(论文)对王维诗歌中主要意象的图形背景分离分析

重庆大学 硕士学位论文 对王维诗歌中主要意象的图形-背景分离分析 姓名：范会兵 申请学位级别：硕士 专业：外国语言学及应用语言学 指导教师：余渭深 20060401 重庆大学硕士学位论文 中文摘要 I 摘 要 长期以来王维(AD 701-761)田园诗歌中的意象是文学评论的焦点之一但以 前的研究大多都是从历史文化的角度出发过分地强调意象的情感功能将意象 视为一种叙事技巧在其田园诗歌中主要起到象征和暗示的作用而忽略了从认 知语言学角度去考察其田园诗歌中的意象的认知功能 图形-背景分离理论源于心理学 后有认知语言学家用来研究语言结构的意义 尤其是介词的意义进而用来研究诗歌意象图形-背景分离原则虽是空间组织的 一个基本认知原则但也可用来研究文学作品尤其是诗歌意象因而也是诗歌 中意象组织的一个基本认知原则 本文在前人研究的基础上将王维田园诗中的主要意象归纳为四大类月亮 意象鸟意象空山意象和云意象运用图形-背景分离理论对于每类意象在诗 篇中的认知功能加以描绘并分析意象如何在同一诗歌文本中同其它意象发生互 动从而形成图形-背景分离模式并构成王维诗歌的以画入诗的整体布局 研究发现在王维的田园诗中意象不仅仅起到象征和暗示作用而且通过 激活读者大脑中先存的与意象有关的图式并与同一诗歌文本中的其它意象相关 联产生互动从而使读者从整体布局上理解意象的含义进而理解诗歌的主题 关键词图形-背景分离理论认知功能主要意象王维田园诗 重庆大学硕士学位论文 ABSTRACT II ABSTRACT For quite a long timethe images in Wang Weis pastoral poetry have been the focus of literary criticism. Most of the researches overstress the emotional functions of images by considering the image as a narration means which performs as symbols and hints in the pastoral poetry from the historical and cultural perspective, but fail to investigate the cognitive functions of the images from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The figure-ground segregation theory derives from psychology and is used by cognitive linguists to analyze the meaning of linguistic structures, that of prepositions in particular, and further to analyze the poetic images. The principle of figure-ground segregation is one of the basic cognitive principles according to which space is organized, but it can be applied to literary works, especially the poetic images as well, and it thus becomes a basic cognitive principle by which images are organized in poems. Based on previous studies, the major images extracted from Wangs pastoral poetry are reduced to four general ones: the moon image, the bird image, the void mountain image and the cloud image. For each image, their cognitive functions in the poems are represented in terms of the segregation theory. The analysis will be done on how the image interacts with other images in the same poem to form figure-ground segregation patterns and Wangs holistic poetic layout of “Picturesque Embodiment in Poetic Composition”. Through the cognitive interpretations of images in Wangs pastoral poetry, it is found that they do not only perform as symbols and hints, but also help readers understand the meaning of the images and the themes of the poems on the whole by activating the default schemata in readers minds to segregate figures from grounds and interacting with other images in the same poetic texts. Key words: Figure-ground segregation theory, cognitive functions, major images, Wang Wei, pastoral poetry 重庆大学硕士学位论文 Chapter One Introduction 1 Chapter One Introduction 1.1 Orientations of the Title The title of the dissertation orients the author mainly in three aspects. First, the main tendency of modern scientific development lies in the amalgamation of branches of science. In the past 50 years or so, “the central change” in language studies was “a shift of attention from behavior and the products of behavior (texts, corpora, etc.) to the internal mechanisms that enter into behavior” (Preface by Chomsky, in Ungerer ? to help overcome the shortcomings of traditional interpretation of Chinese classical poetry from the cognitive perspective; ? to explore the way in which the major images are organized in Wang Weis “void and serene” pastoral poetry. 1.4 Organization of the Dissertation This dissertation totally consists of four chapters. Chapter One purports to briefly introduce the orientation of the title that presents the authors audacious but feasible assumption in this study, the research questions, the research aims of the study and the organization of the dissertation. In Chapter Two, the literature review will be presented in detail, focused on the definition of image, the figure-ground segregation theory and its applications, and the relation between CONTAINER metaphor and ground. In Chapter Three, based on a survey of previous related studies on Wangs pastoral poetry, the figure-ground segregation theory will be adopted to interpret major images extracted from Wang Weis pastoral poetry, mainly on the relationship between or among the main images Wang uses in his poems. Finally, the paper will be concluded briefly but clearly in Chapter Four. At the same time, the limitations of the study will be presented in this chapter. 重庆大学硕士学位论文 Chapter Two Literature Review 4 Chapter Two Literature Review This chapter will review and discuss the major literature related to this study. To study Wang Weis pastoral poetry, adequate acquaintance with the imagey theory serves as not only a preface, but also a vital key. As we know, one image or images have played an important role in literary works, especially pastoral poems. As a distinctive element of the language of art, it can express embodied experience in its richness and complexity (Holman 2) the figure-ground segregation theory and its applications; 3) CONTAINER metaphor analysis. 2.1 The Definition of Image To appreciate or interpret Wangs pastoral poetry, it is necessary to understand the concept of image. In the following some definitions of image will be presented: To begin with, the concept of image can be construed iconographically as “Wu Xiang” in Chinese. As a physical object, an image denotes natural phenomena or social experience (Liu, 1962:102). Secondly, an image is construed through language that addresses the sense and casts up a picture. The most common images in poetry are visual; they provide verbal pictures of the poets encounters, real or imagined, with the world (Perrine, 1969: 54). Thirdly, an image is a device useful for the purposes of enargia, i.e. “the process of making the reader seem to see something (Frazer, 1960:149)”. In this sense, an image is construed as a picture formed in the mind and “used to denote a verbal expression that evokes a mental picture or recalls a physical sensation, not necessarily visual (Liu, 1962:101)”. In addition, Culler (1997) explains the concept of image in Grolier Academic Encyclopedia (I-J) as follows: 重庆大学硕士学位论文 Chapter Two Literature Review 5 Derived from the Latin imago (picture, semblance, or likeness), an image is a representation of what is perceived-the mine of an object or scene. In literary criticism the term is used both for the representations produced in the mind by verbal descriptions and for the descriptions or characterizations themselves, since the mental pictures, or images, may be thought of either as separate from words or as integral features or the verbal characterizations.” Some other literary critics and poets also examine the meaning of the word and illustrate it in their own ways. As a representative poet of imagism, Pound defines image as “an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time”, and later he extends this definition when he states that an image is “a vortex or cluster of fused ideas endowed with energy” (Chang, 1999: 220). According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (1992), image refers to “those uses of language in a literary work that evoke sense-impression by literal or figurative reference to perceptible or concrete objects, scenes, actions, or states, as distinct from the language of abstract argument or exposition”. In summary, though diverse in the use of specific terminologies, the various definitions of image above share great similarity as to the essence of image. In a word, an image can refer to both sensory objects and figurative use of language in literature. In this study, it would be preferable to define image as the colligation of the concrete objects and the emotions represented by them, i.e. the usage of the figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to reflect the theme of the pastoral poetry. 2.2 The Figure-Ground Segregation Theory As mentioned above, image can be defined as the colligation of the concrete objects and the emotions represented by them. As far as the aspect of image as concrete objects is concerned, its study is closely related to the figure-ground segregation theory which aims to explore the temporal and spatial relations between or among objects in the world. This has been well shown in the connection between image schemas and figure-ground relations in cognitive linguistics. In other words, it sounds reasonable for us to do our literary image analysis from the figure-ground segregation perspective. This section will review the origin of the figure-ground segregation theory, the properties of figure and ground and the applications of the figure-ground segregation theory. 重庆大学硕士学位论文 Chapter Two Literature Review 6 2.2.1 The Origin of The Figure-Ground Segregation Theory As Zhu Guangqian (2005) points out, it would be preferred to examine a things origin in order to probe its essentials. The study of figure-ground segregation theory is not exceptional here. The notions of figure and ground were introduced by Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin almost a century ago and later integrated into the more comprehensive framework of perceptual organization by the gestalt psychologists (Ungerer Ungerer Liu, 2006) prefers the figure to come up in front of the ground so that the figure will stimulate our retina then the ground. Here, we might as well say that Talmys claim of the less-immediately-perceivable property is controversial. This may be the reason that Croft Ungerer etc.), language or syntax analysis (Talmy, 1975a, 1978a, 2000a; Chen, 2003), to poetics (Stockwell, 2002, 2003; Gavins Tsur, 2000, 2002). 2.2.3.1 Application in the Study of Space Perception Space is a basic cognitive domain. As the center of cognitive linguistics, space study is the essential part of cognitive linguistics study. After Rubin introduced the notions of figure and ground, further studies into perceptual psychology have shown that figure-ground relation can apply to our experience of the spatial relations between objects. One of Ungerer and Schmids two examples involves a scene of a book on a table and the other example is the description of a scene of a balloon flying over a house. While there should be no doubt that the book and the balloon are figures, both grounds in Ungerer and Schmids examples do actually have good recognizable shapes, but in relation to the figure, they are construed as being less structured. The fact that when you direct your visual attention towards something the rest of the scene becomes blurred should underlie this. Moreover, the dividing contours do seem to belong to the book and the balloon. A further point is that the book and the ballon are more interesting simply because they are mobile. In space perception, at least eight fundamental orientation spatial relations can be determined for a geometrical graph since space is a “continuous and settled tri-dimensional container”. These eight orientation spatial relations are: up, down, in front of, behind, insides, outsides, besides and attached. According to whether the spatial relationships change along with the change of the observers vantage point, they are classified into two general types: topological and projective. The figure-ground relationship in topological orientation spaces is asymmetrical, that is to say, one of the 重庆大学硕士学位论文 Chapter Two Literature Review 11 two objects in topological spaces can only act as figure while the other as ground but not vice versa. We can call this absolute segregation. It can be illustrated as in: (1) He is in the car. (2) 笔在文具盒里(The pen is in the pencil box.) Here, “He” and “笔(The pen)”are figures while “the car” and “文具盒(the pencil box)” are grounds. In (1), however the car is shaped and however you observe the scene, “he” is always in “the car”, but not vice versa. Unlike in topological orientation spatial relationships, the projective orientation spatial relationships would change along with the observers vantage point or perspective, or they are relative. But Kuang and Wen(2003) miss some points when they try to explain the projective orientations of “in front of” and “behind”. First of all, lets site their example here. (3) A dog was lying asleep in front of the fire. To Kuang and Wen, the fire here functions as ground because it is known while the dog as figure because it is unknown. But here, the choice of the figure and the ground mostly depends on the observers perspective. Cognitively we can say the sentence like “the dog was lying asleep in front of the fire”. Here, although both “the dog” and “the fire” are known, “the dog” acts as figure just because the speaker or observers focus falls on it. Similarly, “the fire” can also be focused in “the fire is behind the dog” when the precise position of “the fire” needs explaining. Since the conception of motion is closely connected with that of space, figure-ground segregation also seems to apply to our perception of moving objects. Since the moving object is typically the most prominent one, it is typically the figure while the remaining stimuli constitute the ground. In order to distinguish between stationary and dynamic figure-ground relations, some cognitive linguists (Langacker 2004a; Taylor, 1988; Ungerer etc.) use the term trajector for a moving object and landmark for the ground of a moving figure. Langacker(2004a:231) defines “a trajector as the figure in a relational profile, other salient entities as the landmark.” To him, the trajector/landmark asymmetry underlies the universal subject/objector distinction. In other words, Langacker treats “the trajector/landmark asymmetry as a special case of figure/ground alignment(ibid:231).” Ungerer and Schmid(2001:161) also claim that “the notions of trajector and landmark are specific manifestations of the more widely applicable notions of figure and ground.” According to image schemata, trajectory and landmark may vary in size and shape, and meantime, the trajector can be in contact with the landmark or it can be part of the 重庆大学硕士学位论文 Chapter Two Literature Review 12 landmark. What needs to be noticed here lies in the common characteristics shared by the three central schemas OVER-, -OUT- and -UP-: (4) a. a trajector, which moves along b. a path, and is seen as being related to c. a landmark. 2.2.3.2 Application in the Study of Syntax Spatial figure and ground relations are typically expressed by prepositional phrases in language, with the ground as the prepositional object and the preposition expressing the spatial relational configuration of the two objects: (5) a. Theres a catFIGURE on the matGROUND. b. There are still some peanutsFIGURE in the bagGROUND. c. BatmanFIGURE was standing on the roofGROUND. d. The computerFIGURE under the tableGROUND is mine. e. The spacecraftFIGURE was hovering over MetropolisGROUND. (6) a. TaranTRAJECYOR jumped into the riverLANDMARK. b. SpidermanTRAJECYOR climbed up the wallLANDMARK. c. The birdTRAJECYOR winged its way out the windowLANDMARK. d. WeTRAJECYOR went to across the fieldLANDMARK. e. ITRAJECYORm going to LondonLANDMARK. Here, the classification (into Group (5) and Group(6) is based on the way the relative spatial relation between the two objects changes. In (5), the spatial relation indicated by the preposition between the two objects is relatively stationary, while in (6), the figure (here specified as the trajector) is in motion. What needs to be pointed out here is that, in (5e), although the figure is also in motion, the relative spatial relation between the spacecraft and Metropolis doesnt change; therefore, we may still consider that the spacecraft is relatively stationary. Next, lets consider the issue of figure and ground in syntax. (7) a. The car hit the tree. b. The tree was hit by the car. In (7a), the car is the most prominent part of the message, while in (7b) the tree is the most prominent part. Here, we may view the example as a figure-ground reversal in syntax. In English, the information conveyed by a sentence is typically structured such that the subject conveys the most interesting part. In that sense, the subject is the syntactic 重庆大学硕士学位论文 Chapter Two Literature Review 13 figure, while the object and other constituents form the syntactic ground. Here, we may use argument structure to construe syntactic figures and grounds. English uses grammatical voice to reverse the syntactic figure and ground. Grammatically, there are three types of voice in English, namely, active, passive and middle voices. According to argument structure, the subject typically expresses the AGENT and thus construes it as the syntactic figure in active constructions. This is sometimes called agent promotion because the agent is the most prominent piece of information, like in (7a). Although the truth-conditional event in (7b) is the same as that in (7a), the tree is the syntactic figure. In other words, passive voice constructions are agent-demoting in the sense that they construe it as part of the syntactic ground. In stead, they construe the patient as the syntactic figure. S P (A) AGENT PATIENT Fig.2.1 The third kind of voice, middle voice constructions are also agent demoting, but in a different way. They typically have the form of an intransitive construction but they express events that involve two participants. (8) The door opened. We know that there is someone opening the door, because doors cant open themselves; this is part of the DOOR frame. We dont know who is, though. Maybe we cant see whos opening the door. This is supported by these sentences. (9) a. The door opened and in came the teacher. b. The door opened and out came the teacher. Chen Rong(2003) constructs a GbF model to explain English inversions systematically. As far as negation of a verb and negation of a subject NP are concerned, to Chen Rong, both appear to have similar semantic content, that some entity does not exist in some location or does not do something, the fa