On The Theory Of Text

Paul Ricoeur, French contemporary famous philosopher. The 20th century 60's, Ricoeur began to concentrate on study in Hermeneutics, and constructed his own theory of text. His theory absorbed the strong points of various schools and reformed them synthetically, so it is the essential characteristic of integration and unique. At present, having had certain achievements, the study on Ricoeur in our country is still lack of deeply study. Basing on taking Ricoeur's works seriously, this article intend to make a profound analysis and research on his theory of text and introduce its great value and inspiration to accelerate the development of theory of our country. The article is divided into four parts.First, the connotation of theory of text. This chapter will carry on relatively comprehensive and the systematic research on the connotation of theory of text from four aspects:"the text center theory", the text meaning, the reflection aspect, the kernel category. Different From predecessor"author center theory"and"reader center theory", Ricoeur thought that the text is the crucial question of Hermeneutics, the characteristic of the text, word equivocal phenomena and the independency make the meaning of text have openness, opening to the understanding of reader. He also proposed that the reflection is the reflection of the text meaning, and it is an important link between textual character and self-understanding, and it has communicated Semantics and the Ontology. Distanciation and Appropriation is the kernel category of theory of text .Second, the features of Ricoeur's theory of text. This part will discuss the theory origin from three aspects: the angle of view of theory, the manner of theory, the object of theory. He absorbed and the developed the achievements of Semantic sentence-analysis and the Structuralism Semiotics and constructed his parole theory, which can provide the starting point for the theory of text on the basis of analysis and synthesis. Ricoeur maintained neutral on the question of short distance and distanciation, subjective and objective of explanation. His"text"no longer was limited on the text which was written down in the narrow literature domain, but the generalized text including the social history phenomenon, and it made the theory of text extend to historical-society domain.Third, the formation of theory of text. This chapter mainly will discuss the formation of theory of text from two aspects: the theoretical background and the theorical origin. Ricoeur's thought has been influenced by the contemporary West various kinds of different ideological trend,. He took Phenomenology as the foundation and accepted many basic standpoints of French Structuralism, English and American Daily Language Philosophy, Psycho-analysis, and then he picked long of abundantly various schools of thought and developed Heidegger's and Gadamer's basic points. Finally Ricoeur constructed his own characteristic theory of text.Fourth, the important value and enlightenment of Ricoeur's theory of text. For a long time, Western literary theory had neglected the significance of reader and reading acception to the literature research, which was emphasized in literary theory of Hermeneutics and acception theory in the 20th century. As the important part of literary theory of Hermeneutics, Ricoeur's theory of text highlighted and emphasized the important position of reader in literature reading and in the understanding. The theory regarded the reader's explanation to the text as an organic composition part of the text meaning and emphasized the reader and the understanding in the literature activity status, and completed the change of literature research from the work to reader's historicity with Acceptance Aesthetics together. At the same time, Ricoeur's theory of text embarked from understanding linguistic, and emphasized the creativity, the independence, the practicality of understanding, and paied great attention to the relativity, the multiplicity, the infinity of understanding, which is a kind of new exploration in the understanding of text. Therefore, Ricoeur's theory of text has the positive practical significance to the contemporary theory circle of literature.