Linguistic Features of A Rose for Emily from the Perspective of Foregrounding Theory从前景化理论视角分析《献给艾米丽的一朵玫瑰花》中的语言特征文献综述

 2021-12-30 20:39:32

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IntroductionBackground of the studyAs one of the most illustrious and influential writers in America, William Faulkner (1897-1962) won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 for his great and unparalleled contributions to American contemporary novels. He wrote 19 novels and over 120 short stories. Most of these are set in fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He has a high reputation for his short stories, expert in applying multiple narrations and stream of consciousness.Faulkners representative work A Rose for Emily enjoys very high artistic value. Set in Jefferson Town in Yoknapatawpha and published for more than 90 years, the short story still appeals to critics and readers of all ages. Representing the Southern culture and nobility, the protagonist Emily was over-protected by her father in her childhood, which gradually made her lose passion and hope towards her life. After her father died, she failed to get rid of the fetters of old southern conventional ideas and her fathers influence on her. She suffered a lot from abnormal psychology and strange behaviors. When she found out that Homer Barron, a northern foreman who came to the town to pave the sidewalks, had no intention of marrying her, she poisoned him with arsenic. From then on, Emily was cut off from the outside world and slept with the dead for 40 years until she also died. The town residents discovered the horrid secret at Emily's funeral at last. Foregrounding derives from Russian formalism. Mukarovsky who was the first to put forward the term regards it as the unexpected departure from conventional standards. Later, Leech Short (2007) make a detailed explanation of the term from two perspectives. One is qualitative foregrounding synonymous with deviation, referring to violate the conventional language standards. The other is quantitative foregrounding equivalent to overregularity, referring to deviance from normal frequency. Foregrounding is an effective and significant way to interpret linguistic features in literary works. Based on the theory, the thesis will analyze linguistic features of A Rose for Emily from the perspective of deviation and overregularity. Besides, concrete examples will be cited to enhance readers understanding of the content and aesthetic value of the work.1.2 Previous studies on A Rose for EmilyPrevious studies on A Rose for Emily have been conducted from different perspectives by scholars at home and abroad. In general, they focus on the analysis of themes, characterization and linguistic features.In terms of themes, Wang (2014) illustrates multiple themes of this work from love, pride and glory, death and murder, to conflicts between the south and the north. Kuang (2014) further analyzes the theme and denounces the puritan tradition of the old south for its distortion of human nature and its suppression both physically and mentally. With reference to characterization, Chen (2013) interprets the declining aristocrat Emily fighting to protect the civilization of Old South from the analysis of Emily's life setting and Electra complex, and the explanation of her behaviors and awakening of her self-consciousness. Zhang (2015) elucidates Emilys inevitable tragic fate in three aspects: constraint and oppression of the patriarchal society and conventional ideas deeply rooted in Old South; her haughty and rebellious character; her pursuit of unreal love. As to linguistic features, Yu (2015) illustrates the application of stream of consciousness and flashbacks. By depicting different characters psychology, the author successfully creates distinctive characters. The adoption of flashbacks sets the suspense and arouses readers attention. In terms of the first plural-person narrator, Nebeker (2016) contends that the identity of the narrator plays a significant role in revealing the storys real theme. The continual shift of the pronoun from our to they to we makes the plot and the theme more complex. Duan Ou (2017) study the Gothic characteristics in aspects of theme, character, plot structure, ways of narration and description of the environment. Narrating the short story in Gothic style, the author discloses conventional ideas and system in South America which are closely related to Puritanism and the patriarchal society. Yang (2018) concentrates on symbolic meanings of different subjects like Emily herself, Homer Barron, the elderly servant, the rose and the old house. Liu (2020) illuminates Emilys character and tragic fate by means of horizontal contrast, vertical human contrast and non-human contrast.Domestic and foreign scholars have their own emphasis on A Rose for Emily. Regrettably, only Liu Li (2015) studies the feature of Foregrounding in A Rose for Emily, specifically speaking, qualitative deviation and quantitative deviation. He explores symbols and the point of view (qualitative deviation) and repetitive uses of certain words and idiolects (quantitative deviation), concluding that the application of Foregrounding reveals the theme of sympathy and respect for Emily as well as the doomed failure of Old South tradition. The previous review reveals that research on linguistic features of A Rose for Emily based on Foregrounding is particularly rare, which will be the focus of this thesis. It will analyze linguistic features of the short fiction, including lexical, syntactic and semantic features from the perspective of deviation and phonological, lexical and syntactic features from the perspective of overregularity, aimed to clarify how Faulkner succeeds in using these features to convey his themes of Emilys tragic fate and conflicts between the South and the North. 1.3 Significance and purpose of the studyThis thesis aims to analyze the unique linguistic features, which can not only enrich the research field of the linguistic features of A Rose for Emily but also provide new perspective for interpreting and appreciating the short story. The purpose of the study mainly lies in three aspects. First and foremost, it intends to enhance readers awareness as to how the author selects proper words, sentence patterns or rhetorical devices to achieve his writing purpose. Furthermore, through the analysis of linguistic features from the perspective of deviation and overregularity, it can help readers better learn about characters and themes in this short story. Last but not least, it can help readers develop their aesthetic ability. ForegroundingOrigin and DevelopmentThe word foregrounding is opposite to background and widely applied in stylistics. To put it in a simple way, if some object or act is foregrounded, it becomes more obvious. By contrast, others form the background. Short argues that In language, the background is what is linguistically normal--the rules, norms and expectations; the foreground is, in large part, the portions of text or talk which do not conform to these expectations. Foregrounding is thus produced as a result of deviation from linguistic norms of various kinds (1996: 12). The representatives of Prague School Jan Mukarovsky and Roman Jakobson make great contributions to the development of the Foregrounding. Mukarovsky (1964) points out the differences in Foregrounding between daily language and poetic language. The former concentrates on attracting readers attention, while the latter lays emphasis on achieving esthetic effects. Jakobson (1960) stresses another aspect of Foregrounding: parallelism. He analyzes six factors: speaker, listener, context, code, contact and message during the communication between speakers and listeners and its corresponding functions. Leech (1966) proposes a complete theory by combing deviation and parallelism. Furthermore, he makes a comparison between syntacmatic foregrounding and paradigmatic foregrounding. Syntacmatic foregrounding relies on syntacmatic principles while paradigmatic foregrounding adopts words beyond normal language usage. Halliday (1971) distinguishes Foregrounding and prominence. He contends that not all prominent effects belong to Foregrounding unless they are motivated. That is to say, only when prominent effects are meaningful in the story can they be considered Foregrounding. Besides, Peer argues that Foregrounding, as the dynamic interaction between author, (literary) text and reader (1986: 20), makes a summary of Foregrounding and testifies the feasibility of the theory. Leech Short (2007) illustrate two types of Foregrounding, which will be reviewed in the next section. Shorts Classification of ForegroundingShort proposes deviation and overregularity in his book Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose (1996), but he fails to give the clear definitions of these two concepts. Later, Leech Short point out that Foregrounding may be qualitative, i.e. deviation from the language code itself a breach of some rule or convention of English (2007: 39).According to Short, deviation is equivalent to qualitative foregrounding. Deviation can have profound psychological effect on readers. Apart from stimulating readers imagination, it helps to portray the image and disclose the theme. Take Come, we burn daylight, ho! for example. Daylight cannot literally be burned as it is an abstract matter. The line uses daylight as the object of the verb burn. This is one kind of deviation from the norms of English. In this thesis, deviation of the short fiction will be discussed on lexical, semantic, and syntactic levels. Compared with deviation, overregularity does not deviate from the language code. According to Leech Short, Foregrounding may simply be quantitative, i.e. deviance from some expected frequency (2007: 39). Overregularity proposed by Short is equivalent to quantitative foregrounding, which refers to linguistic elements occurring either in high frequency or in low frequency. Short discusses linguistic phenomena that occur too often (referring to high frequency) but spares no paragraph in low frequency. Departure from expected frequency can arouse readers attention and thinking. Overregularity mainly exists at phonological and syntactic levels of language. In addition to perceptual prominence, overregularity can control readers understanding of and reactions to the literary works. Take Blow, blow, thou winter wind. It is obvious that the repetitive use of blow makes the sentence prominent. Chances are that we, readers, will conclude that the wind has more fierce and prolonged force. In this case, we call it overregularity. In this thesis, features that occur more frequent than usual in A Rose for Emily will be discussed from phonological, lexical and syntactic perspectives. 2.3 SignificanceThe significance of Foregrounding mainly lies in three aspects. First of all, it can evoke readers curiosity by presenting unusual language variation. Readers may read the foregrounded parts and find out the implications such features can have. At the same time, absorbed in foregrounded language, readers actively construct foreground and background, which can enlighten their wisdom, sharpen their thoughts and enhance their appreciation ability. Last but not least, by means of deviating from conventional language habits and some language phenomena occurring too often, Foregrounding lays emphasis on effects language aims to achieve and strengthen readers understanding of the characters and themes of literary works.ReferencesAbdurrahman, I. B. (2016). A stylistic analysis of complexity in William Faulkners A rose for Emily. Advances in language 析《献给艾米丽的玫瑰花》，《作家》24：62-63。

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