VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies
Faculty of Post-graduate studies
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NGUYỄN KIM OANH

A Minor thesis on:
A STUDY ON HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL
BACKGROUND AND THE NEWNESS OF
LANGUAGE USE IN ‘PRIDE AND PREJUDICE’
BY JANE AUSTEN
(NGHIÊN CỨU CƠ SỞ LỊCH SỬ, XÃ HỘI VÀ TÍNH MỚI CỦA
VIỆC SỬ DỤNG NGÔN NGỮ TRONG TÁC PHẨM „KIÊU
HÃNH VÀ ĐỊNH KIẾN‟ CỦA JANE AUSTEN)

Field: Linguistics
Code: 602215 HANOI – DECEMBER 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies
Faculty of Post-graduate studies
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3. Methodology of procedures 3
3. 1. Design of the study 3
3. 2. Data collection and date analysis 3
4. Scope of the study 4
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. Definitions of key terms 5
1.1.1. Discourse and discourse analysis 5
1.1.2. Literary style 9
1.1.2.1. Word choice 10
1.1.2.2. Sentence fluency 10
1.1.2.3. Voice 10
1.1.3. Language use 11
iv
1.1.3.1. Participant 12
1.1.3.2. Social processes 12
1.1.3.3. Collective activities 12
1.2. Previous studies 13
CHAPTER 2. ANALYTICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. Introduction to Jane Austen 14
2.2. Introduction to „Pride and Prejudice‟ 15
2.2.1. Summary 15
2.2.2. Themes 16
CHAPTER 3: HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND OF BRITISH
NOVELS
3.1. Historical background 17
3.2. Social background 19

identified to work as clear guidelines for the whole research.
1. Rationale of the study
In the eighteenth century, the readers were delighted by a new form of prose,
which was called „novel‟ for the first time by Daniel Defoe – the first considerable
British novelist. A „novel‟ with a certain length did bring amusement, pleasure and
joy to those who were concerned when the contemporary British society was
dreadfully chaotic in the virtue of the changes in the monarch. In the innovation of
this new form of prose, there appeared a remarkable number of writers and their
works. They were coined to emphasize not only the social changes but also the
imaginary stories, which exposed their hope for a better life, so even the family or
social class problems were best put down in words by one of the most famous
female novelist in Britain and all over the world – Jane Austen.
Peter Washington in his commentary once implied that Jane Austen belonged to
the fantastic side of the English comedy that appealed so strongly to the readers,
not only in Britain but also from all over the world.
She was also said to be the first novelist capable of “conveying both interior and
exterior of human life” as well as “developing the means of representing the
totality of human life” (Ian Watt, 1957)
In the six novels written during the very last decades of the eighteenth century, she
truly succeeded in describing “the involvements and feelings and characters of
ordinary life which to me the most wonderful I‟ve ever met with … that a pity such
a gifted creature dies so early” as Walter Scott (1826) once stated in his
2

commentary. All the certain circumstances were just within the leading
involvement of one family and their neighbours and friends in which Austen
created “some heroines who were credible with minds, with the capacity to think
for themselves with ambition and wit”; and „Pride and Prejudice‟, the novel about
marriage, was said to be the best of them all.
„Pride and Prejudice‟ was coined to construct the frame of the contemporarily

3. Methodology of procedures
3.1. Design of the study
The study was divided into three main parts. While Part One dealt with the general
information which contained the rationale, aims and objectives, methodology and
scope of the study, Part Two went into further details of the historical and social
background; and the newness of language use in Jane Austen‟s Pride and
Prejudice through four chapters. The suggestions for further research would not be
omitted in the last part.
3.2. Data collection and data analysis
The study used the descriptive and contextual methods of data collecting and
analyzing.
Basing on the huge resources of library and internet materials, the researcher
analyzed and then agglutinated those ideas into her own brief clear and
understandable viewpoints.
On the other hand, several differences in the changeable literal trends of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would be briefly stated in her Analysis on how
main characters exposed their own „pride‟ and „prejudice‟ in some certain
circumstances through the three volumes.
4

4. Scope of the study
As could be seen from the title, the study strongly focused not only on the
historical and social background but also on the language use of the novel which
played the most important role.
To understand that newness of language use in the novel, the researcher had to pay
her full attention to the main characters‟ leading conversations in the three
volumes which helped expose the cherish love and the theory of „pride‟ and
„prejudice‟ – the main themes of the novel. Amongst the three conversations, the
first two would be thoroughly analyzed, for the reason that the first „conversation‟
brought the two main characters by their mistaken first impression and the second

drawn certain attention to this branch by clarifying some “contextual, grammar
and cohesional models as well as pragmatic and conversational viewpoints”.
However, at the limitation of the minor thesis, the researcher wanted to focus on
the role of contextual analysis in the three major discourses for the reason that
'context' was created by the discourse and vice versa. It was what and how people
could depend on to interpret the discourses created in each context as Nunan
(1993:7-8) cited that J.R. Firth and Dell Hymes also appreciated the idea that
people always reacted toward how they understood and predicted what the others
were going to say next.
More systematically, Halliday (1989) developed a model of contextual analysis,
just following the context of situation, which included three components as
followed:
Components of a
SITUATION
Feature of the context
Field of discourse
what was happening, to the nature of the social action
that was taking place
Tenor of discourse
Who were taking part in the situation
Mode of discourse
The role assigned to language
7

Example 1:
A short conversation was given and analysed in Halliday and Hasan‟s theory
(1989) as an example:
Doctor: Have you been vomiting?
Patient: Em, yeah. I vomitted about … I vomitted twice … two days ago at school
and I vomitted about um eight or ten times last night.

get a coffee. Would you like one?
B: I'm really thirsty. Oh, don't forget that I've given up sugar.
(Hoang Van Van Ph.D, 2006)
Analysis of Example 2
Components of a
SITUATION
Feature of the context
Field
An informal conversation between friends in a cafeteria
Tenor
Two friends
Mode
Use of words related to theatre: film, member; cafeteria:
thirsty, coffee, sugar
9

In the field of Literature, no matter what the story was, the conversations might be
between or amongst people in a certain circumstance, but it was Mode that
perfectly helped recognize and distinguish an author's literary style from others'.
1.2. Literary style
Literary style was defined in various ways by a number of scholars.
According to Geoffrey Leech and Mick Short, Literary style referred to “linguistic
choice in general” or to “those aspects of linguistic choice which concern
alternative ways of rendering the same subject matter” (cited by Mitchell, A. &
McGee, K. 2011: 31-32).
Much more clearly in “Linguistics and literary style” (1970), Donald C. Freeman
once clarified the literary style into some categories: sentence structure, pace,
vocabulary, figures of speech, use of dialogue, tone, etc.
Similarly with those scholars, David Watson in „The Elements of Style‟ (1915),
defined literary style as “the translation of thought into language”. This

fluent, sounding like an own style, the writer would re-choose the words, delete
redundancies, make vague or ambiguous words much clearer to convey the
greatest effect as possible.
1.2.3. Voice
There was an old saying: “Style is the dress of thoughts”; and literary style was
most clearly defined by an author‟s voice. Although voice was difficult to be
drastically measured, it was the essential element that revealed the writer‟s
personality to the extreme; and in „Pride and Prejudice‟, Jane Austen was
successful in portraying characters with a great sense of irony.
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“Irony is a form of utterance that postulated a double audience, consisting of one
party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that,
when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more and of the
outsiders‟ comprehension” (Fowler, 1968 – cited in “Irony” by Colebrook, 2004)
In those hidden language, actions, differences and communications, irony was
seen as an art or a means of worth and effective persuasion in speeches when it
allowed people to convey the meaning above what was said. As Socrates (cited by
Colebrook, 2004) once implied, irony was used by saying one thing and meaning
another which resulted in an insistence. Irony was believed to bring about “truth
and recognition” even if that truth was hard to be recognized and not fully
meaningful.
1.3. Language use
Language use was said to be “the people‟s production and understanding of a set
of sentences with particular meanings” (cited in “Irony” by Colebrook, 2004). In
other words, the choice of words had to be suitable for each communication
circumstance so as to express different meanings, those needed to be clarified and
deeply understood in order to keep up with the chains of following activities. In
those activities the speakers said and took actions by using words whilst the others
had to coordinate with them in trying to comprehend what they meant.

doubt that they had some similarities in the use and choice of words and sentence
structures, which were so typical for each character in different contexts.

1.2 Previous studies
13

Through centuries, not only the content but also the literary style in „Pride and
prejudice‟ was discussed a thousand times by a big number of scholars from all
over the world. However, several ambiguous and contradictory viewpoints began
to be discovered in the process of analyzing the novel such as Tory or
Enlightenment feminism, individual society, etc. By synthesizing the related
studies, several ideas were recognized and considered some typical features, which
helped exposing Jane Austen‟s distinctive writing style under the English society
in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
In „Pride and Prejudice‟ which ranked second on the list of the greatest love story
of all time, Jane Austen was successful in portraying the contemporary English
society with satires when people could not easily and freely express themselves
towards others due to the class differences. She was not only proved as the one
who recognized a tradition of thought that “women were treated as an inferior
class in a man‟s world” – Bulter once argued but also the one who appreciated the
essential role of a female with “dutifulness, meditativeness, self-abnegation and
self-control” – Mary Brunton said. After all, that was why they intended to turn
out their „pride‟ and „prejudice‟ against each other when they had something to be
proud of (cited in Women‟s whole Existence by Birgitta Berglund, 1993). 14

CHAPTER 2. ANALYTICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. Introduction to Jane Austen

also sharply drew a significant picture of the relationship between men and women
of her contemporary time.
Living from 1775 to 1817, at the age of forty two, she died and left her legacy of
six novels which were written in a slightly different orders but completed and
published as followed: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813),
Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816) and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
(1818 – one year after her death).
Amongst her six novels as stated above that „Pride and Prejudice‟ was highly
appreciated and got the greatest care from the scholars and readers. This novel was
first written in 1796, then entitled „First Impressions‟.
2.2. Introduction to 'Pride and Prejudice'
2.2.1. Summary
Mr and Mrs Bennet lived their uneventful life with five daughters at Longbourn in
Herfordshire. In the absence of a male heir, their property would pass by entail to
a cousin, William Collins who lately came to the town, aiming to marry a fine
woman in the neighbourhood. The story really started when Elizabeth and four
other sisters – Mr and Mrs Bennet‟s daughters – were wanted to go to the
welcome ball of Mr Bingley – a new single rich bachelor coming to the
neighbourhood, together with his two sisters and friend – Fitzwilliam Darcy. Mrs
Bennet – a miraculously tiresome mother - was consumed by the desire to see her
daughters married and seemed to care for nothing else in the world because she
believed: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession
16

of a good fortune must be in want of wife”. This ball brought Bingley and Jane –
the eldest Bennet girl – together through an actual attraction, and Elizabeth‟s „first
impression‟ toward Mr Darcy - “the proudest, most disagreeable man in the
world” who would never be welcomed again in Longbourn. Furthermore, he was
one of the two – with Mr Bingley‟s sister – adding intensified aversion to the
separation of Bingley and Jane later on.

especially a woman in this case, decided to express his love to Elizabeth by saying
such a pure and genuine sentence: “You must allow me to tell you how much I
admire and love you” (p157). Elizabeth‟s love for Darcy was very clear when she
said to her parents “I do like him, I love him”. The „pride‟ and „prejudice‟ towards
each other seemed no longer exist between them at the very end of the novel when
both of the two main characters said for their love and belief in the future good
marriage. The love between these two individuals was truly depicted to be
something independent of all invisible social forces.
Jane Austen surely had a number of her reasons to re-title the novel by „Pride and
Prejudice‟ instead of „First Impression‟ as she did. ‘Pride’ and ‘Prejudice’ played
as the two other main themes which people living in the current time found
difficult to understand the meaning. As mentioned in the novel that people of
whatever the society was could be prevented from realizing the truth due to their
own pride and prejudice towards other people. Walter Scott (cited by Qaisar Iqbal
Janjua, 2010) once commented: “In Pride and prejudice one cannot equate Darcy
with Pride, or Elizabeth with Prejudice; Darcy‟s pride of place is founded on
social prejudice, while Elizabeth‟s initial prejudice against him is rooted in pride
of her own quick perceptions”. It meant that people were unable to separate and to
analyze only Pride but Prejudice in Darcy or Elizabeth and vice versa, which
would be more deeply and clearly analyzed in the following part of the study.
18

CHAPTER 3: HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND OF BRITISH
NOVELS
3.1. Historical background
British history was said to be different from that of the European Continent
because there had been no civil war in the country for centuries. The British Isles
had been inhabited by human beings for some 250,000 years, its history might
appropriately begin with the Celts, who crossed from the European continent and
settled in the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland) during the very

and conflicts.
The Age of Elizabeth I was considered the greatest age of English Literature due
to the appearance of many types of literary work including: poetry, comedy/
tragedy in theater, narrative and a very first step to novels at the late sixteenth or
early seventeenth century. Besides, Shakespeare was one of the most famous
authors in the theater at that time with the reputation of Othello – a domestic
tragedy; King Lear – universal tragedy; and Macbeth – poetic tragedy.
Some other popular works were Pandosto (Robert Green, 1588); Jack of Newbury
(Thomas Deloney, 1597); and The Unfortunate Traveller (Thomas Nashe, 1694).
3.3. Themes and forms of the late 18
th
and early 19
th
century novels
Different from those in the Medieval Era when the winner in language use was
French – the language of most of the literary work, the novels of the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries owned some typical differences.
Although there were some stories with a considerable length, readers had to
patiently wait until the eighteenth century to first see the appearance of the word
„novel‟ which was seen as a „negative connotation‟ connecting to sentimental
20

romances. This era had begun since the appearance of a number of handsome and
courageous heroes who rescued emotional miserable heroines from difficult
situations for the purpose of serving people mainly from the middle class. By
giving the name „novel‟ to this kind of prose, Daniel Defoe (1660 – 1731), a
journalist with “the flavor of colloquial speech” (1998:31), became the first
novelist of the English Literature, known through his fine writings such as
Robinson Crusoe, even without any stylistic tricks or irony as readers always saw
in his articles. It was not a storybook but laid the fascination in the bald statement