPENDIX I

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PART 1: INTRODUCTION

This initial part stated the problem and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, objectives, the scope of the study, and the overview of the rest of this research paper Above all, it was in this part that the research question was

identified to work as clear guidelines for the whole research

1 Rationale of the study

In the eighteenth century, the readers were delighted by a new form of prose, which was called „novel‟ for the first time by Daniel Defoe – the first considerable British novelist A „novel‟ with a certain length did bring amusement, pleasure and joy to those who were concerned when the contemporary British society was dreadfully chaotic in the virtue of the changes in the monarch In the innovation of this new form of prose, there appeared a remarkable number of writers and their works They were coined to emphasize not only the social changes but also the imaginary stories, which exposed their hope for a better life, so even the family or social class problems were best put down in words by one of the most famous female novelist in Britain and all over the world – Jane Austen

Peter Washington in his commentary once implied that Jane Austen belonged to the fantastic side of the English comedy that appealed so strongly to the readers, not only in Britain but also from all over the world

She was also said to be the first novelist capable of “conveying both interior and

exterior of human life” as well as “developing the means of representing the totality of human life” (Ian Watt, 1957)

In the six novels written during the very last decades of the eighteenth century, she

truly succeeded in describing “the involvements and feelings and characters of

ordinary life which to me the most wonderful I‟ve ever met with … that a pity such

a gifted creature dies so early” as Walter Scott (1826) once stated in his

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commentary All the certain circumstances were just within the leading

involvement of one family and their neighbours and friends in which Austen

created “some heroines who were credible with minds, with the capacity to think

for themselves with ambition and wit”; and „Pride and Prejudice‟, the novel about

marriage, was said to be the best of them all

„Pride and Prejudice‟ was coined to construct the frame of the contemporarily social satire, within the relationship between people from the middle and upper

classes It initially commenced the era of „country family novels‟ which set a

“prying inquiry into the manner, human dignity and great strain” on the

characters and the society they were living in, which made her novels connected to the contemporary world more than the traditional society of the eighteenth century as Diệp Minh Tâm (2002) once commented

Further more, it ranked one of the greatest novels of all time following “Wuthering

heights” by Emily Bronte - 1847) and was read even if it was not taught at school

The researcher was impressed by the name of the novel at first and became overexcited about the novel since she finished reading it for the first time The novel was really linked to both of the real world and the emotional changes inside individuals, especially the female Therefore, putting extra effort in investigating what impressed her really fed her desire to understand the people and society at the time

2 Aims of the study

This study was carried out with the hope of exploring the background of the temporary Britain leading to the remarkable changes in its literal history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries especially in the view on British novels

The study also aimed at answering the question: “What is Jane Austen‟s

distinctive writing style?” The answer to the question would help the students of

Linguistics, the novel's readers as well as those who wished to specialize in

Last but not least was the researcher‟s desire to understand the novel, which was

really related to the controversial matter of love and love expressing

3 Methodology of procedures

3.1 Design of the study

The study was divided into three main parts While Part One dealt with the general information which contained the rationale, aims and objectives, methodology and scope of the study, Part Two went into further details of the historical and social background; and the newness of language use in Jane Austen‟s Pride and Prejudice through four chapters The suggestions for further research would not be omitted in the last part

3.2 Data collection and data analysis

The study used the descriptive and contextual methods of data collecting and analyzing

Basing on the huge resources of library and internet materials, the researcher analyzed and then agglutinated those ideas into her own brief clear and understandable viewpoints

On the other hand, several differences in the changeable literal trends of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would be briefly stated in her Analysis on how main characters exposed their own „pride‟ and „prejudice‟ in some certain circumstances through the three volumes

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4 Scope of the study

As could be seen from the title, the study strongly focused not only on the historical and social background but also on the language use of the novel which played the most important role

To understand that newness of language use in the novel, the researcher had to pay her full attention to the main characters‟ leading conversations in the three volumes which helped expose the cherish love and the theory of „pride‟ and

„prejudice‟ – the main themes of the novel Amongst the three conversations, the first two would be thoroughly analyzed, for the reason that the first „conversation‟ brought the two main characters by their mistaken first impression and the second

conversation was about the conflicts finally resolved

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PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Definitions of key terms

To be able to analyze the newness of language use through the three acts of the novel, there were several key terms: discourse and discourse analysis, literary style and language use, which needed to be deeply understood So for the purpose of providing a clear and deep understanding of the matter, this first chapter would focus on the definitions of those key terms while mentioning some necessary

information about previous studies that related to the matter of the study

1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis

Through centuries, 'discourse' was defined in various ways by a number of scholars

„Discourse‟ was 'stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive' (Cook 1989:156)

„Discourse‟ was considered 'a communicative event which draws on the meaning potential of the language (and other systems of communication) to carry communicative value (the illocutionary force) of speech acts through utterances

In other words, it referred to “the interpretation of communicative events in context.” (Nunan 1993:7-8)

It could be said that there were no significant differences between those definitions since the notion of „discourse‟ was all about how the language use was understood

in such verbal events

Sharing a lot in common with Malinowski, linguists (Hymes, 1960s; Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969; Grice, 1975; and Halliday and Hasan, 1973, 1978, 1989, 1994) had

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drawn certain attention to this branch by clarifying some “contextual, grammar and cohesional models as well as pragmatic and conversational viewpoints”

However, at the limitation of the minor thesis, the researcher wanted to focus on

the role of contextual analysis in the three major discourses for the reason that

'context' was created by the discourse and vice versa It was what and how people could depend on to interpret the discourses created in each context as Nunan (1993:7-8) cited that J.R Firth and Dell Hymes also appreciated the idea that people always reacted toward how they understood and predicted what the others were going to say next

More systematically, Halliday (1989) developed a model of contextual analysis,

just following the context of situation, which included three components as followed:

Components of a

SITUATION

Feature of the context

Field of discourse what was happening, to the nature of the social action

that was taking place

Tenor of discourse Who were taking part in the situation

Mode of discourse The role assigned to language

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Example 1:

A short conversation was given and analysed in Halliday and Hasan‟s theory (1989) as an example:

Doctor: Have you been vomiting?

Patient: Em, yeah I vomitted about … I vomitted twice … two days ago at school

and I vomitted about um eight or ten times last night

Patient: Oh, er, just sort of altogether, you know, Dr M gave him anti-biotic

capsules for him to take because he's also got …

Doctor: a throat

Patient: A bit of infected tonsils yeah and he said that, you know for him to spit

the capsule out … I don't know whether he was trying to swallow it down or what but he did

Doctor: Ah Look, I don't think you can go past an appendix there Just, you know,

number one, he's got no pain just there and is sore there and I think he's probably got something blocking in the appendix and it's giving him this constant pain and trouble So seeing that you've had it for some time and been worse lately I think it certainly would be wise to think about having done

(Halliday and Hasan,1989)

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Analysis of Example 1

Components of a

Field A child-patient that influenced the choice of lexical items

Tenor A doctor and a patient

Mode The choice of lexical items: parts of the body: throat, tonsil,

appendix; bodily actions: vomit, spit, swallow

Example 2

A: Hi! I didn't know you belonged to the national Film Theatre Have you been a

member for long?

B: No, I joined only last week It's good, isn't it?

A: Yes, it is There's always an excellent selection of films here I'm just going to

get a coffee Would you like one?

B: I'm really thirsty Oh, don't forget that I've given up sugar

(Hoang Van Van Ph.D, 2006)

Analysis of Example 2

Components of a

SITUATION

Feature of the context

Field An informal conversation between friends in a cafeteria

Mode Use of words related to theatre: film, member; cafeteria:

thirsty, coffee, sugar

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In the field of Literature, no matter what the story was, the conversations might be

between or amongst people in a certain circumstance, but it was Mode that

perfectly helped recognize and distinguish an author's literary style from others'

1.2 Literary style

Literary style was defined in various ways by a number of scholars

According to Geoffrey Leech and Mick Short, Literary style referred to “linguistic

choice in general” or to “those aspects of linguistic choice which concern alternative ways of rendering the same subject matter” (cited by Mitchell, A &

McGee, K 2011: 31-32)

Much more clearly in “Linguistics and literary style” (1970), Donald C Freeman once clarified the literary style into some categories: sentence structure, pace, vocabulary, figures of speech, use of dialogue, tone, etc

Similarly with those scholars, David Watson in „The Elements of Style‟ (1915),

defined literary style as “the translation of thought into language” This identification of the style surely did not fail in “width and generality” In other

words, there was no doubt, as the widespread belief in the existence and the power

of something so called when words, sentences and voice were carefully chosen to

be the means or the medium of the garment of the certain processes of thought It gave a distinction to certain writers or compositions because even though it was not so easy to recognize an author‟s style, readers were still able to see her literary accent of a school, a nation or an age which could be clarified through the concrete whole form by means of a number of concrete parts

Although literary style was defined in various ways, it was known in conclusion as the element that described an author‟s choice of words, sentence structures, figurative language and the habit of correct grammar, arrangement of all her work together to establish mood, images and meaning of the text In the limitation of

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this minor study, the researcher would focus on three main elements, which were

known in the necessity of Mode in Halliday‟s theory, as David Watson (1915) and

Strunk W and White E.D (2000) once again agreed

1.2.1 Word choice

General speaking, nouns and verbs were the main medium, which helped readers visualize and convey the meanings of a novel, and a novel writer was said to be good only if she knew when to choose or weed out the words concisely and

precisely It should be words which were “active verbs, concrete nouns and

specific adjectives” (cited in „The Elements of Style‟, 2000)

1.2.2 Sentence fluency

Easily seen in well-known novels that readers mostly were attracted by a variety

of sentences with different lengths and rhythms which was called “the flow and

rhythm of phrases and sentences”; in other words, it was „Sentence fluency‟ All

the ideas were carefully considered, chosen and then arranged in various structures

to reflect the main themes of the novel They were not like in speaking when people could not rethink or revise the ideas for effect To make the sentences fluent, sounding like an own style, the writer would re-choose the words, delete redundancies, make vague or ambiguous words much clearer to convey the

greatest effect as possible

1.2.3 Voice

There was an old saying: “Style is the dress of thoughts”; and literary style was

most clearly defined by an author‟s voice Although voice was difficult to be drastically measured, it was the essential element that revealed the writer‟s personality to the extreme; and in „Pride and Prejudice‟, Jane Austen was

successful in portraying characters with a great sense of irony

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“Irony is a form of utterance that postulated a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more and of the outsiders‟ comprehension” (Fowler, 1968 – cited in “Irony” by Colebrook, 2004)

In those hidden language, actions, differences and communications, irony was seen as an art or a means of worth and effective persuasion in speeches when it allowed people to convey the meaning above what was said As Socrates (cited by Colebrook, 2004) once implied, irony was used by saying one thing and meaning

another which resulted in an insistence Irony was believed to bring about “truth

and recognition” even if that truth was hard to be recognized and not fully

meaningful

1.3 Language use

Language use was said to be “the people‟s production and understanding of a set

of sentences with particular meanings” (cited in “Irony” by Colebrook, 2004) In

other words, the choice of words had to be suitable for each communication circumstance so as to express different meanings, those needed to be clarified and deeply understood in order to keep up with the chains of following activities In those activities the speakers said and took actions by using words whilst the others had to coordinate with them in trying to comprehend what they meant

In fact, the term “language use” received a certain attention from literary scholars, but more clearly and closer to Halliday‟s theory that the researcher based on when analyzing the discourses, Clark (2000) developed the theory by Gumperz and Hymes (1964, 1972) and once acknowledged that the speakers‟ word and sentence meaning came first in theories of language structure That was the reason for his further study in the use of words and sentences in his “Arenas of Language use” According to him, the meaning would be clearly recognized through the properties

In conversations, they were speakers and listeners

1.3.2 Social processes

The language that was used should be depended on what the social processes were For instance, in the relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth, they used the language, which fit their social attitude towards the other even when the first impression might be wrong They spoke to the other in an ironic manner and voice due to the awareness of their own „pride‟ and „prejudice‟ toward the social status The novel ended when they both came to expose love to each other despite the

social differences

1.3.3 Collective activities

Three main acts of the novel included a number of activities that brought the characters to take part in and to accomplish the social processes People spoke and listened to one another in collaboration and in coordination as to bridge the communication gap and to reach the goal revealed at the end of the novel

Even though the language use was seen from various viewpoints, there was no doubt that they had some similarities in the use and choice of words and sentence structures, which were so typical for each character in different contexts

1.2 Previous studies

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Through centuries, not only the content but also the literary style in „Pride and prejudice‟ was discussed a thousand times by a big number of scholars from all over the world However, several ambiguous and contradictory viewpoints began

to be discovered in the process of analyzing the novel such as Tory or Enlightenment feminism, individual society, etc By synthesizing the related studies, several ideas were recognized and considered some typical features, which helped exposing Jane Austen‟s distinctive writing style under the English society

in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

In „Pride and Prejudice‟ which ranked second on the list of the greatest love story

of all time, Jane Austen was successful in portraying the contemporary English society with satires when people could not easily and freely express themselves towards others due to the class differences She was not only proved as the one

who recognized a tradition of thought that “women were treated as an inferior

class in a man‟s world” – Bulter once argued but also the one who appreciated the

essential role of a female with “dutifulness, meditativeness, self-abnegation and

self-control” – Mary Brunton said After all, that was why they intended to turn

out their „pride‟ and „prejudice‟ against each other when they had something to be proud of (cited in Women‟s whole Existence by Birgitta Berglund, 1993)

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CHAPTER 2 ANALYTICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 Introduction to Jane Austen

Born on the sixteenth of December, 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, England, Jane Austen was the seventh of the clergyman George Austen‟s children and shared the most intimate relationship with her sister Cassandra who had never got married Jane Austen was in possession of a great desire in reading from her father – a rector who lived an uneventful life at the birthplace but always encouraged his daughters to read passionately as much as they could Not only Jane but other Austen children from time to time presented short plays watched by the family and neighbours for entertainment, which helped create the warm and friendly living environment and the close relationship amongst family members, which helped generate her writing ability as well as give her the ideas for the later works

At the age of eleven, she started writing her very first parodies of popular

literature for the entertainment of her family In those short proses, „swooning and

blushing heroines, noble heroes and melodramatic plot or courtship‟ were quite

clearly exposed

(Pride and Prejudice,1993) From then on, she spent more of her awareness and effort in the field of literature Some full-length novels were written at her age of twenty; however, they were kept a secret from her family who soon became her ardent supporters and played a very important role in her future writing She stumbled over her first handling novels to the press for the first time when she completed her „Sense and sensibility‟ in 1795 and „Pride and prejudice‟ in 1797 Even though Jane was desperate due to the rejection of those two novels, she got back on and rewrote them, which were then published and widely known by various readers

Jane Austen once felt in love, when she was twenty-six, with a young clergyman

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who suddenly died without any reasons; and once agreed to marry a wealthy man but they broke off the engagement in the following day It was so understandable that all of her novels were about courtship and marriage Not only did they mention the society, which had very narrow and rigid expectations for women but also sharply drew a significant picture of the relationship between men and women

of her contemporary time

Living from 1775 to 1817, at the age of forty two, she died and left her legacy of six novels which were written in a slightly different orders but completed and published as followed: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816) and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1818 – one year after her death)

Amongst her six novels as stated above that „Pride and Prejudice‟ was highly appreciated and got the greatest care from the scholars and readers This novel was first written in 1796, then entitled „First Impressions‟

2.2 Introduction to 'Pride and Prejudice'

believed: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession

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of a good fortune must be in want of wife” This ball brought Bingley and Jane –

the eldest Bennet girl – together through an actual attraction, and Elizabeth‟s „first

impression‟ toward Mr Darcy - “the proudest, most disagreeable man in the

world” who would never be welcomed again in Longbourn Furthermore, he was

one of the two – with Mr Bingley‟s sister – adding intensified aversion to the separation of Bingley and Jane later on

Meanwhile Mr Collins got a marriage refusal when he proposed to Elizabeth Promptly he transferred his affection to Charlotte Lucas which was finally accepted Elizabeth once again was brought into a contact with Darcy in Pemberley, in Derbyshire where Darcy proposed to her in terms that did not conceal his pride but got an indignant rejection back During this visit, Elizabeth reached the news that her sister Lydia eloped with Wickham, son of the steward of the Darcy property The story was untied since Darcy‟s letter to Elizabeth and they finally engaged, back to Longbourn and the relationship between Bingley and Jane

was also renewed, and then ended in a happy engagement

2.2.2 Themes

The short courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth was an example of “one of the

most cherished love stories” (Spark notes, 2012) in the English literature which

displayed the „Pride‟ and „Prejudice‟ even when their love and marriage was built and maintained through their common interests in reading Elizabeth, who even did not have a home-tutor, had a great desire in reading books while Darcy exposed his reading interest in preserving his father‟s big library in the house, revealed during Elizabeth‟s stay in Pemberley and led to the readers‟ realization of

a suitable match – Darcy and Elizabeth

While other four couples‟ which were presented in the novel: “to the love and

attraction shared by Jane and Mr Bingley; the convenience of marriage was portrayed through Charlotte and Mr Collins; Lydia and Wickham‟s marriage was

such a pure and genuine sentence: “You must allow me to tell you how much I

admire and love you” (p157) Elizabeth‟s love for Darcy was very clear when she

said to her parents “I do like him, I love him” The „pride‟ and „prejudice‟ towards

each other seemed no longer exist between them at the very end of the novel when both of the two main characters said for their love and belief in the future good marriage The love between these two individuals was truly depicted to be something independent of all invisible social forces

Jane Austen surely had a number of her reasons to re-title the novel by „Pride and

Prejudice‟ instead of „First Impression‟ as she did ‘Pride’ and ‘Prejudice’ played

as the two other main themes which people living in the current time found difficult to understand the meaning As mentioned in the novel that people of whatever the society was could be prevented from realizing the truth due to their own pride and prejudice towards other people Walter Scott (cited by Qaisar Iqbal

Janjua, 2010) once commented: “In Pride and prejudice one cannot equate Darcy

with Pride, or Elizabeth with Prejudice; Darcy‟s pride of place is founded on social prejudice, while Elizabeth‟s initial prejudice against him is rooted in pride

of her own quick perceptions” It meant that people were unable to separate and to

analyze only Pride but Prejudice in Darcy or Elizabeth and vice versa, which would be more deeply and clearly analyzed in the following part of the study

Those thousands of years had passed and the country had been through many significant changes During the Medieval Era, Anglo-Saxon‟s conquest and then Roman‟s first invasion ruined the country, which finally recovered until the Age

of Elizabeth I It was once again known as the age of the prosperity with economic and political stabilities

Under Elizabeth I's control, the greatest age of British Literature was significantly marked by the first long story „Le Brut‟ – a story about King Arthur - by Wace was considered the very first accomplishment in literature, and Elizabethan homilies, which were to highlight the important of peace, unity and regulations obedience This glorious time of British literature was seen in the rise of comedies and tragedies in theatre by one of the most popular author – William Shakespeare: Othello – domestic tragedy as the jealousy rose to ruin the family members‟ relationships while Macbeth – poetic tragedy as the people were drawn in disappointment and guiltiness Additionally, the very first step to British novels was made to the publishing of „Pandosto‟ by Robert Green in 1588, „Jack of Newbury‟ by Thomas Deloney in 1597 and „The Unfortunate Traveller‟ by Thomas Nashe in 1594

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3.2 Social background

British society, with its class system and different class beliefs also provided a rich source of materials for character-based novels Many of them depended on the contrasts, real and imagined, between people of different classes, most especially the contrast between the middle and upper class families those who were different mainly in social status and fortune On the contrary, to the middle class, who was able to partially afford their own demands, the upper class was of a very good fortune, a plenty of fertile lands & ten thousand pounds per year Those were seen

as the upper class who received a deep mutual respect and care from the rest of the society and novels were coined to fulfill the mission of describing the differences and conflicts

The Age of Elizabeth I was considered the greatest age of English Literature due

to the appearance of many types of literary work including: poetry, comedy/ tragedy in theater, narrative and a very first step to novels at the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century Besides, Shakespeare was one of the most famous authors in the theater at that time with the reputation of Othello – a domestic tragedy; King Lear – universal tragedy; and Macbeth – poetic tragedy

Some other popular works were Pandosto (Robert Green, 1588); Jack of Newbury

(Thomas Deloney, 1597); and The Unfortunate Traveller (Thomas Nashe, 1694) 3.3 Themes and forms of the late 18 th and early 19 th century novels

Different from those in the Medieval Era when the winner in language use was French – the language of most of the literary work, the novels of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries owned some typical differences

Although there were some stories with a considerable length, readers had to patiently wait until the eighteenth century to first see the appearance of the word

„novel‟ which was seen as a „negative connotation‟ connecting to sentimental

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romances This era had begun since the appearance of a number of handsome and courageous heroes who rescued emotional miserable heroines from difficult situations for the purpose of serving people mainly from the middle class By giving the name „novel‟ to this kind of prose, Daniel Defoe (1660 – 1731), a

journalist with “the flavor of colloquial speech” (1998:31), became the first

novelist of the English Literature, known through his fine writings such as Robinson Crusoe, even without any stylistic tricks or irony as readers always saw

in his articles It was not a storybook but laid the fascination in the bald statement

of facts

After Daniel Defoe, there were two other writers – Jonathan Swift and Henry Fielding who devoted their whole lives to novel writing with a core of bitterness which itself was to expose a mad hatred to the contemporary society Whilst Jonathan Swift‟s Gulliver‟s Travellers hid much of the satire so cleverly that children still read it as a fairy tale, Henry Field, who started his novel writing career almost by accident, was highly appreciated by the critics through the boisterous humour, good sense and vivid characterization in his „Tom Jones‟ Till the late decades of the eighteenth century, there were some other novels of

„mystery and imagination‟ by writers like Mrs Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Gregory Lewis Their works gave a rational explanation to the real world through

The Romance of the Forest and The Mysteries of Udolpho; and shortlisted “the

devil, horror, torture, magic and murder” - to their popularity which were all

connected to the Gothic novel as Dorothy stated in “The concise Oxford dictionary

of English Literature” „Gothic‟ took shape, as a class of novels dealing with frightening and supernatural and chiefly associated with Horace Walpole‟s „The castle of Otranto‟ and the works of Ann Radcliffe This type of novels specialized

in ruins, haunted castles, frightening landscapes and what we called magic; and it was considered too confined to strict realism since the traditional Gothic staples

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once portrayed “a threatening mystery and an ancestral, as well as countless

trappings such as hidden passages and oft-fainting heroines” They fell within the

category of Romantic literature and acted as “a reaction against the rigidity and

formality” of other forms of Romantic literature

Not wanting to follow the social prejudices, people rose to exclaim their individualism through their own thoughts and desires In a Gothic novel laid a description of a fallen world through all aspects, i.e theme, setting and characterization, which made many critics, engaged in the analysis of such various

elements David Morris believed that the Gothic novel addressed “the horrific,

hidden ideas and emotions within individuals” and provided “an outlet for them”

When someone thought of and believed in the supernatural and the sublime, there seemed no place for them to express but Gothic novels; sometimes with prevalent fears of murder, rape, sin and the unknown elements what they had to face in life

Thank to this “presentation of the unpresentable” which came into the literary

world; an individual was able to reveal their perspective of the twentieth century and the unconsciousness of the human psyche The Gothic novel appeared and was said to be a foil to the typical Romantic novels since not only did it focus on evoking the atmosphere of horror and dread but also the deterioration of its thriving world with decaying and ruined sceneries

Not so long since Gothic novels appeared, Wordsworth blew a breath of fresh air into the temporary British Literature which was called Romanticism The Romantic Movement in literature began with the storming of the Bastille in Paris and the Ist spilling of blood in the French Revolution This Romantic spirit spread out over a number of novels They characterized the beauty in art and nature, people‟s wishes and love; their awareness of personal hate, revenge, hard lives; or even a circle of social conflicts

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Northanger Abbey was said, by Melanie Strieder (2003) to be “referred to as a

parody of the Gothic novel” – which was in an association of “mysterious, frightening, fantastic, supernatural, sexual and sublime things” and Catherine

Morland – the seventeen-year-old character – was seen as a typical example of the one who started thinking and acting in Gothic manners

Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) was the first considerably important female novelist since she stood above both of the classical and romantic movements The gap between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries she bridged was unique due to her spending full attention depicting a small but typical corner of the English society

as in her moderate country family novels She was interested in people, not ideas She knew her world too well and knew her characters so habitually that she could not bear to go into details about them

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CHAPTER 4: NEWNESS OF LANGUAGE USE IN ‘PRIDE AND PREJUDICE’

4.1 Austen’s distinctive writing style

The popularity of Austen‟s six novels did heighten her to be one of the most important writers with the great contribution to the British Literature

She was considered one of the most famous female novelists – “the first to

represent society, the general culture, as playing a part in the moral life, generating the concepts of „sincerity and vulgarity‟, which no earlier time would have understood the meaning of.”

(„Pride and Prejudice‟, 1991)

In other words that not being trapped by the Gothic plot which was very popular in the eighteenth century, the appearance of Jane Austen‟s novels was characterized

as the one who put the very first actual remarkable step to the Victorian/ Romantic Age She escaped from the terror implicit in the increasingly dictatorial reign of the contemporary social values Butler in his commentary on Jane Austen and Mansfield Park once stated that Jane Austen was the first female novelist who

brought “the newness and modernity to the British literature through her intrigual

writing style which satire the vices of her contemporary society”

(Jane Austen and Mansfield Park, 1957) She was praised for the moral virtues as well as entertaining conversations - the exceeding specialties that could be easily seen in all of her novels It laid a gentle humour of coward situations happening toward the different relationship between the middle and higher classes, a rare flash of humour that readers seldom saw in other contemporary novels

“Austen was the only woman novelist who I discuss at any length” - Ian Watt

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(1957) once said In „Pride and Prejudice‟, Jane Austen claimed herself of manual dexterity to rely on a combination of parody, irony, burlesque through free indirect speeches of the first-third person narrative It was to comment on the portrayal of women in the 18th century - sentimental and gothic - as well as to foresee the portrayal of women in the 19th century – heroines standing above the social prejudice That was why Klingel Ray (2010) once claimed that Jane Austen was

“first and foremost a satirist And for a satirist, irony is the major tool of language”

4.2 Newness in language use

As mentioned above that to discuss the language use was to discuss the participants, social processes and collective activities as Watson‟s theory, which shared a lot in common with Field, Tenor and Mode in Halliday‟s theory The only difference remained in Mode, which was always essential for readers to recognize

an author‟s voice So as a result, this special part of the study would focus on the leading conversations which formed this world-known novel firstly by briefly noting Field (social processes and collective activities), Tenor (participants) then thoroughly discussed Mode of the discourses through the two main characters‟ use

of language

4.2.1 Language use in the three leading conversations

As playing the leading roles in the novel, Elizabeth and Darcy were portrayed and drawn completely to a conflict as in the first Act, further away from her goal in the second Act and finally resolved in the last Act

Three leading conversations between Darcy and Elizabeth would be thoroughly discussed in terms of Field, Tenor and Mode, which mostly helped expose Austen's ironic voice through her choosing words differently from other authors

So, this part of the study was to state and to analyze what happened in each Act

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with Austen‟s ironic voice through a cluster of main activities in the three volumes

because in „Pride and Prejudice‟, irony was agreed to the “stratagem for

survival”

So as to understand more about its assumptions that the leading characters asserted

in their claims against the overbearing society and emotion testing without betraying themselves into a commitment, the researcher aimed at putting much effort in thoroughly analyzing the following acts

4.2.1.1 Act 1

The first Act included the first twenty-three chapters, the circumstance in which Darcy and Elizabeth started and remained the wrong impression on each other The welcome ball brought Darcy and Elizabeth together with the first mistaken impression when Darcy insulted Elizabeth‟s overhearing to his conversation with

Mr Bingley

To begin with Mr Bingley‟s welcome ball when Darcy and Elizabeth met each other for the first time, the readers‟ perception of the characters was shaped mainly

by their words

See Appendix 1 for the origin text of the first 'conversation' between Darcy and

Elizabeth, which contributed for one's wrong impression on the other