| Asa magical and fantasy novel, Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone is not only very popular with readers since it was first published in1997, but also catches scholars’attention from both abroad and at home. However, up to now, massive researches on this novel are literary studies which are concerned with its theme, narrative structure and cultural background and so on. There are rare researches to explore the most attractiveness of the novel, its fantasy and magical features. The present thesis believes that the fantasy and magical features of the novel is mainly achieved by rich text world switches in the fictional world. Text world is the language user’s mental representation of a discourse. In literary reading, text world refers to readers’cognitive construction to the various situations in the fictional world. It is observed that the fictional real world and the magical world in Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone are intersected, which makes readers constantly construct various text worlds and switch among them so that it makes the reading process more complex and interesting. Based on this observation, the thesis takes text world theory as its theoretical framework to interpret the constructions and switches of all kinds of text worlds in the novel. It examines the fantasy and magical features of the novel and readers’cognitive construction of the fictional magical world from the cognitive poetics perspective. The study aims to interpret readers’cognitive process of reading and accepting the magical world, and enhance the application of text world theory in fantasy and magical literary texts as well.The study finds that world-switches in different text worlds are not chaotic, but in neat order. It is the artful coherence of these text worlds that makes readers feel the fun of the world-switches. In the first place, world-switches within the fictional real world indicate Harry’s seemingly super power, laying the basis for the world-switches from the fictional real world to the magical world. In the second place, some characters and objects from the magical world appear in the fictional real world, serving as a transition in which reader’s attention shifts from the fictional real world to the magical world. In the third place, world-switches within the magical world make readers construct a unique and magic world that is different from the fictional real ones. In the fourth place, the world-switches from the magical world to the fictional real world complete the structure of the novel, leading readers travel back to the fictional world. It is found that world-switches can increase readers’ reading interest, lengthen reading process, enhance readers’ participation and augment the fun of reading. It concludes that firstly the fantasy and magical features of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone and its wide acceptance by readers can be better interpreted from cognitive poetics perspective than from literary perspective; and secondly text world theory can be effectively used to analyze the text with fantasy and magical features. |
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