Study Of Themes Of Yan Jidao's Song Lyrics From The Perspective Of Text World Theory

Paul Werth firstly proposes the term of text world theory and forms its basic theoretical framework.Text world theory,as a new development of cognitive poetics,has absorbed a large number of cognitive theories,including possible world theory,schema theory and so forth.Later,after the further improvement and development of the theoretical framework by Joana Gavins,the scope of the practice of text world theory has been extended to other unique discourses besides typical literary texts.In this thesis,text world theory,as the theoretical guide,is applied to the thematic study of classical Chinese poetry.Classical Chinese poetry,as one of the great treasures of Chinese culture,is well-noted throughout the world for its short text,concise but vivid diction,and deep connotation of the most abundant culture and cognitive thought which is contained in the least amount of contents.This thesis aims to explore the establishment process of mental representation of participants and their mechanism of cognitive processing through the analysis of the text of Yan Jidao's Song lyrics.At the same time,it also tends to prove the feasibility of the text world theory in realizing the poetic themes and helping readers deeply comprehend the themes of Yan's Song lyrics.Text world theory is divided into three layers: discourse world,text world and sub-worlds.Discourse world,as the first level of the theory,provides background information for the construction of the text world.In the thematic analysis of Yan's Song lyrics,readers have relevant background knowledge.So under the impetus of the text driven mechanism,readers are able to understand the current text and position themselves to the very text world constructed by poet.Secondly,text world theory,as the core level of the theory,consists of world-building elements and function-advancing propositions whose roles are to help readers to construct the mental picture and to promote the development of the plot,making the themes of poetry smoother and more natural.In the process of achieving the purpose of discourse communication,it appears rare to see texts which only contain one text world while texts that contain more than one are common.So it is also the case in the implementation process of poetic themes.Hence,usually,there is more than one sub-world originating from the text world.In Yan's Song lyrics,the poet describes his dreams a lot and he shuttles back and forth between the dream and the reality.Through the sharp comparison between the dream and the reality,the poet reveals his emotion and poetic themes unconsciously.Three levels of text world theory are not independent.There must be a driving mechanism between them to promote the overall realization of the themes of poetry.Through qualitative analysis,it is found that based on background knowledge and common ground possessed by readers,the operation mechanism of the text world theory can be closely integrated with the analysis of Yan Jidao's Song lyrics and the text world theory can effectively interpret poet's emotion and poetic themes.Text world theory provides a new perspective to enrich the study of classical Chinese poetry.