An ECC Analysis Of The Lingchi Event In Sandalwood Death

In the present thesis, the vividly described Lingchi event from Mo Yan’s Sandalwood Death is chosen as the subject matter. Based on the analysis of advantages and disadvantages of the Event-domain Cognitive Model(ECM) and the Construal theory, a revised model—the Event-domain Construal Cube(ECC) is proposed, which serves as the theoretical framework in this paper and helped in straightening the intertwined relations in the text. ECC differs from other cognitive models in that it is no longer a 2-dimensional flat surface. Instead, it is a 3D cube, which renders it possibility to analyze complicated relations among elements in an event in a more comprehensive way. By offering an ECC model, the paper found out that though the author takes the executioner’s perspective and depicts the brutal and cruel scene in a way of compliment, his true intention is to show respect to the condemned hero. Other findings also include:An event is objective while an event-domain is subjective for it is conceptualized by human cognition, i.e. it is impossible to talk about the event-domain without mentioning a certain way of construal. Hence an event can have more than one event-domain in terms of different ways of construal; The viewer’s position of an event can be inside or outside. And owing to different perspectives, there may be different sets of elements as the prominence and background; A complicated event-domain in an ECC model is a seamlessly connected cube, and the elements in it are related by both hierarchy orders and peer relations; Moreover, an event-domain could contain elements that do not really involve in the event, i.e. imaginary or fictional. But an event can only include elements that are actually involved in it. Hopefully all these findings can contribute to future cognitive linguistic studies with innovative ideas.