Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of Detachment Signs in Mother-daughter Conversation: A Case Study of The Bluest Eye

Bingqing Jiang, Farzaneh Haratyan

Abstract


Linguistic meaning is attached to the mental structure and is implicated by social processes. This paper is concerned with how the conversational language in terms of lexical choices, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics amidst socio-cultural discourses can be a semiotic indicator to mental function, thinking style, cognitive structures, and schemata hidden behind the layers of language use. Halliday’s SFL tools of transitivity and modality is applied here for the cognitive linguistic analysis. Lexico-grammatical or syntagmatic features of a conversation can convey mental configurations for there is a relationship between the textual structure and the thinking processes of the characters in the novel. This study adds insights to widening the notion of literature by incorporating the knowledge about the pervasive connections between linguistic organization, mental function, and eventually social structure in terms of mother-daughter detachment portrayed in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye which is saturated with conversations that signal actual occurring utterances in real world.


Keywords


Cognitive Linguistic Analysis, Detachment Signs, Mother-daughter Conversation, The Bluest Eye

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References


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