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西安外国语大学英文学院 陕西 西安710128
Abstract：Amy Tan is a famous Chinese-American writer whose words can touch people’s soul and arouse introspection. It is the book The Joy Luck Club that turns Amy Tan into an instant celebrity. In the chapter Two Kinds, the mother Suyuan makes every effort to want her daughter Jing-mei to be a genius in America. However, Jing-mei is angry at such arbitrary authority, causing a emotional “cold war” between her and her mother. By analyzing the language features of this story, the author intends to illustrate the conflicts between Suyuan and Jing-mei in the light of the theory of foregrounding.
Key words: two kinds；language features；the theory of foregrounding
The concept of foregrounding was first put forward by Jan Mukarovsky. According to him, the standard language used by people in daily life can form the background of the literary language, and the intentional violation of the standard language rules makes the foregrounding possible. The main point advanced by Halliday is that “foregroundind” relates with the concept of “motivation” and “prominence”. Now the foregrounding features of “Two Kinds” will be demonstrated on the levels of syntax, lexicon and phonology.
Syntactical prominence means the violation of syntax rules or the unexpected high frequency of occurrence of a certain type of sentence.
My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous. (141)
Here, the repetition of the structure of “you could” and a high frequency of occurrence of simple sentence are demonstrated. According to Zhang Delu, these foregrounding features can emphasize certain emotion and enhance the sense of urgency (131, 135). After losing everything in China, Suyuan Woo wants to begin a new life on this land of freedom. But because of the barriers of language and culture between China and the United States, she can only rely on her daughter to make her American dream come true (Lin Shan 85). These features illustrate the mother’s strong wish of making the daughter become very successful. At the same time, the daughter’s helplessness and mental pressure are also demonstrated by this usage.
In respect of lexical prominence, some words should be used in a broad range, but when they are used in a narrow one, we can call this phenomenon a lexical prominence.
My parents invited all the couples from the Joy Luck Club to witness my debut. Auntie Lindo and Uncle Tin were there. Waverly and her two older brothers had also come. (149)
The words witness and debut are usually used in a big occasion. As for Jing-mei’s piano performance, it is held in a small church hall mainly for little kids. The improper of witness and debut is to attract readers to make them pay attention to the parents’ emotion. It indicates that Jing-mei’s parents takes this talent show very seriously, especially Suyuan who has sacrificed a lot to turn her daughter into a prodigy. At the same time, it also represents the glory of the whole family. The reason is that the value Suyuan holds is Chinese collectivism, which is in contrast with American individualism. In her eyes, Jing-mei’s performance more represents the family rather than herself. So when Jing-mei fails at the recital, it is easy for readers to understand her mother’s reaction. It is indeed an obvious contrast between a raised hope and a failed expectation.
The last foregrounding feature is phonological prominence. But here the sound pattern is mainly discussed.
And after seeing my mother’s disappointed face once again, something inside of me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectation. (144)
The “raised” and “failed” can be treated as either assonance or consonance. And “hopes” and “expectations” use the rhyme of consonance. Such complex sound patterns are used to make readers enjoy the auditory beauty of literary words and more importantly, to lead them to consider the deep meanings behind this structure. It is the sharp contrast between raised hopes and failed expectations that brings so many conflicts between Suyuan and Jing-mei.
In summary, this essay demonstrates the mother-daughter relationship in the “Two Kinds” from the perspective of foregrounding. By illustrating the foregrounding features of syntax, lexicon, and phonology, the author hopes to help readers have a better understanding about the relation between language features and the theme.
Works Cited：
[1]Amy, Tan. The Joy Luck Club. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989.
[2]张德禄，《语言的功能与文体》。北京: 高等教育出版社，2005。
作者简介：李瑞利，1992年1月4日出生，女，汉族，河北肥乡县人，现就读于西安外国语大学英文学院2016级外国语言学及应用语言学专业，主要研究方向：文体学。
论文作者:李瑞利
论文发表刊物:《文化研究》2017年5月
论文发表时间:2017/8/29
标签：西安论文; 英文论文; 语言学论文; 高等教育出版社论文; 文体论文; 汉族论文; 外国语大学论文; 《文化研究》2017年5月论文;