A Corpus-based Study On The Theme Of Life In Frog From The Perspective Of Cognitive Narratology

The novel Frog tells the extraordinary story of “my Gugu” by taking life consciousness as its theme.This novel has attracted widespread attention in the academic world and initiated in-depth reflection on life.However,the previous researches on life theme are mainly from the traditional narratological perspective and only a few scholars have studied it from the aspect of cognition.Guided by the framework of cognitive narratology,this thesis intends to explore the multiple narrative focalization strategies used in Mo Yan's Frog by combining the Idealized Cognitive Model theory of Lakoff with focalization theory of Shen Dan,and tries to see how Mo Yan constructs life theme by using variable focalization strategies.Firstly,the author has built a reference corpus and generated a keyword list.By observing this keyword list,the life theme is defined.By extracting the word list of“Gugu”,her image is vividly presented.Secondly,the author tries to explore the focalization strategies by applying Shen Dan's focalization theory.It is found out that there are two categories of focalization: internal focalization and external focalization.For the internal focalization,there are first-person experiential internal focalization and third-person fixed internal focalization.For the external focalization,there are selective omniscient external focalization,first-person retrospective external focalization and dramatic focalization.Finally,the author uses Lakoff's ICM theory to explore Mo Yan's cognitive process when he is constructing life theme.It is found out that,for the events happening in some special historical periods,Mo Yan would take the characters' eyes to narrate the events.In these events,the readers and narrators are experiencing the narrative world together and there is no distance between the two.Thus,the readers' ICM can be renewed or even reconstructed because of these new experiences.And for the unimportant events,Mo Yan takes the external focalization instead in order to form the story frame.At this time,the distance between the characters and readers are relatively wide,and Mo Yan leads the readers to activate their stored ICM knowledge so as to understand the events.Based on the research above,the vivid description of the focalization strategies in Frog and deep exploration of Mo Yan's life theme construction process strengthen readers' in-depth understanding of this novel.To discuss the life consciousness duringdifferent periods of time and from different social classes has reinforced readers' life concern and triggered their meditation about the nature of life from different perspectives.This thesis combines the theories from literature and cognitive linguistics under the guidance of cognitive narratological framework,thus providing a new study pattern to explore the life cognition in Frog.What is more,the use of corpus also embodies this study with both qualitative and quantitative features,extending the research scope.