Jane Austen’s Ideal Philosophy of Love in Sense and Sensibility from the Perspective of Positive Discourse Analysis

Zhang Ting

【Abstract】In Sense and Sensibility， Jane Austen expresses her attitudes towards love and marriage through rich appraisal resources from the characters in this novel. The author tries to construct an ideal concept of love and marriage on the basis of both sense and sensibility. It is not difficult to find Jane Austens philosophy of love through the Positive Discourse Analysis on appraisal resources.

【Key words】Sense and Sensibility； Positive Discourse Analysis； ideal philosophy of love

1. Introduction of Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility written in 1797 is Jane Austens first novel which mainly describes the love story of two sisters Elinor and Marianne. Reasonable Elinor knows how to control her inner feelings and is silent of her desires. Her rational attitude towards love and marriage gets her married with the man she loves deeply after lots of difficulties. Marianne is so romantic that she falls into love with somebody following her feelings. After losing her heart to an irresponsible seducer， Marianne learns to be reasonable to choose her husband and at last she receives her true love. To explore Jane Austens ideal philosophy of love from the perspective of linguistics will offer more objective evidences.

2. Positive Discourse Analysis and Appraisal Theory

In 1999 J.R.Martin firstly put forward the Positive Discourse Analysis （PDA） at an international meeting held in Birmingham. Positive Discourse Analysis （PDA） is the imperfection of Critical Discourse Analysis （CDA）. CDA is critical because it interprets how language is used to enforce social control and causes or maitains social inequalities. It attaches importance to revealing the implied relations between language and ideology， hidden power， and unfair phenomenon in discourses. To some extent， the CDA reveals and interprets the unfair social phenomenon and looks for ways to change social structure . However， PDA analyzes discourses from a more positive and constructive attitude to tackle the social unfair phenomenon expects to construct a more harmonious society. The main theoretical framework of both CDA and PDA is the Appraisal Theory. The Appraisal Theory covers how writers/speakers express their attitudes and how they align the putative audience. Taking the Appraisal Theory as the theoretical framework to do the PDA to explore Jane Austens ideal philosophy of love is a fresh perspective.

According to Marins， the Appraisal Theory consists of three interactive subsystems， attitude， engagement and graduation. Attitude refers to the general label of the evaluation system about meanings referred to different kinds of feelings. Attitude is focused on various feelings and its scope ranges from different evaluation of a thing to various behavior judgments. Its three subsystems are affect， judgment， and appreciation. Engagement refers to the different scope of linguistic evaluations by which speakers or writers take a standpoint of the value positions being mentioned by the text and involving those they address.

3. Positive Discourse Analysis on Appraisal Resources of Characters in Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austens philosophy of love and marriage is implied by the rich appraisal resources of characters in Sense and Sensibility. The analyses in this part are based on the statistics of appraisal resources collected from the whole discourses. And the following will try to explore the novel wirters implied love philosophy through these collected appraisal resources from the Positive Discourse Analysis.

3.1 PDA on Appraisal Resources of Elinor

3.1.1 PDA on Attitude Resources of Elinor

Attitude resources are the most obvious hints of ones thoughts and emotions. Positive attitude resources， such as esteem， like， hope， affection， good， will， happiness...are widely used by the author to imply her affection for Elinor and Elinor is described as a calm and reasonable girl. Words such as “regard” and “affection” points out Elinors appreciation of Edwards love to her. Although getting hurt from Edward， she still shows her sympathy to Edward for his engagement with Lucy.

Although there are also some negative attitude resources like distress， mortified， shocked， confounded and so on， these negative expressions are adopted to describe Elinors inner psychological activity when she faces love difficulties. Expressions like “resentment” and “indignation” are employed to show Elinors angry feelings when she finally knows Edwards engagement with Lucy. In order to highlight Elinors noble personality， the author Jane Austen still chooses some positive words like composure， calm down... along with the negative attitude resources to show Elinors mature and stability facing love bitters. “Unhappiness” and “suspicion” indirectly implied the authors attitude towards marriage that without love the marriage will be unhappy. The author tries to construct an ideal love story based on ration and arranges a happy ending with Edward for this forbearing Elinor.

3.1.2 PDA on Engagement Resources of Elinor

Engagement makes explanations for where the evaluative resources are from. Contraction evaluations such as “no”， “not”， “nothing”， etc. leave no space for discussion or negotiation.

Contraction evaluations are frequently adopted to express Elinors attitude towards love. Elinor accepts the love based on reason while she denies the love only on the basis of romance and indiscretion. The literal meaning of these contraction evaluations is Elinors indifferent attitude towards Edward. However， she just expressed her thoughts sanely. When the love between Elinor and Edward seems to be hopeless， the high frequent word “but” is employed as the transition to convey Elinors true feelings to Edward and to express her forever loyal love regardless of the fact that they might be forced to separate from each other. The author Jane Austen succeeds in expressing her own positive attitude towards true love through Elinors words. That is， true love will exist forever even if the two lovers have to part. Expansion evaluations like “may”， “must”， “should” frequently appear in Elinors conversation with her sister Marianne. Elinor restrains her love towards Edward because of Edwards engagement to Lucy. However， Elinor makes the decision to forgive Edward and retain her emotion. The conflict is alleviated for the sake of true love.

3.1.3 PDA on Graduation Resources of Elinor

Expressions of graduation such as “highly”， “stronger”， “farther” and so on are force evaluations. Words like “highly”， “greatly”， “scarcely”， “entirely” are used to indicate the extent. Particularly， as a gradable， “stronger”， “farther”， are adopted to emphasize the intensified extent. These graduation evaluations are employed to imply the inner admiration of Elinor for Edward. The love is hot. However， Elinor chooses to keep it a secret. In the phrase “every doctrine”， “every” is the focus dimension and it has a non-attitudinal effect. The news of Edwards engagement to someone else strikes Elinor heavily. However， Jane Austen constructs a strong inner world for this brokenhearted girl. And this girl keeps the love in heart secretly. At last， Elinor and Edward finally get married regardless of the bitterness and sorrow. The union without love between men and women is weak. And the marriage based on true love will last forever.

3.2 PDA on Appraisal Resources of Marianne

Attitude resources like love， virtues， goodness， charm， meritorious， safeguard， waistcoat... from Mariannes description of her future Mr.Right imply her innocence and short-sight facing love. As an unreasonable idealist， Marianne dislikes her future brother-in-law Edward after first meeting. Some negative attitude words， such as man， old and so on， are adopted by this girl in her talking with the elder sister Elinor. In other words， there is also an ideal mate in Jane Austens heart portrayed by Marianne.

Expressions like but， not， never， no and so on are contraction resources for negotiation. They are used to show Mariannes determination in pursuing her ideal marriage. Here Jane Austen doesnt give out some comment on Marianne and even uses some positive words. That means Jane Austens agreement on Mariannes firmness towards love and marriage， which implies the girls happy ending arranged by the author after the first broken love story.

The graduation resources are rather scarce except a few such as seriously， really， indeed， exactly， very， soon， ever， so， too belong to the dimension of focus. And expressions like more， so much， much better， superior， strong， less... belong to the dimension of force. These graduation resources reveal the definition of ideal mate in Mariannes heart. And the author also admits that romance on the basis of reason and sense is necessary in marriage. It is no doubt that romantic Marianne receives true love in the end.

4. Conclusion

Although Jane Austen hasnt expressed her attitude towards love and marriage directly， her inner thoughts are implied in her representative novels. In Sense and Sensibility， Jane constructs an ideal love and marriage environment in which the romance and passion based on reason and sense is necessary. However， the love without careful consideration cannot contribute to the stability of marriage. Leaving mature thoughts， the romance and passion in love and marriage will disappear in the near future.

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