A Study Of Inversion From The Perspective Of Figure-Ground Theory

The order of a sentence is a kind of structure rules as well as a means of information organization to which language users often apply. The structures of all sentences are arranged linearly according to the conventional principles of information organization. However, English-speaking people always prefer to use inversion which violates the common syntactic structures when they communicate with each other. Recently, as a grammatical form, inversion has become an important object on which linguists make researches. Traditional grammarians propose that inversion should serve to satisfy the need of constructing sentences and stressing some parts of sentences. They think that language researchers should seek an explanation from the internal language to study the sentence order. Therefore, most researches on inversion focus on the perspectives of rhetoric, syntax, pragmatics, discourse or the distribution of information without taking the external factors of language into account.Based on Figure-Ground Theory which belongs to cognitive linguistics, the study shows a preliminary research on inversion in Pride and Prejudice. The author collects inversion used in this novel, and summarizes the regularity of distribution by dividing them into different types. Then, she interprets how the inversion is realized as a form of ground-figure in this novel. Finally, the textual functions of inversion will be mainly discussed. Qualitative method is the major way which the whole study adopts. The study of inversion in Pride and Prejudice based on Figure-Ground Theory can help the readers to understand the feelings and ideas which the characters wish to express. The research cannot only help the literature scholars use linguistic theories to appreciate literature works, but also broaden the study field of linguistic research. This study shows that inversion is a subjective means to lead the readers to comprehend the novel according to the writer’s thoughts.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part presents the background as well as the whole organization of this study. The second part is the literature review. This part is mainly about the definition and classification of inversion, some studies about inversion and the theoretical foundation. The third part is research methodology, which contains research questions, data collection and data presentation. The fourth part is the key part of the entire thesis. Firstly, the author will collect all the inverted sentences and classify these sentences into different types. Then she interprets these inverted sentences as forms of ground-figure in Pride and Prejudice based on Figure-Ground Theory. And she also emphasizes the textual functions which inversion has in Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of Figure-Ground Theory. The last part is the conclusion, which includes the major findings, limitations and the suggestions for further study.