A Stylistic Feature Study Of Foregrounding Language In Game Of Thrones

Stylistics is an integrated marginal discipline closely related to linguistics,literature and art,aesthetics,psychology,etc.,which studies the characteristics,nature and laws of text genres with its own independent characters,mainly including stylistics,literary stylistics and theoretical stylistics,etc.The concept of “foregrounding” comes from Russian formalism.Generally,“foregrounding”,as an important concept of stylistics and an important means of stylistic analysis,is widely used in stylistics to analyze the text of literary works from two aspects: deviation and over-regularization.The Foregrounding Theory is used in this study to analyze and explore the features of foregrounding language in Game of Thrones.Based on the Foregrounding Theory of the British linguists Leech and Short,the foregrounding language phenomenon in the novel Song of Ice and Fire: Game of Thrones as the research corpus,the qualitative research method is adopted to describe,interpret and analyze the phonology,graphology,lexicology,syntax and semantics of the typical foregrounding language in this novel from two aspects:the deviation and over-regularization,attempting to reveal the stylistic effects in specific contexts and the author’s pragmatic intentions as well.These findings of the study are that the deviation in Game of Thrones is mainly expressed by means of phonological deviation,graphological deviation,lexical deviation,syntactic deviation and semantic deviation.Omission and mispronunciation are used in phonological deviation,the capitalization and italics in graphological deviation,neologism in lexical deviation and elliptical sentences and inverted sentences in syntactic deviation and rhetoric techniques such as simile,metaphor,metonymy,personification and hyperbole in semantic deviation.The deviation language of different levels in Game of Thrones makes the language more aesthetic and artistic.Over-regularity in Game of Thrones is mainly reflected by phonological over-regularity,lexical over-regularity,and syntactic over-regularity.The phonological over-regularity is mainly manifested through the extensive use of alliteration,assonance and consonance,which enhances its musical beauty of language.Vocabulary repetition is adopted in lexical over-regularity,repetition and parallelism in over-regularity,which can achieve the function of highlighting important information,attracting readers’ attention.It is hoped that the findings can provide a little reference for the readers to appreciate the stylistic effects and aesthetic value of foregrounding language in Game of Thrones.