Stylistics and Its Relevance to the Study of Literature: Edgar Allan Poe’s ＂The Tell-Tale Heart＂ as an Illustration

風格學與文學研究之相關性：以愛倫坡的〈洩密之心〉為例

何玉方(Yu-Fang Ho)

〈洩密之心〉 ； 愛倫坡 ； 風格與效果 ； 文體分析 ； "The Tell-Tale Heart" ； Edgar Allan Poe ； style and effect ； stylistic analysis

師大學報：語言與文學類

55卷2期（2010 / 09 / 01）

137 - 157

英文

廣義而言，風格學（或稱文體學）旨在從語言學的角度切入去研究文學作品，並探索讀者與文本語言之間的互動，亦即，分析文學作品如何透過語言文字（如詞彙、句法、語音、語義等）相互發揮作用並呈現意義（meaning），進而對讀者產生影響（effect）。本文旨在介紹文體學分析方法對文學研究的相關性，並以愛倫坡的短篇恐怖小說〈洩密之心〉為示範，驗證作品文字如何營造恐怖氛圍，以及文體風格分析如何幫助讀者將主觀的感受（subjective impression）提出客觀的描述和解釋（objective description），從而提高對文學作品的分析和鑑賞能力。

The primary purpose of this paper is to introduce a stylistic analytical approach to the study of literary texts. Stylistics is generally considered as the study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation (e.g. lexis, syntax, sound patterns, semantics, etc). It explores how readers interact with the language of texts, i.e. how we understand and are affected by texts when we read them. As Wales (2001: 373) states more precisely, stylistics is a discipline principally concerned with describing the linguistic features of texts and the functional significance of these features in relation to our interpretation of the text. Edgar Allan Poe's short story ”The Tell-Tale Heart” - a tale of terror and a perfect manifestation of Poe's ”single effect” theory - is used to exemplify and demonstrate how the sense of ”terror” is conveyed through the language and how readers are affected accordingly.

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