World Theory In Cognitive Poetics

Up till now, studies on the worlds theory have been conducted from perspectivesof philosophy, narratology, cognitive linguistics and cognitive poetics by scholars fromall around the world and some academic achievements have been made. The worldstheory researches in cognitive poetics are still at the initial stage that there are still someimportant issues need to be addressed. Firstly, different scholars have differentviewpoints about the internal constructs and there is no complete analytical frameworkof the world theories that can define a cognitive poetical world study in a strict sense.Then there are some overlapping parts in the applications of the possible worlds theoryand the text world theory in literary texts which will contribute to a disorder in thechoice of analytical theory. Last but not least, the possible worlds theory in cognitivepoetics focuses on the output of comprehending a text. And there is no any distinctanalytical framework which can unveil the process of world creating. In the meanwhile,though the text world theory in cognitive poetics is a cognitive analytical framework, itpays special attention to the internal structures of a certain world and neglects theinterrelationship and accessibility among worlds in a text.In view of the demerits presented above and reconsidering on the roles of theexisting world theories in the analysis of literary works, this paper is going to integrate acomplete and independent world analytical framework—World Theoy in cognitivepoetics. Within this framework，the possible worlds’ advantages of distinguishing factfrom fiction and the connecting of relationship among different worlds are highlighted.Meanwhile, the text world theory’s unveiling power of cognitive processing process in atext is equally treated. Firstly, this paper is combined to clear out the merits anddemerits of the possible worlds theory and the text world theory based on which ageneral criterion is presented to avoid the divergence of choosing analytical frameworkof different scholars. Secondly, this paper refines the framework of World Theory byeliminating the overlapping parts. Finally, with this analytical framework, a literary text could be interpreted from both horizontal and vertical dimensions: horizontally, theaccessibility and interrelationship are well unveiled; vertically, the internal structures ofboth factual and fictional worlds are dived in a deeper depth.In this paper, A Mercy of Tony Morrison is borrowed here to examine theanalytical effect of World Theory framework. From this study we can find that: it is anindispensible issue to distinguish fact from fiction in literary works; World analysisfrom both horizontal and vertical dimensions can not only describe clearly the internalstructures of worlds in a text but also elaborate the accessibility among different worlds.