Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 The Background of the Study
Children's literature has a great enlightenment for children. By reading the books, children can get more information about nature, history, life experience, which can broaden their horizons. What more, the books can also cultivate the children’s rich emotions, like sense of humor and kindness, so that they can better feel the goodness, kindness and beauty in this world.
Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, as one of the world-famous works, is worth taking research. When reading this book, the children can not only obtain the information of the work, but also can feel the imaginary world created by the writer. Abundant values in the work need to be deliberately explored.
Foregrounding, as one of the artistic methods, is widely adopted in literature in order to convey the theme of the work. It has attracted the attention of many scholars. Different linguistic schools may have different interpretations of foregrounding. Among those scholars, the interpretation from Halliday is relative complete and synthetic and it can be an effective method to interpret this text.
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1.2 The Significance of the Study
From above we can know that it is necessary to study children's literature. Some researches have been done on children’s literature, such as the translation techniques of children’s literature, the studies on the linguistic features of this kind linguistic variety, or exploring the theme about children... However, very little has focused on the foregrounding and there should be more studies emerged in this field. This thesis will attempt to explore the foregrounding and its stylistic effect in Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland based on Halliday’s functional stylistics. And it will bring two kinds of significance: one is for practical significance, and the other one is for theoretical significance.
As for the practical significance, the main findings from this research can be beneficial to the readers, the writers and the book designers of children’s literature:
Firstly, the thesis has provided a new interpretation of foregrounding from functional perspective. After the research, the readers will pay more attention to the foregrounded expressions and they will have a new understanding with these prominences. At last, they can have a deeper understanding of the thematic meaning.
Secondly, as for the writers of children's literature, the foregrounded expressions in different linguistic levels can be an inspiration for them to attract children and strengthen their artistry of their works.
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Chapter Two: Literature Review
2.1 Previous Studies on Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland
Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland is a well-known and popular children’s literary work and it has attracted many scholars’ interests. In this part, the researcher mainly focuses on the previous studies of this work, and they can be classified into 3 main kinds: from the perspective of translation, literary criticism and linguistics.
2.1.1 Studies from the Perspective of Translation
In 1992, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland was firstly translated into China (Zhao Yuanren ⅰ-ⅲ). Since then, the translation of this book has set off a boom.
Some scholars try to analyze the Chinese versions of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland with a translation theory:
From the perspective of Reception Aesthetic, Ma Yatong and Hou Guangxu discussed the translation strategies in Zhao Yuanren's version of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, and they summed up Zhao's translation strategies that worth learning (126).
From the perspective of Adaptation, Zhao Yi compares the rhymes in two versions at different linguistic levels such as phonetics, vocabulary, syntax and cultural context and tries to provide a new approach interpreting the rhymes (38).
From the perspective of Teleology, Zhang Aiji and XuJin have made clear the purpose of translation of children's literature. And they think the translation should be based on the characteristics of children and serving for the children (335).
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2.2 Previous Studies on Foregrounding
Foregrounding, as one of the literary artistic techniques, has attracted many scholars’ researches. The previous studies on foregrounding can be grouped into the studies abroad and the studies at home.
2.2.1 Previous Studies on Foregrounding Abroad
In this part, the researcher has mainly listed the scholars who have made big contributions to foregrounding including V. Shklovsky, Mukarovsky, Jakobson, leech and Halliday. With their effects, the concepts of foregrounding, the ways to achieve foregrounding as well as the motivation of foregrounding have become more illuminated to the scholars.
The concept of foregrounding was firstly introduced from painting. In order to convey the important information to readers, the artists often make this information highlighted among others so as to achieve the artistic effect. And the artistry can be seen as “foregrounding” which is to make the important figure prominent from the background. The highlighted part will be first perceived by the appreciator and inspire the readers to think of the theme of the work.
Years later, foregrounding was adopted in linguistics. And it was first carried out by V. Shklovsky from Russian Formalism. He believes that linguistic art is to make the forms unfamiliar and complex, but the process of perceiving the forms is aesthetic (11-12). He has put forward the concept “ostranenie” (making the expressions unfamiliar), which can be seen as the earliest form of foregrounding.
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Chapter Three: Theoretical Base ................................ 13
3.1 A Brief Introduction of Functional Stylistics ............................... 13
3.2 Foregrounding in Functional Stylistics ................................ 16
Chapter Four: Foregrounding in Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland ............................. 21
4.1 Deflection in Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland ................................ 21
4.1.1 Deflection at Phonological Level ................................... 22
4.1.2 Deflection at Graphological Level ................................ 24
Chapter Five: Conclusion ........................................... 55
5.1 Summary and Major Findings of the Study ......................... 55
5.2 Limitation and Suggestion of the Study ............................. 57
Chapter Four: Foregrounding in Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland
4.1 Deflection in Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland
Deflection refers to the phenomenon that the quantity of one kind of language feature is much more than conventional use, which is a means to achieve foregrounding. In this part, the researcher will list the main deflectional ways at the phonological level, graphological level, lexico-grammatical level and the semantic level as well as their motivations:
4.1.1 Deflection at Phonological Level
Deflection at phonological level is mainly reflected on the repeated use of phoneme, such as the alliteration and end rhyme. These deflections usually appear in poems, but they still show in children’s literature and can have a contribution to the text. According to Zhang Delu, these sounds can be seen as a parallelism of sound and can enhance the sense of rhythm and produce harmonious effect. Besides, some sounds can produce a synesthesia effect and make the meaning stand out (177-180). From his words, these sounds may help to realize the textual function and ideational functions, and they will be elaborated below.
4.1.1.1 Alliteration
According to Oxford dictionary, alliteration is the use of the same letter or sound at the beginning of the words. Alliteration has various forms, such as the repetition of the initial consonant, vowel, and the initial letter. The use of alliteration can reinforce the rhythm of the expression and produce the effect of harmony. For a better explanation, some examples in appendix will be analyzed.
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Chapter Five: Conclusion
5.1 Summary and Major Findings of the Study
With the help of the framework from functional stylistics, the researcher has explored the main deflections and incongruities in Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and their motivations. The major findings are listed below:
Firstly, at the phonological level, the deflection can be reflected on the repetition of the phoneme, such as the alliteration and end rhyme. These deflections can enhance the rhythm of the text and can help to realize the ideational and textual function. The incongruities at this level can be shown at the use of approximants and elision which can indicate the speaker’s accents. These features can greatly show the ideational function and add more fun to the text.
Secondly, at graphological level, the researcher not only focuses on the text, but also takes into consideration of the pictures. At this level, the deflections are mainly reflected by the overuse of some punctuations, such as the exclamation mark, quotation mark and so on. The incongruities are shown with the unconventional use of capitalization, the inappropriate proportion of the figurers and personification in pictures. These visual features at the graphological level are mainly used to enhance the expressive effect, which can better show the ideational function.
Thirdly, at lexico-grammatical level, the researcher has analyzed the prominent features in transitivity system, the mood and modality system and thematic structure. These prominent features at this level have a close relationship with the metafunctions. In transitivity system, the deflections are mainly showed at the large use of material process and verbal process, the animal participants as well as the manner of circumstances. The incongruity in the system can be reflected on the appearance of the strange and queer participants which don’t exist in the real word. The incongruity can also be reflected by the widely used grammatical metaphors in this system. These deflections and incongruities can great express the ideational function for they are helpful to describe a magic world.
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