| People's perception field is composed of two parts, one is the figure the other is the ground. Figure, the most prominent part in perception, is the focus of people's attention; while ground refers to the less prominent part in cognition, the reference to stand out the figure. Langacker points out that"the terms prominence and salience (used here interchangeably) are not self-explanatory. Because something can be salient in many different ways, describing it as such is not an adequate characterization but only a starting point for analysis"(Langacker 2008:66). Based on the principle of prominence, cognitive linguists probe deeply into the language organization, especially the interpretation of clause patterns. Cognitive linguists hold the view that prominence is essentially a conceptual phenomenon; it inheres in people's apprehension of the world. Thus, the establishment of clause patterns actually can be seen as a reflection of people's perspective point.Discussion in this thesis is focused on how the principle of prominence is at work in sentence structures of news headlines. Based on figure/ground segregation, this thesis tries to interpret different headlines with the same news source by analyzing the figure-ground relation and finding out different degrees of prominence conferred on participants. The contrastive analysis aims to explore the specific features of different news headlines so as to figure out writer's real intention. The thesis finally explores the way in which news headlines reach the function of prominence, attraction and persuasion.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One shows a brief introduction to the whole thesis, including research scope, research method, research aims and also the whole framework.Chapter Two mainly focuses on literature review. This chapter is divided up into four parts. We first discuss the development of figure-ground theory and mainly illustrate the perceptual prominence introduced by gestalt psychologists. Then, we explore the application studies of figure-ground relation on language organization. This part specifies the determination of figure and ground by showing the definitional and associated characteristics of figure and ground proposed by Talmy(2000). Further discussion also comes to the relationship between trajector/ landmark alignment and figure-ground segregation. The studies on the relation of figure-ground in simple clauses and complex sentences are presented with typical examples.Based on Talmy's (2000) studies on the grammatical relations of figure and ground, we notice that Langacker's (1991) previous statement about the determination of figure and ground in simple clause seems to be quite radical. According to Langacker, subject-verb-complement pattern is actually a reflection of the principle of figure / ground segregation (Ungerer&Schmid, 2001:172)."In a simple transitive clause, the subject corresponds to the figure, the object to the ground, and the verb expresses the relationship between figure and ground"(ibid). Although this suggestion has its explanatory power to some extent, yet, it would be quite contrary to the spirit of cognitive explanation to assume that the chosen subject necessarily corresponds to the figure and is more prominent than other elements in sentence. Talmy (2000:334) suggests a possible universal property of figure-ground relation in sentence:"in their basic expression, the Figure has syntactic precedence over the Ground". The single clauses regularly assign Figure and Ground functions to the subject and object respectively. However, Talmy adds that not all sentences have the same property, some belong to special cases. To be specific, the realization of figure/ground segregation in sentence structures does not necessarily follow the form with Figure as subject and Ground as object."Some sentence types permit inverse forms with reverse Figure-Ground precedence"(ibid). Hence, in some sentences the reverse precedence might yield the Figure as the object and the Ground as the subject. For example (Talmy, 2000:333): a. Smoke (F) slowly filled with the room (G). b. The room (G) slowly filled with smoke (F). Talmy further points out that the realization of figure/ground segregation in sentence structure is affected by other factors than"variable-point versus reference-point functions"(ibid: 333). One such factor may be people's'perspective point'(ibid). Our conclusion is that the relations of figure and ground in clause patterns should be based on specific context. Besides, in this chapter some application researches on figure-ground theory in China are reviewed in a brief way. The last part of this chapter deals with the information flow and information focus in the clause, which lays the groundwork for the analysis in Chapter three. We mention the complicated arrangement of information in clauses and discuss the general principle of'end focus':"focus is normally placed on the last lexical item of the last element in the clause"(Biber et al, 2000:896). According to Biber,"if the information principle is being observed, it is new information in the last element that is highlighted in this way"(ibid).Chapter Three is the most important part of the thesis. The data analysis and further discussion are presented in detail. This part offers six typical case studies of headlines with the same news source. The discussion is focused on the interpretation of different news headlines by analyzing the figure-ground relation and finding out prominent focus of attention and information focus. Besides, the study also probes a little deeper into the semantic functions of figure-ground relation. We find that the information combination in news headlines is quite complicated. Figure and ground are not necessarily correlated with new information and given information. The information value of each element depends on its position in the sentence. In general, the information occurs at the end of the headline always deserves the emphasis. Both focus of attention and information focus are illustrated for the purpose of finding out the specific feature of each headline. The analysis in this chapter yields the following results:Figure-ground theory is powerful in the interpretation of syntactic structure of news headlines. The study in this thesis finds that the relation of figure and ground in news headlines does not necessarily follow the order of"Figure-Ground". Some headlines hold the inverse form of"Ground-Figure". To be specific, when the realization of figure/ground segregation in headlines follows the basic order of"Figure-Ground", it seems accurate to identify two focal points in that headline: the figure gains the prominent focus of attention while the ground specifies information focus. According to principle of end focus, the arrangement of information in a clause regularly begins with given/old information and ends with new information. Hence, the figure here carries given information and gains the primary prominence. Yet, it is merely a point of departure for discussion rather than the information focus of the sentence. The emphasis of the headline is still laid on the new information carried in the ground since it is placed at the end of the sentence. Besides, this kind of information distribution in news headlines actually observes people's objective laws of cognition. However, in some cases the writer intentionally moves the figure to the end of the headline and forms the structure of"Ground-Figure". In this case, the given information carried in the ground actually functions as background. As for the figure, it carries new information and is also placed at the end of the sentence. Hence, the information carried in figure receives double emphasis: not only the prominent focus of attention but also the information focus. We conclude that the reverse form"Ground-Figure"in news headlines greatly contributes to the strong emphasis of certain information.There is also a more complex case that headline involves more than two elements of prominence. Their different degrees of prominence can be clearly distinguished by notions of trajector, primary landmark and secondary landmark. For some headlines, it is significant that the secondary landmark need not be mentioned. Based on the study, we notice that the arrangement of secondary landmark actually reflects the writer's specific intention. Placed at the end of the sentence, the new information carried in the secondary landmark wins the emphasis of the whole headline. Based on the same news event, sometimes writers intend to add new information to the end of the headline; in other cases, they might choose to omit it. Nevertheless, different headlines with the same news source actually reflect writers'different perspective points.Chapter Four is the research result which comes to further study of the formation of news headlines and finds out how they reach the function of prominence, attraction and persuasion. We notice that the formation of news headlines is actually the product of cognition. By distinguishing the figure and the ground of news headlines, it becomes easy for readers to get the prominent information of each headline. At the same time, we can figure out the real intention of the writer. Chapter Five brings the thesis to a conclusion. It gives a summary of the major findings, the significance of this study as well as some limitations of this study.So far, the interpretation of news headlines in this thesis confirms the link between language and cognition. The research results of this thesis evidence the cognitive explanatory power of figure-ground theory in the formation of news headlines. This thesis may also make a contribution to our better understanding of news report. |
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