PDF. - full text - Dunarea de Jos

With a view to analyzing E. M. Forster’s role as a precursor of the stream-ofconsciousness
linguistic techniques at text level, we embark upon a parallel task, namely that
of proving that the pleating of stylistic functions in literary discourse creates a complex
network of linguistic devices, no matter the perspective at the core of the analysis.
Text 1. “So the leave-taking began. Every one was cross or wretched. It was as if irritation
exuded from the very soil. Could one have been so pretty on a Scotch moor or an Italian
alp? Fielding wondered afterwards. There seemed no reserve of tranquility to draw upon
India. Either none, or else tranquility swallowed up everything, as it appeared to do for
Professor Godbole. Here was Aziz all shoddy and odious, Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested
both silly, and he himself and Heaslop both decorous on the surface, but detestable
really, and detesting each other.
‘Good-bye, Mr. Fielding, and thank you so much. …What lovely College buildings!’
‘Good-bye, Mrs. Moore.’
‘Good-bye, Mr. Fielding. Such an interesting afternoon. …’
‘Good-bye, Miss Quested.’
‘Good-bye, Dr. Aziz.’
‘Good-bye, Mrs. Moore.’
‘Good-bye, Dr. Aziz.’
‘Good-bye, Miss Quested.’” (Forster, 1991:67)
The vocabulary of Text 1 observes the canon of formal discourse, not only at the level of
individual words, but also at that of collocations specific to formal English. The absence of
any intrusions of the informal results in clear understanding on the part of the reader,
whereas the stylistic effect created is that of ‘nice and proper’ language that is meant to
characterize both the situation at hand and the characters.
The nouns in the text, whose scarcity is to be noted, as they yield frequency to
adjectives in this excerpt, reveal a stylistic interplay between the concrete and the abstract.
Such a linguistic device serves the stylistic function of supporting the idea of tension at text
level: irritation, soil, moor, alp, reserve, tranquility, College, buildings, surface.
The idea of tension is enhanced and characterized by the large number of adjectives
employed with a view to creating a stylistic play upon reality and appearance. Thus, they
qualify reality as hidden and appearance as out in the open, a type of antonymic social
prejudice that all characters tolerate, e.g. cross, wretched, pretty, shoddy, odious, silly, decorous,
detestable, lovely, interesting.
Enhancing this gap between truth and social mask, the adverbs in the text mostly make
up superlatives, meant to draw the reader’s attention to the exaggeration of appearance, e.g.
very , so, Such, with only two intrusions of space and time, e.g. afterwards, Here.
Moreover, the verbs in the fragment obey the same interplay of reality and appearance,
as seemed and appeared are contrasted to verbs denoting actions (physical or verbal), e.g.
began, to draw, swallowed up, to do, thank. The transition is rendered by such ‘intermediating’
verbs as those denoting states or mental processes, e.g. was, exuded, Could have been, wondered.
The sentence structure seems to obey a tension towards end of tension axis, as the
beginning of the excerpt is made up of simple, short sentences, e.g.
So the leave-taking began. Every one was cross or wretched. It was as if irritation exuded
from the very soil. Could one have been so pretty on a Scotch moor or an Italian alp?
Fielding wondered afterwards. There seemed no reserve of tranquility to draw upon
India,
that evolve into longer, compound and complex sentences as the tension dissipates
with the leave-taking, e.g.
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