The Paradigm Shift of Literary Theory and Its Discourse Renovation

Abstract

Abstract: The literary theory discourse has undergone extensive innovation in recent decades in two main ways: using the existent concepts and inventing new concepts. When inventing new concepts, two methods are seen to be reinvesting existent concepts with new meaning and changing the meaning of the existent concepts. These transformation mechanisms are corresponding to Kuhn's theorization of paradigm and Foucault's theorization of discourse. The discourse innovation is required for the paradigm shift in literary theory, and it embodies the prescriptive features of the literary theory paradigm such as the age, society, economy, geography, and language, giving new content and form to the discourse of literary theory. One of the representative studies may be Raymond Williams' work in Keywords, in which he adopted the historical semantic method to affirm the constant evolution of word meaning as the essence of language and to investigate the determining function of the socio-historical context of and power relation behind the evolution.

Key words: literary theory, paradigm shift, historical semantics, keywords research

Yao Wenfang. The Paradigm Shift of Literary Theory and Its Discourse Renovation[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2014, 34(5): 161-170.

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