A Stylistic Analysis Of The Foregrounded Features In Nineteen Eighty-four

The theory of foregrounding is a crucial theory in Stylistics. The concept offoregrounding is initially introduced from the visual arts, referring to those elements ofan artistic work that stand out from the background in some way. Foregrounding can beachieved in two respects: deviation and over-regularity. Deviation is the departure fromthe language norms and the violation of conventions, and over-regularity is theexcessive use of standard language, i.e. the constant recurrence of certain language unitsin the form of repetition and parallelism.This thesis firstly reviews the development of the foregrounding theory with anintroduction of the major theoretical contributions made by the leading figures ofdifferent schools. By generalizing the distinctiveness of different stages and relations ofscholarly inheritance, this thesis intends to present a holistic overview of the maincontents and development of the foregrounding theory, thus hopefully to lay a solidtheoretical foundation for the present study.The theory of foregrounding has its origin in Russian Formalism, and is thenelaborated by Prague School Structuralism, further improved by Leech, Halliday andother scholars of British Stylistics. It is currently undergoing a pragmatic andpsychological trend of development. Foregrounding is a significant clue to achieveunique stylistic feature, therefore the theory of foregrounding has been widely appliedin stylistic study of literary works.Based on the theory of Stylistics, and by adopting an integrative author-text-readeranalysis model, this thesis attempts to have a systematic study of the foregrounding features from different language levels of the novel. By applying linguistic theory toliterary appreciation, interpreting and evaluating the special stylistic values offoregrounding features, a more profound understanding of Orwell’s language art and abetter appreciation of the artistic charm is hopefully achieved.