英语文体学的范围、性质与方法

English Stylistics: Its Proper Domain and Other Problems

随着语言学研究的开展,文体学的研究在欧美各国也取得了一定成绩。它吸取了传统的风格学和修辞学的某些成分,以语言学的理论和方法为依据,试图对各种类型、各种场合、为各种目的的语言的使用,从日常谈话到正式演说,从诗歌到散文,从新闻、广告到小说、戏剧,进行系统的分析研究,探讨语言风格上的特点,并寻求其规律。 尽管这门学问还在形成的过程中,理论探讨还在开展,它对语言研究和语言教学,无疑有很大的帮助,对于外语教学则尤其有益。外语教师往往感到,学生在掌握了语法和常用词汇,有了基本的听说读写能力之后,对文体风格的辨别便成了一个重要的问题。这时给他们讲些文体学知识,当然极有好处。 英语文体学在我国还是一个较新的领域。最近几年在一些大学英语专业开设了这门课程,在外语教学杂志上也发表了一些这方面的探讨文章,这是十分可喜的现象。 为了引起广大英语教师和研究者对这门学问的注意,为了推动这门新课的开设,教育部外语专业教材编审委员会于1984年审定了《英语文体学引论》一书。接着又在武汉召开会议,制定了英语文体学教学大纲。参加会议的各校教师在会上提出了关于英语文体学的论文。我们在本期发表教学大纲和一部分论文,以后再陆续刊登几篇,以飨读者。

In the hope of clearing up misunder-standings about stylistics it is proposedin this paper that stylistics should in the firstplace be kept strictly within the area wherethe two disciplines of linguistics and literarycriticism overlap. In other words, stylisticsmust take literature as the object of itsstudy and use linguistics only as a means tothat end. Secondly, being essentially an in-terprelative activity that relies to a consid-erable extent on our intuitive responses toliterature, stylistics must not be (nor canit possibly be) purged of subjective in-trusions on the part of its practitioners toachieve what is supposed to be 'pure'objectivity. And thirdly, as regards Inethodo-logy, it is emphasized that the awe-inspiringtechniques adopted in some stylistic analy-ses should be demystified and that any at-tempt to dissect a literary text for analyticalpurposes should refrain from murdering art.