루이스 캐럴의 언어게임―앨리스 이야기를 중심으로

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to study the matters of nonsense and sense in language in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. These Alice books about the heroine's adventures in Wonderland and Looking-Glass land are concerned with the problem of growth and the ultimate power of language. Wonderland and Looking-Glass land have a nonsensical structure in which the thought and language of characters are different from those in the actual world. Alice, at first, is at a loss in the subversive situation in which her existence is not accepted. She wanders in the labyrinth of nonsensical words, those words that are senseless and out of circulation. She loses her name, and her identity disintegrates in this chaotic situation. Alice overcomes the discomfort of growth by understanding the relations between the self and the other. She understands the power of language through her conversations with Humpty Dumpty who thinks that he is the master of his words. Alice becomes the master of her language by obtaining a good knowledge of its use.In conclusion, the distinction between nonsense and sense in regard to language depends on the social conventions. “Nonsense” is just a name given to the words that serve no conventional use. This fact implies that words called nonsense in a certain social system can acquire sense in another system.