Appreciationof“August”byCharlesDickensfromthe.docVIP

Appreciationof“August”byCharlesDickensfromthe 　　【Abstract】This paper is going to appreciate “August” by Charles Dickens from the angle of over-regularity which is part of Foregrounding theory. 　　【Key words】Over-regularity； Phonological Level； Syntactical Level 　　1. Over-regularity 　　Over-regularity can be acquired on two levels： phonological and syntactical. On the phonological level， alliteration， assonance and consonance are the most commonly used in foregrounding， while on the syntactical level， parallelism and para-diastole are often used. The following part， the author is going to appreciate Charles Dickens’ “August” from these two levels. 　　1.1 Phonological Level 　　Sentence 4 （S4） 　　In S4， phonological features can be seen in many places， for example， alliteration in “field” “flower” “fade” “from” and “sky” “sweet-smelling” “snow”， assonance in “green” “sweet” “bleak” and “sky” “ice” and consonance in “disappear” “clear” and “winds” “minds”. But “winds” and “minds” belongs more to eye rhyme. 　　S5 　　In S5， alliteration is also used in “bent” “beneath” and “branch”； consonance in “rich” “which” and “branch”. 　　1.2. Syntactical Level 　　S3 　　Para-diastole is the use of euphemism to soften the force of naming a vice or a virtue. It is often used ironically. In biblical studies it has come to mean the repetition of disjunctive words in a list. This sentence could be rewritten as “August hasn’t such advantage.” and “August has disadvantage.” But this paragraph is talking about the beautiful and pleasant factors of August. So the author separate August from negative elements as far as possible. So para-diastole is used as a means of foregrounding. 　　S4 　　In S4， there are two adverbial clause initiated with “when” and create a parallelism. And “has faded from our minds as completely as they have disappeared from the earth” is also a symmetrical structure. 　　To change the frequency of some language phenomenon is also a kind of over-regularity. In this