Abstract:In recent years, Systemic-Functional Grammar brought forward by M. A. K. Halliday has become one of the most frequently studied objects in the field of linguistics. In this paper, the author tries to apply the theory of cohesion to the analysis on the characters in the novel Neverwhere by the famous fantasy writer Neil Gaiman. The word “text” is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole. If a passage of English containing more than one sentence is perceived as a text, there will be certain linguistic features present in that passage which can be identified as contributing to its total unity and giving it texture. This is the cohesive relation. The author will first introduce Halliday’s cohesion theory, and then identify the cohesive relations in the conversation and narration, and hereby try to analyze the personality or social status of the target characters.

Key words: text, cohesion, character analysis

摘 要:近年来，由M.A.K.韩礼德教授提出的系统功能语言学理论及教学思想成为语言学界研究的主要目标之一。本文将以韩礼德的衔接理论作为框架，以英国著名奇幻小说家尼尔·盖曼的代表作之一《无有乡》为文本，对小说中的衔接手段进行识别，再以这些衔接手段出现的方式，地点以及频率来分析小说人物性格。在语言学中，我们把一个任何长度的、语义完整的口语或书面的段落叫做“语篇”。如果某一个含一个句子以上的片段被认定为语篇，那么段落中就可以找到某些使它具有统一性、赋予它组篇机制的语言特征，这就是衔接关系。衔接关系主要包括指称、替代、省略、连接和词汇衔接。本文将把小说中体现这五种衔接手段的语篇作为例子进行分析，从而剖析、了解《无有乡》中那些有血有肉的人物。

关键词：语篇，衔接理论，人物分析