A Study On Social Construction Of Discourse In The UK In 19th Century Based On The CPIM Model

The development of economic globalization has strengthened the relationship between countries,and this connection is inseparable from the description and construction of language to national image.It can be said that discourse constructs people's cognition of society.The UK in the 19 th century,as for its unique historical background and significance,can be used as a typical research example.When we refer to the UK in this period,familiar words like “imperialism”,“bourgeoisie”,“materialism” and so on spring to mind.Therefore,studying the construction of people's cognition of the UK's society in the 19 th century is helpful to deepen our understanding of the social construction of discourse.Previous studies on the social construction of discourse have covered many fields and perspectives,including sociology,international relations,social psychology,linguistics and even philosophy,etc.However,previous studies mainly utilized a single theory or a few theories to study the issues of discourse construction.It is difficult to reflect the complexity of discourse construction,and the research lack of historical events is also not sufficient.Based on this,this paper,from the perspective of cognitive sociolinguistics and diachronic standpoint,takes the Covariation Theory of language and society as the basic model and combines discourse power,intersubjectivity and metaphor to build the CPIM model(“C” stands for the Covariation Theory,“P” for discourse power theory or power,“I” stands for intersubjectivity theory and “M” for Metaphor),using 131 keywords in Williams' s Keywords: culture and society: 1780-1950 as a closed corpus to conduct qualitative and quantitative research on the social construction of the UK in the 19 th century according to the CPIM model and the specific context of the use of keywords(mainly from Oxford Online English Dictionaries),so as to explore people's basic cognition of the UK's society in the 19 th century under the construction of discourse.In this paper,a total of 131 keywords are collected by quantitative method and divided into seven categories including politics,economy,society,thought,culture,science and technology and others according to their usage in the 19 th century.At the same time,through the qualitative method to clarify the relevant concepts and remedy the shortcomings of theories,this paper takes the Covariation Theory as the basic model,and combines discourse power,intersubjectivity and metaphor to tentatively establish the CPIM model.Based on the model,131 keywords are classified and discussed.Through analysis,this paper finds that the CPIM model can be used to reveal the energy sources of discourse construction and the cognitive mechanism behind it,so as to further study the process and results of discourse construction.Under the CPIM model,this paper summarizes the cognitive mechanism and construction process of discourse construction,that is: the development of society generates a new demand for language implication,and the ruling class controls the mainstream evolution direction of discourse meaning,reflecting its interest appeal,while other interests of the ruled classes would adjust the evolution of discourse meaning,playing a role in accelerating or changing the evolution of meaning;all classes adjust the meaning of the word by metaphor.Social construction is a complex process.Based on the CPIM model,this paper just discusses people's basic cognition of the UK' society in the 19 th century with 131 key words.