A Study On Foregrounding Features In The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison, a distinguished writer in contemporary literary world, is the first black female to win the Nobel Prize for literature. In her works, she shows great concern about black women's plight under the conflicts of double cultures, explores their inner experience and spiritual world. Her virgin novel The Bluest Eye is a classic work of this kind. Myriad of valuable essays have been accomplished revolving around the themes and artistic features of the novel. This thesis aims to explore The Bluest Eye from the perspective of foregrounding theory, so as to provide a more objective interpretation of the work.The concept of foregrounding originates from painting, referring to those outstanding parts against background. It is the de-automatization of an act, the opposite of automatization. In the 1930s, Prague School linguists apply it to linguistic studies, stressing the significance of deviation which creates novelty and freshness. Later on, Leech and Short develop the theory to include both the deviant features and those which are not deviant but striking. Halliday, the initiator of systematic and functional linguistics, advances the theory even further. According to him, foregrounding is"motivated prominence". Any type of linguistic pattern, no matter deviant or over-regular, once it is closely related to the fulfillment of the functions and meanings of the whole text, then it is a foregrounded one with stylistic value.After critically reviewing representatives of different schools regarding the notion of"foregrounding", the thesis presents two methods raised by scholars which are used to achieve foregrounding: deviation and parallelism. The former is the intentional departure from the norm of the standard, and the latter is the over-regular use of the norm. The thesis mainly adopts qualitative analysis supplemented by quantitative analysis to examine the foregrounding aspects. Graphologically, there is heavy use of italics, capitalization, and spacing. Semantically, Morrison uses such rhetorical devices as simile, metaphor and paradox. It also discusses the aspect of parallelism in lexical and syntactical level. The overall foregrounding features greatly contribute to attracting reader's attention, displaying aesthetic effects and highlighting the thematic significance.This paper probes into the linguistic resources that Toni Morrison adopts in the process of constructing the novel. By employing foregrounding theory, the thesis demonstrates the artistic and thematic value from the stylistic point of view. Through the elaboration of the novel, it is proved that foregrounding theory has strong interpretative power in textual analysis. In general, foregrounding is a rational and effective means in illustrating the interplay between linguistic features, theme and aesthetic effects in literary works.