An Exploration of Hypothetical Perspectives and Scenarios in Contemporary Booker Prize-winning Fiction.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

An Investigation into the Representation of Hypothetical Perspectives and Scenarios in Contemporary Booker Prize-winning Fiction.Hypothesis is an integral part of human experience and cognition. We are prone to speculate about the mind states of others, to predict how events may or may have occurred, and to consider alternate realities. Indeed, all fictional literature is a special kind of hypothesis: an imaginary textual 'what if...?' scenario. Any hypothesising to be found within a fictional narrative is thus immediately recursive, as supposition within supposition. It is also undeniably reflective of fundamental cognitive processes. Primarily, this occurs in two, interconnecting, ways: through the use of hypothetical focalisation, and/or through the cuing up of hypothetical 'text worlds.' Both these phenomena will be explored in winners of the Booker Prize over the past twenty years. Widely acknowledged as Britain's most prestigious literary prize, it aims to reward the 'finest in fiction' published in the English language. Winners can expect not only critical acclaim, but also commercial success and increased popular awareness (as was testified by (one of) last year's winning entries, Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo). Any research conducted into these invariably much lauded works is thus highly topical, and will contribute to our understanding of the literary, and wider, culture in our country today. I will employ a variety of stylistic techniques to investigate specific occurrences of textual hypothesis in Booker Prize-winning fictions. I will ask 1 How are hypothetical perspectives linguistically constructed and maintained in contemporary fiction? 2 What is/are the purpose(s) of the use of hypothesis in fiction, and how does this correlate with its real-life function(s)? 3 How are hypothetical constructions employed by authors as narratorial techniques for readerly manipulation?