Abstract

Cognitive stylistics also well-known as cognitive poetics is a cognitive approach to language. This study aims at examining literary language by showing how Schema Theory and Text World Theory can be useful in the interpretation of literary texts. Further, the study attempts to uncover how readers can connect between the text world and the real world. Putting it differently, the study aims at showing how the interaction between ‘discourse world’ and ‘text world’. How readers can bring their own experience as well as their background knowledge to interact with the text and make interpretive connections.       
 Schema and text world theories are useful tools in cognitive stylistic studies. The reader's perception of a particular text world depends on her/his existing schema during the process of interpretation. The selected texts for the study are "Strange Meeting" by Wilfred Owen, "In Winter" by Corbett Harrison and the opening passage of David Lodge's novel Changing Places which are intended to show how the two theories can be integrated to account for the way in which text worlds are perceived. So as a result, readers start establishing meaning based on their schemata and these meanings change through adding a new one. The cognitive ability to understand literary texts and how readers build mind worlds is a crucial aim in cognitive poetics. An in-depth cognitive stylistic analysis reveals significant points about reading and interpreting the selected literary texts by providing a way of thinking about background knowledge and how the individual's experience would influence their interpretation and viewing of the  text world.

Highlights

  • This research aims at applying and integrating two important theories of cognitive linguistics namely schema theory and Text World Theory in analyzing literary language

  • In this article, I attempt to answer three questions: To what extent there is an interaction betweendiscourse world‘ andtext world? How this interaction is significant in approaching and interpreting the texts? And, how Schema Theory and Text World Theory can be useful in the interpretation of literary texts? I illustrate the used literary data and the adopted methodology

  • In this paper, the researcher shows how schema theory and Text World Theory used in cognitive stylistics to analyze literary texts, poetic language and literary fiction

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Summary

Introduction

This research aims at applying and integrating two important theories of cognitive linguistics namely schema theory and Text World Theory (hereafter, TWT) in analyzing literary language. If you tell someone about any school, you do not have to mention things like class, students, teacher, chairs, desk, etc., because it is already a part of our background knowledge. According to this theory, schemata represent knowledge about concepts like objects, events, situation and actions; all humans possess schemas. Schemata represent knowledge about concepts like objects, events, situation and actions; all humans possess schemas These schemas can be used to understand something and to predict situations occurring in our environment. Information that does not fit into schema that exists in our mind may not be comprehended; this is the reason why readers have difficulty in comprehending a text on a subject they are not familiar with

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