Филологические науки /

теоретические и методологические

проблемы исследования языка

Расказова О.Ю.

Чернівецький Національний університет ім. Ю.Федьковича

Manner Adverbs in the Author’s Discourse (Based on the Material of the Novels: “Harry Poter” by J.K. Rowling, “Heart of Darkness” by J. Conrad and “Shame” by Salman Rushdiebases)

Having once been identified as 'perhaps the least studied and most maligned part of speech', the adverb has been widely investigated since, with little agreement arising. In English, adverbs seem to be both freely occurring and highly restricted in terms of distribution. Theories have been put forth in both the syntactic and semantic realms proposing dependency of adverb placement on specialized rules that access certain semantic factors of the adverbs themselves [5; p. 178], on feature checking with predetermined nodes of attachment, and on scoping relations amongst adverbs themselves and amongst adverbs and verbs [6; p.372]. Though fairly wide-ranging in their opinions regarding the deciding factor in adverb distribution, each theory, and in fact most all theories, rely on a given classificatory system that divides adverbs into an array of groups based on semantic or functional properties, demarcating subject-oriented, speaker-oriented, and manner most commonly, though modal, epistemic, degree, frequency, time and many others have also been presented in the literature. Adverbs provide an interesting field for study of the relations between syntax and semantics and the nature of the syntax-semantics interface in general.

The objective of this article is functional peculiarities of manner –ly adverbs in the author’s discourse. The research has been carried out on the basis of the novels: “Harry Poter” by J.K. Rowling, “Heart of Darkness” by J. Conrad and “Shame” by Salman Rushdie.

The choice of this research is predetermined by the necessity to explore practical usage of manner –ly adverbs in the author’s discourse. In this paper we focus on the role and functions of manner adverbs (specifically those in –ly) in fiction. Thus the investigation of those adverbs usage helps a lot to understand the peculiarity of this or that particular author’s style, his intentions and the way he appeals to the readers’ psychology and cognition.

There is a long, yet by no means outdated tradition in English studies to explore the rich potential that is available to users of English for emphasizing and intensifying their ideas. Our world is not such that we could best talk about it in plain, straightforward, clear-cut notions. Its description and conceptualization requires rather a sophisticated, complex language able to express subtle distinctions and finer shades of meaning. Grading, intensifying and minimizing are therefore almost constant characteristics of our speech. Adverbs are widely used in the author’s discourse to transfer some general meaning or to point something out or intensify something. Adverbs can be used either in spoken or written discourse with contextual or grammatical purpose.

If we consider the usage of rhetorical devices in the novel “Shame” by Salman Rushdie we can point out that manner adverbs are widely used in the written discourse and they are mainly used as the verb modifiers (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Frequency of the Usage of Adverbs

Manner		Subject-Modifier Adverbs		Sentense Adverbs		A Handful of More or Less Difficult Cases		Total Number
251	48%	56	11%	196	38%	18	3%	521	100%

(1) MANNER

a. Kristin talked loudly.

b. Mateuzs played beautifully.

(2) SUBJECT-MODIFIER ADVERB

a. He thankfully accepted her help.

b. Kevin apologized willingly.

c. Pinkly he confirmed this.

d. WPC Alexander bustled plumply around her.

(3) SENTENCE ADVERB

a. Fortunately, Peter now accepts those stative adverbs.

b. She will probably win the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

(4) A HANDFUL OF MORE OR LESS DIFFICULT CASES

a. They were famously painted by Bacon.

b. She deservedly won that Oscar.

c. She painfully made her way upstairs.

The examples in (1) are generally typical of pure manner adverbs. Their function is to modify a verb, or specify a type of the action in question, and they usually follow the verb directly. The examples in (2) exemplify subject-modifying adverbs. Normally these refer to states of mind (agents’ states of mind), i.e. those subjects are normally considered to be involved in some activity while they are in this state of mind (2a-b); the examples in (2c-d), however, are of a new type, physical subject modifiers, and ascribe physical properties to subjects. (3) shows sentence adverbs. They have the entire sentence in their scope, and are subjective in the sense of being speaker comments, evaluating the truth of the proposition, as in (3b), or the fact itself, as in (3a). Finally, (4) contains a motley group of more-or-less odd examples with various indeterminate functions [6; p. 362].

It has been shown in various works that in English, there is an ongoing linguistic change, called adverbialization, which means (in rather unlinguistic terms) that new types of adverbs are evolving (starting in Old English), sharply peaked,to sentence adverb. Manner adverbs, i.e. -ly suffixed verb modifiers, are prototypical adverbs [4; p. 4].

The interference of adverbs with the author’s discourse can be traced in the modern fantasy work “Harry Potter” by J.K. Rowling. “Deathly” is the most widely used adverb here. Then there are those for whom the word “deathly” was cringe-inducing for a different reason - the readers who thought Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was in dire need of a strong editing hand. “Deathly” is an adverb in the title of the book. She doesn’t need to tell us that Aunt Petunia said something “snidely” to Harry or that Mrs. Weasley said something “anxiously” as she was looking for others on a busy train platform [4; p. 187]. We know enough about the characters created and the scenes that she’s set that we get it. In fact if we think about it, using adverbs is rather insulting. It's as if Rowling doesn't think her readers are bright enough to catch the subtleties she’s written.

Adverbs serve to modify, to give more description to the entities found in a text. So using more adverbs will result in semantic richness, whereas avoiding them may result in descriptive sparseness or thinness. Using adverbs in great numbers therefore tends to make the style of the text ornate. While examining some instances of -ly adverbs in Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” we can distinguish some examples. The total number of the given advbs in this novel is 438 items. Among them are: sharply, affectionately, ominously, slightly, suddenly, slowly, hastily, patiently, only, particularly, fairly, ponderously (see Table 2).

Table 2

Quantative Analysis of the –ly Adverbs

sharply	affectionately	ominously	slightly	slowly	hastily	patiently	only	particularly	fairly	ponderously	suddenly	Total number
28	8	15	26	99	34	52	110	17	9	4	36	438
6%	2%	3%	6%	23%	8%	12%	25%	4%	2%	1%	8%	100%

The results of our analysis are the following: the most frequently used adverbs in this novel are only, slowly, patiently, suddenly, hastily. Then go slightly, particularly, ominously, fairly, affectionately, ponderously.

In the process of our critical review we can draw the conclusion: the manner adverbs are used in the author’s discourse with some definite purpose to appeal to the readers’ cognition. There are three areas of interest as we look at how pragmatics and discourse affect adverbs. The first deals with the frequency of usage in different kinds of writing. The second deals with a hidden surprise because of polarity. The last looks at how fiction writers use adverbs to create pictures in the mind.

Adverb is the inevitable part of author’s discourse giving certain peculiarities to the author’s manner and style.

Bibliography:

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