An Analysis On Discourse Coherence In Science Fiction The Three-body Problem From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

Science fiction is a literary genre that combines scientific knowledge and literary elements.It plays a vital role in promoting the development of literature. On the basis of the traditional Chinese science fiction, the masterpiece The Three-body Problem written by the new generation science fiction writer Liu Cixin is a new breakthrough and injects fresh vigor and vitality to the traditional Chinese science fiction literary works, thereby making Chinese science fiction step onto the international stage. The novel mainly describes the astrophysicist Ye Wenjie unintentionally sent a message to space,which triggered off Trisolaran civilization's invasion of the earth civilization during the Cultural Revolution. The Three-body Problem, as an excellent novel with strong Chinese features, is also an important material for linguistic research. Most of the pervious researchers attempt to study the translation strategies, translation skills of The Three-body Problem, and the implications of science fiction literary translation practice from disparate perspectives such as Skopos Theory, Translation Norms Theory, Feminist Translation Theory, or analyze its theme, figures and social meaning in light of literary theory. Though these studies have achieved plentiful achievements, the related studies of the discourses in The Three-body Problem are weaker from cognitive perspective. Discourse coherence has been an essential topic in discourse analysis. The scholars both at home and abroad make a systematic and in-depth analysis of it from different angles and the research achievements involve multiple levels. However, there isn't a more rational and scientific research model in relation to discourse coherence at present and there isn't a unified standard on its definition,either. The rise of cognitive linguistics inspires people to explore language phenomena from the perspective of cognition. Coherence is a relative complex issue, only from the cognitive perspective can its essence be reasonably revealed. Under Conceptual Blending Theory, the thesis tries to interpret discourse coherence in science fiction The Three-body Problem.The thesis employing qualitative research method,observes and analyzes discourse coherence in The Three-body Problem on the basis of simplex network, mirror network,single-scope network and double-scope network to interpret and illustrate the dynamic construction process of discourse coherence, cognitive mechanism and its governing elements.The conclusions are as follows: 1. These four types of blending network have explanatory power for discourse coherence in science fiction. It highlights the roles of cognition in discourse analysis, and provides a new approach for analyzing science fiction from cognitive perspective. 2. The process that it produces the emergent structure through the integration among mental spaces in a discourse is the process of realizing discourse coherence. Hence,discourse coherence can be regarded as a dynamic cognitive process where it is related to the reader's cognition and reasoning. 3. The formation of discourse coherence is usually governed by cognitive context, discourse context, the reader's cognitive rules and ability.The analysis of discourse coherence in The Three-body Problem by virtue of Conceptual Blending Theory in this thesis not only broadens the application of the theory, but strengthens people's understanding of discourse coherence. Moreover, it enables people to know the science fiction world with Chinese characteristics as well as offers some inspirations and references to further study of science fiction literature.