A Text World Approach To Life And Death In Last Orders

With the development of literature,linguistic studies pay more and more attention to deriving nourishment from literature,which has given birth to a large number of interdisciplinary studies.Among them,cognitive poetics focuses on literary reading,and at the same time casts light on the two dimensions of psychology and linguistics.It provides a way to discuss the interpretation including the author’s perspective or the reader’s view to interpret the world,and how these interpretations are expressed in the text.In this sense,cognitive poetics is not just a shift of emphasis,but a re-evaluation of the entire process of literary activity.As one of the discourse analysis frameworks,Text World Theory was put forward by Werth.Based on cognitive sciences,it accounts for how readers understand the discourse information when reading.It focuses on the processing of language and explores the construction of mental representations of readers or listeners in reading or face-to-face communication.Therefore,Text World Theory not simply commits itself to the information of text but also stresses the context.It provides illumination for the subsequent literary research,for it is integral to analyzing the multiple narrative skills,presenting the various themes and articulating the aesthetic value of the work.Contemporary British novels occupy an essential position in world literature.Graham Swift,a distinguished contemporary English novelist,accomplishes his achievement and becomes noted for his three works.His novel Last Orders won the Booker Prize in 1996 and has drawn a lot of attention from researchers in recent years.Most studies on this work deal with the novel’s narrative techniques,death themes,and ethical care from literary and ethical perspectives.Few scholars have explored the theme of life and death in the novel from a cognitive perspective.The thesis is intended to study the theme of life and death in Last Orders based on Text World Theory in cognitive poetics.It aims to address the following research questions.1.How do the readers establish mental representations to comprehend the complex information in the text and grasp the theme of life and death?2.How does the author shuttle between the interlaced history and reality,link the stories of four friends together,and create a unique stylistic effect to express the theme of life and death?First,the thesis takes Text World Theory as the theoretical foundation,articulating how readers establish mental representations in terms of three layers,i.e.,discourse world,text world and world-switch.In the discourse world layer,readers rely on their understanding of Graham Swift and the novel Last Orders to establish the relevant background and lay the foundation for further reading at the text world level.In the text world layer,readers accumulate the static background information in the novel through world-building elements.Meanwhile,under the text-driven principle,they actively interact with the novel.From the initial contextual mismatch to the common ground formation,the readers are situated in the common context.They gradually integrate with the characters in the novel,establishing mental representations to understand texts.Simultaneously,they also use multiple layer function advancing to understand complex plots,update textual knowledge and enrich mental representations.In the layer of world-switch,the author breaks the space-time boundary of the novel by creating multiple layer world-switches.Connecting the protagonist Jack and his four friends together and creating the unique stylistic characteristics,the author further emphasizes the readers’ perception of the theme of life and death.Death,for the dead,is the end and relief.While for the living,it means the responsibility.Even if life is difficult,they need to survive and enjoy life.Readers are constantly shifting their focalization in the rich world switches so as to self-implicate into the scenes to understand the authentic thoughts of the characters in Last Orders.What’s more,they identify with the characters,develop empathy,and enjoy the pleasure of reading.Taking Text World Theory as the theoretical foundation,the thesis analyzes the theme of life and death in Last Orders.It favors revealing the cognitive representation of the pieces of life and death,which Swift aims to convey.It makes an essential contribution to emphasizing his humanistic concern.Meanwhile,the readers’ construction of mental representations,comprehending the text world and generating empathy is examined,which will enrich the perspectives and provide insights for future research.