An Analysis Of Foregrounding In Runaway From The Perspective Of Cognitive Stylistics

This thesis makes a cognitive analysis of the short fiction Runaway which is written by the famous Canadian writer-Alice Munro from the perspective of foregrounding. The methodology that this thesis adopts is to combine theoretical elaboration with case study. Through the analysis, it aims to demonstrate that cognitive analysis of foregrounding is an operable and practical way in appreciating and analyzing fictions in full extent.Stylistics, regarded as an essential way in analyzing the language of literature, recently enjoys a cognitive turn gradually. Consequently, cognitive stylistics, as an inter-discipline bridging linguistics and literature, tends to penetrate new fresh energy into traditional stylistics. It makes the analysis transferring from pure language appreciation to sensitize the affective connotations of the works through readers’ attentional cognitive recognition. As a new discipline, cognitive stylistics contains abundant content, like foregrounding, conceptual metaphor, cognitive deixis etc. So far most researches in cognitive stylistics focus on the analyses of conceptual metaphor and deixis, but studies on foregrounding are relatively few. This thesis will conduct a study of Alice Munro’s short fiction Runaway from the perspective of foregrounding in cognitive stylistics.As an important and mature theory in stylistics, foregrounding can be achieved through qualitative foregrounding (deviation) or quantitative foregrounding (over-regularity). Each branch has its own abundant content as well. In cognitive stylistics, foregrounding equally obtains new vigor and new functions. In other words, foregrounding language learning can not only help readers fulfill the task of analyzing the stylistic features in literary texts, but also evoke readers’ empathy in the process of literary reading. Furthermore, it helps readers echo with the protagonists and the author of the works.Alice Munro is a famous Canadian writer and renowned for her extraordinary subtlety of her language. In 2013, she gains the Nobel Prize because of her short fiction Runaway. In recent years, there are rare analyses from the perspective of linguistics on this book, for most attention is paid to the literary field. However, there are a number of foregrounding language and meaningful sentences needed to be intensively discussed in Munro’s short fiction. So this thesis intends to provide a new perspective, namely cognitive linguistic foregrounding theory to explain Munro’s Runaway. The purpose is to help readers experience the happiness or distress of the protagonists and consciously study Munro’s great competence in expressing profound connotations with delicate language.Through the exploration of combining theories with examples, the thesis will help readers get a deep explanation of the fiction. Meanwhile it illustrates the strong operability and practicality of foregrounding theory in cognitive linguistic. Apart from providing a new approach to analyze fictions, it is also useful to help teachers establish professional teaching work and to improve students’ competence in studying literary works.