A Semantic AnaIysis of African American Female Discourse in The Help: On the Use of Figurative Language by the BIack Maids
著者
山根 キャサリン
(Yamane, Kathleen)
教養部
版
publisher
出版地
奈良
出版者
奈良大学
上位タイトル
奈良大学紀要
(Memoirs of the Nara University).
Vol.42,
(2014.
03)
,p.69-
84
識別番号
ISSN
03892204
抄録
" The use of dialect has been noted as a salient and enduring feature of American literature. White southern writer Kathryn Stockett also uses dialect to anchor her characters within a particular group in her best-selling 2009 novel about black women working for white households in jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s. the Help is told from the perspectives of Abileen and Minny, part of a network of 13 black maids who agree to share their stories with Skeeter, the daughter of a white plantation family aspiring to become a writer. In 2011, the ""child-like"", ""over-exaggerated black dialect"" used in the novel and film was criticized by the Association of Black Women Historians. Yamane(2013) addressed the representation of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in The Help, focusing on the phonological and grammatical feaures of the characters' speech. It was found that Stockett in fact makes authenic use of a wide variety of phonological and morphosyntactic features of the code. Furthermore, we noted an avoidance of hypersalient features including treatment of the [ð] and [θ] phonemes and invariant be.
The current study turns to he semantic component. Smitherman (1977, 2000, 2006), Green(2002) and others, aiming to articulate with greater clarity the salient features of AAVE, have increasingly focused their attention on the lexicon and rhetorical strategies. This paper explores the use of figurative language in the speech of Aibileen and Minnie, noting that the use of simile, hyperbole and personification evokes vivid images in the mind of the reader, distinctive of black discourse patterns."
