摘要：从文体学的角度对两封情书进行了略论。通过对情书中所用的词汇、句子结构和修辞法三个方面的略论，英语论文网站，英语论文，揭示这两封情书各自表达的感情。
关键词：文体学；词汇；句子结构；修辞法
1.Introduction
The two love letters are chosen from the publication 100 World’s Great Letters, one of which was written by Napoleon Bonaparte to his wife Josèphine de Beauharnais in November 13th, 1796 and the other is from a very famous French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844—1923) to her lover Victorien Sardu. In the following, the different styles used in these two letters will be analyzed in terms of vocabulary, sentence structure and figures of speech in order to explore the different moods expressed in them.
2.Stylistic analysis of the two letters
（1）Vocabulary
In the first letter, lexical anaphora is used. It is the repeating of words in initial or front position.
In this device, words are repeated at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, stanzas or paragraphs. The pattern is (a…) (a…). (What do you do all day, Madam? What is the affair as important as to leave you no time to write to your devoted lover? …)
Besides anaphora, anadiplosis is used in the first letter, too. In anadiplosis a word in end position in a line or sentence is repeated in initial position in the line following. The pattern is (…a) (a…). (…, write me quickly four pages, pages full of agreeable things which shall fill my heart with the pleasantest feelings.)
（2）Sentence structure
Skillful writers exploit variation in sentence length to great effect to express different moods or attitudes, to describe action or events or to emphasize a point.
The two letters use more short sentences than long ones to emphasize the authors’ feelings. For example, the first paragraph of the first letter (I don’t love you, not at all; on the contrary, I detest you——you’re a naughty, gawky, foolish Cinderella. …) and the last paragraph of the second letter (I am as hungry for them as for food. I am thirsty for them, and my thirst is overwhelming. …) use short sentences for emphasis, and these sentences reflect the husband’s deep love for his wife and the girl’s strong affection for her lover.
Of course, long sentences are also used in the two letters. The excellent combination of long and short sentences adds rhythm to the two letters so that they sound more forceful and cadenced.
Known as erotesis in Greek, the rhetorical question is one that is asked to imply a definite answer. This device is often used in argument and/or persuasion. For example, in the second paragraph of the first letter (What do you do all day, Madam? What is the affair as important as to leave you no time to write to your devoted lover? …), several rhetorical questions are used to query his wife why she pays no attention to him, which, at the same time, show that he deeply loves his wife and that he badly needs love from her.
Balance in sentence construction is based on the principle that ideas of the same importance should be expressed in the same grammatical form to enhance clarity and coherence, by giving them “equal weight”. Parallelism is one of the chief schemes of balance. It involves balancing the structural elements of a sentence. It plays a very important part in forceful writing of any kind, and anyone who has learnt to use it with ease will find it an invaluable aid in making his/her writing clear and effective. 1 |
