





































Education, Language and Sociology Research 

ISSN 2690-3644 (Print) ISSN 2690-3652 (Online) 

Vol. 4, No. 5, 2023 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr 

13 
 

Original Paper 

The Old Man and the Sea Revisited in a Linguistic Perspective 

Ping Yang1 

1 Foreign Language Department, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China 

 

Received: October 1, 2023   Accepted: October 23, 2023   Online Published: November 6, 2023 

doi:10.22158/elsr.v4n5p13         URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v4n5p13 

 

Abstract 

Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952 and won the Nobel Prize for 

Literature two years later. As an excellent work created by Hemingway, the language style of the Old 

Man and the Sea highlights Hemingway’s literary characteristics. He likes to use simple and colloquial 

language and flexible collocation of verbs and nouns to drive the plot development of the story, and then 

combine various rhetorical devices with his own language style to enrich the ideas of the whole novel. 

Many creative skills make the whole novel memorable, fully show the linguistic features of the Old Man 

and the Sea. From the perspective of linguistics, this paper analyzes the unique aesthetic style created by 

the powerful expression techniques in the novel. This paper analyzes the novel from two perspectives: 

linguistic features and metaphorical meaning. In terms of linguistic features, this paper mainly analyzes 

the concise language style, the ingenious use of personal pronouns and the appropriate code-switching. 

In terms of metaphorical meaning, this paper mainly analyzes the metaphorical meaning of the old man, 

the sea, the shark and marlin and the lion in this novel. 

Keywords 

Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, linguistic feature, metaphorical meaning 

 

1. Introduction 

Hemingway always adheres to the concise language style in his works, especially in the narrative 

language of The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway’s unique language style is known as “iceberg” style 

in the literary circle. This concise language expression technique can convey deeper thoughts and 

emotions to readers (Cheng, 2013). 

Hemingway’s characters are never grandiose, and he never uses too much flowery language, which is 

consistent with his simple and crisp writing style. In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway portrays the 

tough image of a sea fisherman, showing the indomitable and brave persistence of human nature. The 

Old Man and the Sea not only uses concise and simple language to shape the classic image of the hero, 

at the same time, it is also the perfect display of Hemingway’s iceberg creation style. If one wants to feel 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 5, 2023 

14 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

Hemingway’s personality charm and creation charm, he must fully grasp Hemingway’s linguistic features 

and metaphorical techniques in the lines of his works. 

 

2. The Linguistic Features of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea 

2.1 Concise Language Style 

Hemingway’s unique language style can convey a deeper level of thought and emotion and creation 

purpose to readers. This condensed and concise language style firmly grasps the reader’s thoughts and 

psychology. At the same time, the language style shows Hemingway’s humble and restrained 

temperament. He gives the most direct and objective description of the characters, and does not make 

any comments or explain the characters and events in his works; he presents the most simple sentences 

to the readers, does not express any emotional attitude of his own, and does not impose his personal 

purpose on the readers.  

In terms of vocabulary, he likes to use simple words in his novels. Generally speaking, rich content is 

obtained by rich vocabulary. In The Old Man and the Sea, however, Hemingway often uses small, basic 

and common English words, and mostly nouns rather than verbs. This is evident in the first paragraph of 

the book. The longest word in the first paragraph, permanent, has just nine letters. The average length is 

just 3.5 letters. Except for the two professional words gaff and harpoon, the other words used in this 

paragraph are basic and common words, which can be understood by the average beginner of English. In 

this paragraph, the author mostly uses nouns instead of verbs. Among the 146 words, the author uses 10 

verbs and 7 adjectives. When expressing modification, the author often uses nouns to modify nouns, 

which makes the article concise and simple, reflecting the author’s consistent creation style. 

Moreover, Hemingway often uses very short sentences in The Old Man and the Sea, making the novel 

more rhythmic by means of short sentences as the main body and long sentences as the auxiliary. In this 

novel, a sentence is usually ten words or less, but compared with other long sentences, it is easier for the 

reader to understand and make people want to read. The following passage about Santiago’s fight with 

the shark is a good example: 

I must not think nonsense, he thought. Luck is a thing that comes in many forms and who can recognize 

her? I would take some though in any form and pay what they asked. I wish I could see the glow from the 

lights, he thought. I wish too many things. But that is the thing I wish for now. He tried to settle more 

comfortably to steer and from his pain he knew he was not dead. 

The paragraph contains seven sentences. The first and fifth sentences are simple sentences with only five 

words each, while the rest are extremely simple compound sentences consist of a main clause and a short 

attributive or object clause with fewer words. The repeated use of this simple sentence pattern gives the 

article an urgent and rapid effect, reflecting the intense intensity of Santiago’s fight with the shark. 

In addition, the author does not use flowery words and lengthy psychological description to depict the 

character image, but through simple language, so that readers can directly describe a tough fisherman in 

their mind, leaving a huge space for readers to imagine. The old man is both warm and tough, his “tough 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 5, 2023 

15 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

guy” image deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Hemingway’s concise language captures the calm 

attitude and elegant style of an old man fishing under pressure (Liu, 2014). 

2.2 Ingenious Use of Personal Pronouns 

In The Old Man and the Sea, only a dozen characters appear in the whole story, most of them are only 

indirectly mentioned or flashed in the story, and the only two main characters who can really be counted 

as roles are the old man and the boy. But it is in such a short story with few characters that the author 

uses a large number of individual deixis, among which the third person deixis appears most frequently.  

In most of the languages we know, there is a personal pronoun system composed of three persons. They 

are associated with a specific time, place and person, and they represent the relationship between things 

and people’s social relations in a specific context (He, 2000). The personal deixis is generally used to 

refer to people, and it is used to refer to animals, objects, things or babies (Guan, 2006). But in The Old 

Man and the Sea, the personal pronouns used to refer to people are used extensively to refer to animals, 

objects, things or concepts. 

E.g. He did not take it though. He was gone and the old man felt nothing. 

“He can’t have gone,” he said. “Christ knows he can’t have gone. He’s making a turn. Maybe he has 

been hooked before and he remembers something of it.” 

After a long wait, Santiago finally waited for a fish to hit the bait deep under the water. The old man was 

so excited and delighted that he uttered the above sentence almost in a trembling voice, and referred to 

the fish with the masculine third person pronoun he, which he continued to use throughout the rest of the 

story. The old man used the pronoun that usually refers to people to refer to the fish, giving the fish the 

wisdom and spirituality of people (Dong, 2006). The big fish is a strong match for the old man, using he 

to call it not only shows that the big fish is special, but also shows the old man’s extremely cautious 

attitude when facing strong hands. 

E.g. “I am a tired old man. But I have killed this fish which is my brother and now I must do the slave 

work.” 

In the long stand-off confrontation, the old man learned more and more about the extraordinary ability 

of the big fish and began to admire him. Therefore, the old man called the big Fish his friend more than 

once and regarded him as his brother. 

E.g. “Half fish,” he said. “Fish that you were. I am sorry that I went too far out. I ruined us both. But 

we have killed many sharks, you and I, and ruined many others. How many did you ever kill, old fish? 

You do not have that spear on your head for nothing.” 

Later, when the wild shark attacked, the old man and the big fish had become one. In order to protect the 

big fish from infringement, and to maintain his dignity, the old man and the big fish face the bad luck 

and fight with the shark together. So the old man used the first person plural pronoun we/us many times 

to refer to himself and the big fish. 

E.g. “He didn’t beat you. Not the fish.” 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 5, 2023 

16 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

The boy was able to feel the subtle and complex emotions as well as the old man, so the fish still had the 

human spirit in his eyes, so he referred to the fish as “he” like the old man. 

E.g. Luck is a thing that comes in many forms and who can recognize her? 

Hemingway used the singular third person feminine object pronoun her to refer to luck. The old man had 

bad luck for more than eighty days in a row and was considered salao. Finally, an unusually large fish is 

hooked, only to be attacked by a series of sharks. The old man said it in this case. How desperate the old 

man was for good luck! He cherished the luck he had just had and looked forward to the future. In this 

case, the author uses the personal pronoun her instead of it to refer to the inanimate thing “luck”, which 

perfectly expresses the old man’s complex feelings of regret and sadness for bad luck, longing and 

expectation for good luck at this moment. 

2.3 Appropriate Code-switching 

The communicators can accomplish some specific goals by switching the codes. Using some foreign 

language variations is an apparent characteristic in this novel, which serves different functions: adapting 

to the linguistic reality and the mental motivation.  

Adaptation to linguistic reality means that the code-switching is the use of two or more languages or 

language varieties caused by pure linguistic factors, which completely happened on the basis of the 

language-internal reasons. If some concepts or ideas do not exist in one language, or it’s not easy to find 

the equivalent expressions that only exist in another language, language users may switch the codes in 

order to show what they exactly want to express.  

E.g. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely 

and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky. 

In this sentence, code-switching is a way of expressing something cannot be described accurately in 

English. The Spanish word “salao” means the most unlucky in English. Hemingway failed to find a more 

appropriate word in English to express the degree of unlucky, so he chose the Spanish word “salao” to 

show the old man’s bad luck.  

E.g. The shack was made of the tough bud-shields of the royal palm which are called guano. 

“Guano” means the excrement of sea birds in English. The Spanish word “guano” means royal palm, 

which is a kind material to build the old man’s shack. The writer chose the local language to describe the 

thing only exists in Spain.  

Adapting to the mental motivation means that language users take advantage of code-switching to 

accomplish his communicative goals. In the novel, the writer chose code-switching as a strategy to 

express the old man’s emotions for the sake of enriching characters’ personalities.  

E.g. He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her.  

In Spanish, words are masculine or feminine, singular or plural. The use of “la mar” exerts a remarkable 

influence on reflecting the man’s intense passion on the sea. He compared the sea to a lady, which 

expresses the old man’s intensive love and gratitude towards the sea.  



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 5, 2023 

17 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

Additionally, the writer also adopted code-switching to describe the inner world and thoughts of the old 

man, which vividly presents the fight between the old man and the sharks, and makes the plot of the 

fiction more attractive to catch readers’ eyes.  

E.g. “Galanos.” he said aloud.  

“Galanos. Come on Galanos.” They came. 

When he saw the sharks at first sight, he felt a sense of danger. Because he knew that this kind of sharks 

was furious, he shouted out their names “galanos” unconsciously. When the shark came back again, he 

realized that he has no option but to fight with them. He helplessly and mechanically repeated their names 

“galanos”, which seems to show his determination to meet the challenge. The writer switched the codes 

to indicate that the old man was ready to fight with the sharks.  

From the above analysis, it’s clear to know that code-switching plays a vital role in the fiction. The code-

switching is used not only to express characters’ inner world, but also replace some concepts that cannot 

be described in English.  

 

3. The Metaphorical Meaning of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea 

There are a lot of metaphors in The Old Man and the Sea, which is also the concrete embodiment of 

Hemingway’s “iceberg” style, reflecting the author’s way of looking at and reflecting the world. 

Metaphor can reproduce the historical creation background in the description of characters and things, 

express the author’s feelings and experiences, and then stimulate the artistic charm of literary works. It 

can be said that many images in The Old Man and the Sea have some kind of metaphorical symbolic 

meaning, which makes the expression of the novel show multiple meanings. 

3.1 The Metaphorical Meaning of the Old Man 

In The Old Man and the Sea, the old man is depicted by the author as a character with rich experience, 

perseverance and fighting spirit, and is an important representative of the tough man image. Poverty and 

bad luck made an ordinary old fisherman brave and strong, as glorious as a hero who died in battle. He 

never gived up life, and always regard fishing as a lifelong career. Santiago believes that fishing is where 

a fisherman can prove his dignity in life. Even with old age, Santiago’s heart is still full of fighting spirit. 

He remembers his fading passion and youth with words and actions, and keeps sailing on the sea of 

pursuit of ideals (Zhang, 2014). In fact, the author uses such a fisherman image as a metaphor for the 

twists and turns of his own life. The twists and turns of Santiago’s fate are the true story of Hemingway’s 

life. Hemingway lived through two world wars. As a soldier, he was physically and mentally damaged. 

As a writer, he was oppressed. The experience of Santiago’s eighty-four consecutive days of failed fishing 

is a metaphor for Hemingway’s own hardship, and Santiago’s perseverance is a metaphor for 

Hemingway’s determination to complete a terrible work. 

3.2 The Metaphorical Meaning of the Sea 

The sea is Santiago’s bread and butter, but also the object he needs to conquer. The sea is so deep that it 

not only provides conditions for Santiago to survive, but also brings danger to Santiago’s life. Like the 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 5, 2023 

18 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

battlefield of life, it is both kind and fierce, unpredictable and imperceptible, like maternal softness and 

also dark claws. While the old man is struggling to catch fish, there will also be sharks always coveted 

the fruits of his labor, and even the old man’s life may be at great risk at any time. Therefore, Hemingway 

metaphorically symbolized the sea as the predicament that must be faced in survival and life. Everyone 

must face the sea. In the confrontation and struggle, we may feel aimless sometimes. Even if the goal is 

clear, we often feel tired and want to give up. Only after experiencing all kinds of life setbacks can we 

find the right attitude towards life and fully understand the meaning of life. 

3.3 The Metaphorical Meaning of the Shark and Martin 

The novel highlights the protagonist’s stoicism by detailing the shark’s atrocities. The shark is a symbol 

of cruelty and evil. According to Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea, the sharks don’t have to scour 

everywhere for the scent. They swim side by side straight towards the small sailboat, showing the natural 

greed and cunning of the sharks. The ferocity of the shark is a contrast to Santiago’s tenacity and 

indomitability. He is the executor of justice and the meaning of wisdom (Wei, 2012). 

The symbolic meaning of marlin is very rich, from a positive point of view, Marlin symbolizes the ideal 

and pursuit, from a negative point of view, Marlin is a symbol of fierce rivals. In the vast sea, Santiago 

often has a heart to heart conversation with the Marlins. He likes the big Marlins, and treat it as his old 

friend. At the end of The Old Man and the Sea, the big marlin’s fish bones are brought back. All the 

fishermen were amazed at the length and weight of the big marlin, and stood in awe of Santiago. Here, 

the big marlin’s bone is a symbol of success and glory. 

3.4 The Metaphorical Meaning of the Lion 

In The Old Man and the Sea, the lion has been mentioned many times by Hemingway. The lion is a 

symbol of youth, power and bravery. The Lion was first mentioned in The Old Man and the Sea by 

Santiago and the boy while they talking about baseball. The lions reminded Santiago of his youth, when 

he was full of passion and ambition. The last part of the novel sublimates the theme by saying, “the old 

man was dreaming about the lions.” The vitality, courage and justice of the lion show that the hope and 

spirit of Santiago will never die, and the tough guy image of Santiago will live forever in the shape of 

humanity. 

 

4. Conclusion 

The Old Man and the Sea is a Nobel Prize-winning work by the famous American novelist Ernest 

Hemingway, which occupies an important position in the history of American literature. Based on the 

linguistic perspective, this paper analyzed the linguistic features and metaphorical meaning of 

Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. The analysis shows that, in terms of language features, the Old 

Man and the Sea uses concise language, ingenious personal deixis and appropriate code-switching. From 

the perspective of metaphorical meaning in this novel, the old man is a metaphor for the twists and turns 

of the author’s own life, which is a true portrayal of his life. The sea is a metaphor for the dilemma that 

survival and life must face; The shark is a metaphor for cruelty and evil; Marlin is a symbol of ideal and 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 5, 2023 

19 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

pursuit, a symbol of fierce rivals, and also a symbol of success and glory; The lion is a symbol of youth, 

strength and bravery. 

 

References 

Cheng, H. F. (2013). An appreciation of the characteristics of language style in translation of 

Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Language Planning, 36, 61-62. 

Dong, R. H. (2006). Pragmatic functions of English personal deixis. Journal of Nantong University, 2, 

87-89. 

Guan, D. Y. (2006). A comparative pragmatic analysis of personal deixis in Chinese and English. Journal 

of Hebei Polytechnic University, 4, 174-176. 

He, Z. X. (2000). A new introduction to pragmatics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education 

Press. 

Liu, X. F. (2014). The language style of The Old Man and the Sea from the perspective of literary 

translation. Language Planning, 8, 75-76. 

Wei, B. (2012). A brief analysis of the language style and artistic charm of Hemingway’s The Old Man 

and the Sea. Journal of Heilongjiang Institute of Education, 8, 129-130. 

Zhang, Y. H. (2014). The linguistic characteristics of aesthetic style in The Old Man and the Sea. Yalu 

River (Second half edition), 5, 22-23. 

 


