5．5. 3　Linguistic Art语言艺术

5．5. 3　Linguistic Art语言艺术

The poor pupil young man hesitated and procrastinated: it cost him such an effort to broach the subject of terms，to speak of money to a person who spoke only of feelings and，as it were，of the aristocracy．Yet he was unwilling to take leave，treating his engagement as settled，without some more conventional glance in that direction than he could find an opening for in the manner of the large，affable lady who sat there drawing a pair of soiled gantè de Suede through a fat，jeweled hand and，at once pressing and gliding，repeated over and over everything but the thing he would have liked to hear．He would have liked to hear the figure of his salary; but just as he was nervously about to sound that note the little boy came back—the little boy Mrs．Moreen had sent out of the room to fetch her fan．He came back without the fan，only with the casual observation that he could n＇t find it．As he dropped this cynical confession he looked straight and hard at the candidate for the honour of taking his education in hand．This personage reflected，somewhat grimly，that the first thing he should have to teach his little charge would be to appear to address himself to his mother when he spoke to her—especially not make her such an improper answer as that．

(excerpt from The Pupil by Henry James)

那位可怜的年轻人犹豫不决，错失良机。向一位似乎只谈感情和贵族的人提条件，或提钱的事真是难于启齿。然而，他不情愿就此离开，认为这是定好的约会，只是朝那个方向瞟了一眼，但见在一个空位处，那位体态臃肿、和蔼可亲的夫人坐在那里，用戴有珠宝的胖手扯拉着一副污损的麂皮手套，喋喋不休地谈论着别的事，唯独不提钱的事情。他想听到他该拿多少薪水，可就在他急切想听到酬劳时，那个小男孩回来了。刚才摩热恩夫人打发他去屋外为她拿扇子，扇子没有取回来，小男孩只是漫不经心地看了看，说他没有找到。他还承认自己的讥诮行为，并直眼瞪着要给他上课的年轻人。这个男孩的反应多少有点冷漠，这说明他首先要教会小男孩在和母亲讲话时，应学会问候，而不能像这样做不礼貌的回答。

Comments About lexical features，this passage has a rather low frequency of nouns; moreover，over half of these nouns are abstract，referring to entities which exist on a social or psychological plane: effort，subject，terms，money，feelings and aristocracy all occur in the first sentence．James makes sparse use of adjectives，and of those that occur，many have nothing to do with physical attributes: unwilling，conventional，affable，casual，cynical，etc．verbs are particularly frequent in the passage; but this does not mean that it is full of action．The most notable classes of adverb are those of manner(straight，nervously，etc．)and of degree(somewhat)．James seems to prefer rather more formal Latinate terms: procrastinated，reflected，observation，confession，etc．It is easy to find more simple language in which the same ideas might have been expressed in a more humdrum context: delay for procrastinate，for example．The loftier tone of these words blends with a certain tendency to affection(the Gallicism gantè de Suede)，and to euphemism(payment is referred to by terms)．There is also a tendency towards circumlocution，particularly in combinations of a verb with an abstract object，as in“take leave” ，“sound that note” ，and“dropped this cynical confession” ．About grammatical features，James＇s sentences are on the average much shorter and the syntax is more involved．This may be caused to some extent by the general abstractness of the language; but it is also a matter of the kinds of syntactic presentation and complexity．As a result，his syntax becomes meaningful in the light of an appraisal of his particular concern with psychological realism．In short，literary stylistics has，implicitly or explicitly，the goal of explaining the relation between language and artistic function，and an aesthetic effect is achieved through language as well．