A Cognitive Study Of Feminine Consciousness In Li Qingzhao's Lyrics From The Perspective Of Figure-ground Theory

One of the core changes in linguistic research in the mid-twentieth century was to shift the focus of research from attention to behavior and text to internal mechanisms that focus on these behaviors.which has led to the birth of a new theory in cognitive linguistics——Figure-Ground theory.The Figure-Ground theory originates from psychology,based on the principle of prominence.Later it is studied by the Gestalt psychologists who believe that the perception field is always divided into two parts: figure and ground.A figure has a complete structure,which refers to the focus of a certain cognitive concept or focus;while the Ground is opposite to the Figure,which refers to the fuzzy,undifferentiated part and plays a role in highlighting the Figure.As an important theory with strong explanatory power in cognitive linguistics,the Figure-Ground theory is widely used in the fields of translation,literary studies and language teaching,as well as poetry analysis.As an important poetess in the history of Chinese literature,Li Qingzhao uses a uniquely charming female creation mentality,showing the spiritual world of women bound by the feudal society of the time as well as the female's rich inner world,to presents elegant and persistent character.This thesis analyzes the feminine consciousness in Li's lyrics based on Figure-Ground theory,which helps to comprehensively analyzeand explore the feminine consciousness expressed in Li's lyrics from a cognitive perspective.Based on the figure-ground theory in the frame work of cognitive linguistics,this thesis selects twenty three Li's lyrics in Elegant Lyrics for Music Bureau Songs??????as the corpus,and adopts textural analysis,taking those descriptions which relate to the background and female character as the research object,tries to analyze the feminine consciousness in her lyrics at the level of simple sentence and complex sentence.The thesis discusses the following two questions:(1)How are the figure-ground relations realized in the organization of feminine consciousness in Li's lyrics at the level of simple sentence and complex sentence?(2)What kinds of feminine consciousness are expressed in Li's lyrics based on the Figure-Ground theory?The research findings are as follows:(1)At the level of simple sentence,the relationship of Figure and Ground is mainly manifested in spacial sentence,existential sentence and SVO structure;at the level of complex sentence,the relation of Figure and Ground is presented in the temporal sequential sentence and causal sentence.(2)Based on the analysis of Figure-Ground theory,the feminine consciousness in Li's lyrics is mainly divided into three parts: the feminine consciousness of pursuing self-personality,the feminine consciousness of affectionate love and the feminine consciousness of suffering consciousness in pursuit of female value.The thesis intends to explore the feminineconsciousness in Li's lyrics from the perspective of figure-ground theory in cognitive linguistics.On the one hand,it expands the research scope of the theory,on the other hand,it provides a new perspective for the cognitive research of feminine consciousness in Song lyrics,especially that in Li's lyrics,revealing the deep cognitive mechanism in the process of expressing feminine consciousness.At the same time,this thesis intends to provide a new reference for the appreciation of Chinese classical poetry.