Analyzing the Conversational Clashes in North and South from the Perspective of Literary Pragmatics

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the conversational clashes in North and South from the perspective of literary pragmatics, and to consider the guiding significance of such literary pragmatic analysis to practical issues. This study uses pragmatic presupposition theory to analyze the dialogue clashes in the novel: in terms of the inside dialogue structure the instantiating analysis method is adopted, and the result shows that the reason why the heroine in this novel finally got in love with John is that the two managed to achieve a deepening understanding of each other in their clashes, and finally chose to accept the large background represented by the each other; considering the outside dialogue structure, the qualitative classification discussion is conducted, and the conclusion is that the product of the creative discourse between the author and the reader is within a continuum and has great uncertainty. Besides, the study selects two social issues, “socially inept people” and the English major crisis, discusses whether literary pragmatics research can provide enlightenment for real social problems, and finds that combining with more other disciplines can inject stronger impetus into the development of the subject. This study contends that literary pragmatics is an independent discipline but it still needs to be further accepted by wider academic community, and that conducting more literary pragmatic exploration possesses its own guiding significance for practical issues. Meanwhile, this study hopes to provide some examples and support for the theoretical research of literary pragmatics, advocates more integration of theoretical application with real social problems, and make some contributions to the development of literary pragmatics.