摘 要

马克·吐温是十九世纪后期美国最杰出的批判现实主义作家之一，他最具代表性的作品《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》以一个十三岁小男孩哈克为主人公，从他的自叙中描绘了他在流浪过程中的所有经历。该小说具有鲜明的语言特色，即运用美式方言来铺叙情节，展开对话。本文将从小说的社会背景、文化启蒙、作者个人因素这三个方面，分析马克·吐温美式方言的形成原因。同时，本文将结合语言学，通过举例分析的方法对小说中的美式方言进行研究，从而总结出方言的语言特点，包括夸张的遣词、口语化风格、有意的重复、无限制的语法和松散的句子结构，以及语意特色，如土话语言、乡土色彩和幽默与讽刺。本文旨在探索方言这种语言形式在文学中的使用，并使之丰富文学作品的表现形式。

关键词：《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》；美式方言；文学作品；人物

Abstract

Mark Twain is one of the most outstanding American critical realistic writers in the late 19th century. His most representative work Adventure of Huckleberry Finn set Huck, a thirteen-year-old boy as one of the main character. From Huck’s self-narration, he depicts all that happened in his adventure experience. The novel has a distinctive language feature, which is the use of American dialect to elaborate plot and unfold dialogue. The reasons for the formation of Mark Twain’s American dialect will be analyzed in the paper from the perspectives of social background, cultural enlightenment, and individual factors. At the same time, this paper will research the American dialect in this novel by using the case-study method combined with the knowledge of linguistics, the purpose of which is the linguistic features of dialect, including exaggerated phrasing, colloquial style, intentional repetition, unrestraint in grammar and loose sentence structure, as well as the analysis of semantic features such as vernacular language, local color and humor and satire. The purpose of this paper is to explore the usage of dialect in the literature, and make it enrich the form of literary works.

Key words: Adventure of Huckleberry Finn; American dialect; literary work; character

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Mark Twain and his major works 1

1.2 Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 2

1.3 American vernacular dialect 3

2 Factors leading to the formation of Mark Twain’s American dialect 4

2.1 Social background 4

2.2 Cultural enlightenment 5

2.3 Individual factors 6

3 Analysis of American dialect in Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 8

3.1 Linguistic features of dialect in Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 8

3.1.1 Exaggerated phrasing 8

3.1.2 Colloquial style 9

3.1.3 Intentional repetition 11

3.1.4 Unrestraint in grammar 11

3.1.5 Loose sentence structure 12

3.2 Semantic features of dialect in Adventure of Huckleberry Finn 13

3.2.1 Vernacular language 13

3.2.2 Local color 15

3.2.3 Humor and satire 15

4 Conclusion 17

References 18

Acknowledgements 19

Study on American Dialect in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1 Introduction

1.1 Mark Twain and his major works

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known better for his pseudonym, Mark Twain, was born on November 30, 1835 in a small village of Florida, Missouri. And when he was at four, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, which later became the setting of his many works. As one of the most outstanding realistic writers, he won the respect of intelligent people and affection of children. Furthermore, owing to his splendid contribution to the development of American literature, he established a crucial status in the American literary arena, and was regarded as the father of modern American novels.

Mark Twain began his writing in the period of American Civil War, and shot to fame in 1865 by the publication of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Later, he wrote a few pieces of travelogues about his journey, such as Roughing It. At his mid-time of his literary creation, he combined abundant humor, sarcastic narration, and social criticism in his later works, like The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today(1873), co-operated with his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner. After that, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer depicted on Mark Twain’s youth was published in 1876. Then years later, Mark Twain finished the offshoot of the novel named Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which was regarded as the first Great American Novel.