托尼·莫里森的小说《宠儿》蕴含了“言说不可言说”这一看似悖论的思想，这体现为小说中黑人的言说困境和打破困境的尝试。过往许多研究仅提及“言说不可言说”却较少解释这一思想，对其解释也多局限于创伤视角。本研究以语言为焦点，通过探究黑人经历不可言说的原因以及解决措施，系统研究了《宠儿》中“言说不可言说”这一思想。本论文采用的主要研究方法是文本细读，同时也运用了伊曼纽尔·列维纳斯与语言相关的伦理学理论分析言说困境产生的原因、小说中人物以及莫里森突破该困境的办法。

本文认为，言说困境根本上是由所说的压迫和言说的缺失造成的。一方面，白人的所说抹杀了《宠儿》中的非裔美国人的他异性，导致了英语中的欧洲中心主义意识形态烙印和白人话语霸权。英语本身以及对英语的使用成为了奴隶制的共谋，使得黑人的经历无法言说。但另一方面，长期的沉默也是奴隶制的共谋，因为它会阻碍言说，进而妨碍了黑人群体之间、黑人与白人之间的伦理关系。因此，言说不可言说之物是必要的，这就需要重新召回言说。而言说的出现必须基于他者或其踪迹的显现，同者的袒露和对他异性的尊重。虽然《宠儿》中的人物尚未成功以言说回应他者，但是莫里森通过她的想象力和自我打断式的叙事成功地做到了这一点。《宠儿》还保留了他者的踪迹，从而进一步呼吁读者做出伦理的回应。因此，莫里森不仅为不可言说的黑人经历发声，还让其得到了回应。

Toni Morrison's novel Beloved contains the seemingly paradoxical idea of "speaking the unspeakable", which manifests in the dilemma between speech and silence faced by the Afro-Americans and their attempts to break it. Previous studies always mention this idea without fully explaining it, and the existing explanations are mainly based on trauma theories. This thesis systematically studies the idea of "speaking the unspeakable" in Beloved from the perspective of language, exploring the causes for the unspeakable and figuring out feasible solutions to it. The main approach used in this thesis is close reading, but Emanuel Levinas's ethical theory about language is also applied to analyse the ultimate cause for the dilemma and to examine how the characters and Morrison herself overcome it.

The thesis argues that the dilemma is ultimately caused by the oppression of the Said and the lack of the Saying. On one hand, the Said of the white people effaces and totalises the Afro-Americans in Beloved, leading to the imprinted Eurocentric ideology in English and white linguistic hegemony. As such, the English language and its usage are complicit in slavery and make the black experience unspeakable. On the other hand, the long-term silence is also complicit in slavery in that it blocks the Saying and thus hinders the ethical relationship not only within the black community but also between black and white people. Speaking the unspeakable is therefore necessary and attainable by reclaiming the Saying, which takes place only with the presence of the Other or its trace, the exposure of the Same, and the respect for the alterity. Although characters in Beloved fail in responding to the Other with the Saying, Morrison succeeds in doing so through her imagination and self-interruptive narrative. Moreover, Beloved keeps the trace of the Other and further calls for the ethical response from its readers. Therefore, more than speaking out the unspeakable, Morrison also makes people respond to it.