A Cognitive Interpretation Of Carpentaria From The Perspective Of Text World Theory

Alexis Wright is the contemporary well-known Australian Aboriginal writer, whosemasterpiece is Carpentaria published in2006. In2007, Carpentaria won the Miles FranklinLiterary Award, Australia’s most prestigious literary award. Alexis Wright became the firstAboriginal writer who acquired the award. Carpentaria integrates the Australian Aboriginalancient legends, myths, the original totem in their religious “dreamtime” and various conflictsin the real world together, depicting a colorful and magnificent painting (Li Yao,2012). Thetexts that fuse the real world and dreaming world into one, on the one hand reveal theAboriginal thinking model and dreaming culture, on the other hand add difficulties on readers’comprehension of certain discourses and it is difficult for readers to master and comprehendthe themes and significance in the novel.According to this phenomenon, in order to make readers and the Aboriginal writer to getinto the same text world，realize the effective communication and master the theme of thenovel, through establishing the corpus of the discourses about the main character Norm, thethesis practically uses the Text World Theory to conduct the detailed analysis on the discourseunder the Cognitive Poetics, and then explores the construction of the novel’s theme inreaders’ mind based on the cognitive process in literary reading. Through the analysis thatcombines the theory with practice, the thesis presents readers’ mental representation in literaryreading, cognitive processes in discourse interpretation, finally realizes the themesinterconnected in different text types in the novel. No matter the text is about the legend of theSerpent Creation, the nature in Aboriginal eyes or the conflicts between the white and theaborigines in life, their inner link is the Aboriginal people’s love and respect towards the landunder the influence from their unique culture. The studies not only enrich the exploration onAboriginal literature from the perspective of Text World Theory, but also analyze the effect ofthe Aboriginal unique history and culture on discourse interpretation based on Text WorldTheory framework.The thesis is consisted of five parts. In the first part, it mainly introduces the writerAlexis Wright and her masterpiece Carpentaria, the research questions, research methods,purpose and significance of the study as well as the layout of the thesis. The second part isabout the review of the main researches on Cognitive Poetics since its development, mainresearches on Text World Theory abroad and at home and Australian indigenous writingreview. The third, forth and fifth part are the core parts in the thesis. In the third part, it isabout Text World Theory and its three layers, the different opinions between Werth andGavins as well as the analytical framework. The forth part conducts the cognitive interpretation of the discourses describing the main character Norm with the discourse worldknowledge, and explores the themes in discourses interconnected. In the conclusion part, itconsists of the summary, the findings and the limitations of the thesis.