外文學院2005—2006 學年第(一) 學期期末考試英語系《 語言模式與美感》 試卷.doc

外文學院20052006學年第（一）學期期末考試英語系語言模式與美感試卷年級 地理系02級雙學位 班級 1班 姓名 劉健姻 學號022614140Write a comment on the linguistic features of a literary work in accordance with the following format:Appreciation of the lyrics of Dont Cry for Me, Argentina!Liu Jianyin(Class 1, Grade 2002, Double Degrees, School of Geography Science, SCNU)I. Abstract:The greatness of a song lies in it can make the audients tear. The song” Dont Cry for Me, Argentina” was composed in honor of Evita Peron, the First Lady of Argentina, which not only makes Argentine tear but also people of another nation. Everybody who hears the song would be deeply moved by Madonnas passionate performance and Evitas patriotism and of course the beauty of the lyrics. Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyriced by Tim Rice and Vocals by Madonna, the song is classical of all the time.II. Key words: unadulterated patriotism; unadorned style of languageIII. Body1. Paraphrasing of the workIt is not easy to explain to you. Perhaps youll think it strange when I try to explain my feeling that I still need your love after all that I have done. I am afraid you wont believe me. All you will see is a girl you once knew. The difficult life has turned her to be a nine-year old girl although she is six or seven years old.I have to let my wild days begin and I have to change. I couldnt stay all my life down at the hill of cruel reality which is like looking out of the window and staying out of the sun. So I chose freedom, running around and trying everything new. But after that I found nothing impressed me at all, which I never expected.And as for fortune and fame, I never invited them in, though it seemed to the world that they are all I desired. In fact they are illusions rather than solutions which they promise to be. The answer for all I have done was here all the time, which is I love you and hope you love me too. If I have to die for the sake of Argentina, and please remember, dont cry for me! Because the truth is I never left you. All through my wild days and my mad existence I will still keep my promise and please dont keep your distance.Have I said too much? Please forgive me, theres nothing more I can think of to say to you. But all you have to do is to look at me to know that every word I said is true.2. Brief account of the authorFamed for his enormously successful collaboration with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyricist Tim Rice was born November 10, 1944, in Buckinghamshire, England. As a child growing up in Hertfordshire he was enchanted by astronomy and cricket and excelled academically. On leaving school he shunned university and tried his hand with the law. But he had dreams of becoming a pop star or at the very least a songwriter and so he took a job as a management trainee with EMI records. When he met Andrew Lloyd Webber after replying to his request for a with it writer he realized his future as a lyricist. Lyricist as he was, he failed to win a Tony in Jesus Christ Superstar in 1971. His second Broadway show was Evita (1976-1978) which made him win two Tonys. The show Evita (1976-78) became, and indeed remain, hugely success all around the world, on both stage and screen. The theme song of Evita, Dont Cry for Me Argentina, won seven Tony Awards. Besides Evita, even some classical songs today are lyriced by Tim Rice, such as A Whole New World from Aladdin, Can You Feel the Love Tonight from The Lion King, and some songs in Beauty and the Beast.3. Brief account of the work The song “Dont Cry for Me, Argentina” is the theme song of the musical Evita debuting in 1976, the one based on the life of Eva Peron, the wife of Argentine president Juan Peron. The song is a vivid portrayal of Evita Perons life. She succeeded in becoming a dancing girl when she was an illegitimate child of the poor tailor and becoming the First Lady of the nation when she was a prostitute. Her legendary but fugacious life was full of both misfortune and fortune, both abuse and eulogium. She absolutely voiced for the poverty-stricken people and was admired nation-wide. She came from the bottom of society and represented the power of the poor people. She was part of them and she loved them with all her heart The lyricist adapts first-person type to narrate the story. It seemed that it is Evita herself retelling her life and expressing her love for Argentina to us. The audients turn to be Argentines who are listening. This type of narrating triggers resonance between the narrator and audients to the largest extend. The language of the whole lyrics is plain and simple, which is perfect to explain Evitas unadulterated patriotism. The lyrics are composed of ten stanzas, in which every stanza has its own meaning except the climax stanza which appear twice. The first two stanzas adapt the mainly the future form to imply that the narrator is going to tell something. The two stanzas also adapt the present tense in the clause to imply the content of the story that is narrating. In the next two stanzas, the lyricist turns to use the simple past tense to begin the review of her life. In these two stanzas, the core of the retelling is not her miserable life but her dauntless and fortitude to freedom and better life. The first stanza was about her living status before her struggle while the second was referred to her wild days as a social butterfly and her disappointed feelings. The next stanza is the chorus of climax of the lyrics. The narrator chants her eternal love and resolute promise to Argentina, which is the most touching part.The next two stanzas adapt mixed tenses including simple past tense and present tense, which imply that the narrator is talking about her present feeling about her past experience. The climax part is chanted again.The last part uses the present tense again, which telling the audients that she have finished her review and promise the sincerity again.4. Major theme of the workArgentine always joked that the best present for Christmas to the nation was the resigning of the president. Argentina is a suffering country that always lacks the public servant like Evita who serviced the nation with heart and soul. The contribution she made to social welfare, human rights and womens rights was so fabulous that there was not any Argentine man can compare with her. But when the Argentines cherish memory of her, the rose of Argentina, they would look her as an ordinary, tender and beautiful Argentine woman rather than a hard politician.Seeming like a love song, the theme of the song is not simple love but profound and meaningful love. In this song, the term you doesnt refer to lover but Argentina. The unadorned language describes ardent love and hatred of an individual towards the nation. When the nation can not provide people freedom, justice and happiness, Evita said “I had to change”. And when freedom, justice and happiness were crowned to Evita after the victory of struggle, she just told the reason simply and sincerely, that is” I love you and hope you love me”. The true patriotism lies in loving oneself, loving people and loving freedom rather than loving the dominant party or loving the government, which is stupid and fake. 5. Linguistic presentation of the theme(a)Phonologic features 81. Rhyme As the theme of the song implies, the narrator Evita herself is a person who pursued and encouraged her people to pursued freedom. So the form of the whole lyrics is free style. It can be shown in the phonologic features. As what has been discussed above, the first two stanzas are connected using the same tense. Besides that, they are connected by the first two lines of the each stanza. Both line 1s of the first two stanzas contain two end rhymes, be easy and believe me. Both are ended up with the sound i, which easy is short i and me is long i:. Both are three syllables i having the second i: as the stressed syllable which makes the concordant.The same principle is also adapted below.The sound ein happen, freedom, Argentina, fortune, illusions, Argentina, Argentina in each first line of each stanza connects the next six stanzas together, from the third stanza to the ninth one. It is clear that the en or em sound is separated regularly by e sound in Argentina. 2. End RhymeThose above are the most obvious to detected. There are still some end rhymes to construct phonological harmony. The first stanza and the third one are obvious examples to this degree. They are closely linked by phonological features, although they are not the same in tense. Both the second line” youll think it strange” and” I had to change” are composed of four monosyllabic words, with the eind to be the end rhyme. Each third line” when I try to explain how I feel” and “couldnt stay all my life down at hill” is composed of nine syllables with one word in each line that is two-syllable, explain and couldnt, and both lines are ended up with the sound i:l and il, which can be termed as the same end rhyme in this situation. The last lines of the two stanzas” after all that Ive done” and “Staying out of the sun” are ended up with the n syllable in done and sun, making the two stanzas almost complete the same structured. In the fifth stanza, the climax one, the first two lines are each composed of eight syllables; while the last four lines are each composed of five monosyllabic words; all are ended up with the s or z syllable. The music background of the first and the sixth stanza is similar; the lyrics in both two parts share something in common. There are both 30 syllables in the stanza and the last line each has the same structure. “That I still need your love after all that Ive done”,” Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired”. They are coincident. There is a phenomenon that cant be ignored. The syllable u: are widely adapted in three stanzas, the second, the fourth and the tenth stanza, appearing in the word knew, you, new (pronounced in American English), too, you and true. 3. Alliteration The first alliteration lays in the line” my mad existence”. Apparently, “my” and “mad” share the same head consonant m.Another alliteration is the two lines “And as for fortune, and as for fame”. If we treat it separately, “and” and “as” share the same head vowel , “for” and” fortune”, “for” and “fame” share the same head consonant f.The two lines are nearly the same except “fortune” and “fame”. The lyricist chose these two words to induce a sound of resonance.(b)Graphical features The whole lyrics consist of ten stanzas. In accordance with the narrative order, the first two stanzas adapt mainly the future tense; the third and the fourth part adapt the past tense; the sixth stanza uses the past tense to review the achievement of Evita and the seventh and the tenth stanza use the present tense to express the narrators feeling towards Argentina just like talking face to face.The first and the third stanza are structurally similar with almost the same syllables. Most of the end rhymes are correspondingly the same. The first and the sixth stanza share the same music background. Therefore they share the same number of the syllables, both are 30 syllables. The second and the seventh part share the same music background too. Although they dont have the same account of syllables but they do share the same structure of the whole stanza.(c)Lexical features 1. Little use of Adjectives, which expressing true love The theme is about love, about praising something. Normally there should be some adjective to describe the profound feeling. But all through the whole lyrics, we can just find only five adjectives. Evita said it wont be easy to explain to you, because the feeling too deep to express. So she supposed the listeners would feel strange. She had tried everything new to fulfill her dream. But the reality is cruel that make she disappointed. She knew she paid too much to become famous. When she reviewed her life, she considered it is mad existence. After finishing the review, she told Argentine that there is nothing more she can think of to say to them, because all she said is true, and thats enough. To this extend, we can conclude that the style of the language is unadorned. There are several reasons for this. First of all, the song is just like Evita is talking to the Argentine, especially the poverty-stricken people. They are poor and with low education. So the language spoken to them should be plain and easy to understand. Secondly, true love can not be described in the magnificent adjectives. Evitas love for Argentina came from her own miserable experiences, and she loved Argentine just like loving herself. So it is proper to limit the use of adjectives. 2. Highlighting the use of second-syllable-stressed wordsWhen I try to explain how I feelBut nothing impressed me at allI never expected it tooMy mad existence I never invited them inThey are illusionsAs the sentences shown above, it is clear that the lyricist is inclined to use the second-syllable-stressed words with the i syllable to start. Why Tim Rice uses these words? I believe that the purpose is to produce an effect of modulation in tone. The words of this kind can easily produce the feeling of first falling and then rising, which is more profound than those words with the first syllables stressed when expressing the deep feeling of human beings. It can indicate the power under the surface. Evitas profound love for Argentina is the same case, she loved her country with heart and soul, and the love was full of passion. If the lyricist transfer to use the words with first syllable stressed, it will lose the beauty both of phonology and meaning, it just became plain and like an empty slogan.3. Non-predicate using to describe the status of living Looking out of the window running around Staying out of the sun trying everything newThe first pair belongs to the third stanza, while the second pair belongs to the fourth stanza. Both belong to the review of her past. The first pair describes her life before struggle and the second pair describes her life when she chose to be a social butterfly to be famous. These two pairs of lines have the same function of expressing the living status of Evita.4. the+ numbers demonstrates a group of people In line 7 of the second stanza, “the nines” refers to the children who are at the age of nine. So similarly, “sixes and sevens” refers to the children who are six or seven years old.(d)Syntactic features 1. Short sentence of simple structure There are many short sentences in the lyrics. There are almost sentences in all stanzas. This can be easily understood by the audients and easy to have the resonance among them. The climax part is composed of short sentences without a long sentence. This distinguished feature is in accordance with the theme of the song and its style of language. 2. Long sentence of simple structure Beside short sentences, there is at least a long sentence in every stanza except the climax part. But the structure of the long sentence is easy to detect because it is distributed line after line. The most classic example is from line 11 to line13 in the third stanza. The ordinary sentence is “(I) couldnt stay all my life down at hill, looking out of the window and staying out of the sun”. The way the lyricist puts the long sentence can decrease the difficulties of understanding. 3. Parallelism and repetition The first two lines of the sixth stanza are parallel. The normal order of “and as for fortune, and as for fame” is in fact “and as for fortune and fame”. In order to trigger the effect of parallelism and in accordance with the structure of the first stanza, the lyricist repeats the use of the phrase “as for” and the conjunctive word “and”. The distinguished example of repetition is the re-chanting of “Dont cry for me, Argentina”, which makes the theme more profound.4. Free direct speech Free direct speech produces a sense of true, a sense of close and a sense of vivid. As far as I am concerned, the lyricist narrates the story in the first person narrating manner. So it reads to us that it is Evita herself telling us the story. All through the whole text, it is like a personal talk delivered by Evita in her own way. Moreover, the lyricist uses the free direct speech to produce this sense of intimation, friendly and closely, which is accordant with the relationship between Evita and her people.5. No passive voice In fact active voice dominates the whole lyrics. The whole lyrics can be treated as Evitas struggle to the cruel reality and expression of love to her people. So it is appropriate to adapt the active voice rather than passive voice.(e)Semantic features 1. Metaphor As the song is for the poor people, it is not proper to use too many metaphorical images. There is only one in the lyrics and the one is quite easy to comprehend by audients. The metaphorical image is “hill”. Evita said “I couldnt stay all my life down at hill”. Literally understanding, the narrator just said that she doesnt want to live at the foot of the hill. When thinking twice, it is not hard to see that “the foot of hill” refers to the place of poverty. And “the life down at hill” can be comprehended with imagination that “the hard life under the pressure of the cruel reality”. I think this image is universal both in China and Argentina. It is vivid that even man of low education can figure out. 2. Semantic deviation The semantic deviation lays in the phrase” at sixes and sevens” in line 8 of stanza two. This is an informal f