A Study On The Present Tense In Narrative Discourses Under The Framework Of Text World Theory

Generally speaking, there is correspondence between tense and time, whereasinconsistencies between them frequently occur.Many scholars have tried to study the non-present use of present tense, butsome of their analyses are constrained in the single domain of time, and others focusonly on the layer of clause, without consideration of psychological and contextualelements.Many stylists also attempt to find the textual functions and aesthetic effectsobtained by the use of present tense in literary works. However, their analyses arealways too subjective without deeper theoretical cognitive explorationAs for these reasons, the thesis attempts to analyze the uses of present tense inliterary works with the Text World Theory of cognitive linguistics under theframework of cognitive poetics, so as to discuss the participants’ constructionprocedures of the mental representations in creating and understanding the text. Inliterary works, the prototypical tense is past tense, while the use of present tense isnot infrequent, and the use of present tense is to achieve some stylistic effects. Thethesis chooses Charlotte Bronte’s two novels “Jane Eyre” and “Shirley” as objects.These two works are written respectively in first person and third person perspective,with different reference features, and the relationships between the different narrativeelements in discourse worlds are also different.The author of the thesis collects all the uses of present tense in these twonovels, and classifies them into mainly five types: to narrate events of the past time,to give static descriptions, to express inner thoughts or feelings of the enactor, toexpress the generalization or comments of the narrator and to introduce the advanceof the plot. The uses of present tense are to achieve some discourse functions. Afterthat, the author proposes that the uses of present tense in narrative discourse canachieve the functions of foregrounding, interaction and evaluation. Through the analysis of world switches, the constructions of modal worlds andthe components of discourses worlds in the mental representation of the texts withpresent tenses, the world participants’ cognitive interpretation processes of the textscan be explored and the deeper reasons for the textual functions achieved by the usesof present tenses can be observed.Through the specific analysis of the reading procedure of literary works withthe theory of cognitive linguistics, the thesis tries to improve the feasibility of thetheory of cognitive linguistics in the analysis of some language styles in narrativeworks, which will extend the application scope of the theories of cognitive linguistics,and find a new way of thinking for the literary interpretation and literary review.