A Cognitive Analysis Of Jia Pingwa’s The Blank From The Perspective Of Figure-Ground Theory

With the wide application of cognitive linguistics in different fields,the vigorous development and mutual penetration of literary research has promoted the birth of a new interdisciplinary discipline—cognitive poetics.Cognitive poetics emphasize the interpretation of literary texts based on the relevant theories of cognitive linguistics,and pays attention to the readers’ mental activities and cognitive mechanism in the process of literary reading.Figure-ground theory is one of the important theories of cognitive linguistics.And it is a basic cognitive principle of spatial organization.The development and application of this theory is getting deeper and deeper,but its explanatory power for literary texts needs to be further expanded.The Blank,as the only poetry collection of Jia Pingwa,contains 31 poems from1976 to 1986.Although Jia Pingwa’s poetry collection is far from the achievements of his novels and prose,The Blank has laid a solid foundation for his later novels and prose creation in terms of language characteristics,content,aesthetic interest and theme,which is worthy of researcher’s attention and research.This study analyzes the themes and images in The Blank by adopting figure-ground theory from the perspective of cognitive linguistics.This thesis will focus on the following problems:First,what are the themes of The Blank? How does the text highlight the theme of poetry and express deep thinking and persistent spiritual inquiries? Second,what are the common images in The Blank? How do these images convey emotion? Third,does figure-ground theory have a strong cognitive explanatory power in analyzing the themes and images of The Blank,so that readers can understand and grasp the connotation of poetry more correctly?Through the detailed analysis of the selected poems,this thesis discusses the effective explanatory power of figure-ground theory in the interpretation of the themes and images of The Blank.The main findings are as follows: First,the themes of the 31 poems in The Blank can be divided into five themes: love,friendship,history,object-chanting and narration.It shows that the themes of the poem can be effectively interpret and highlight by adopting figure-ground theory.Second,this thesis explores three kinds of images which are flower,water and moon based on the figure-ground theory.These three images are the images which appear more frequently in The Blank.By using figure-ground theory to interpret the image of poetry,it turns out that readers can better understand the connotation of poetry and deep meaning.Third,figure-ground theory has a strong explanatory power in the interpretation of The Blank.Through the strong interpretation of the themes and images of poetry,such as the figure highlights in the ground,the figure changes in the ground,and the overlap between the figure and the ground,it is convenient for the readers to grasp the works more correctly,and resonates with the readers and the author,the translator and the author,the translator and the reader in the interpretation and translation of the works.This study is a feasible attempt in the analysis of The Blank,with the purpose to explore the significance and value of Jia Pingwa’s poems to improve cognitive translation of The Blank,and promote the cross-cultural communication of Chinese literature as well as The Blank.