Review of English Cleft within Framework of Figure-Ground Theory

Figure-ground theory is first introduced into psychology by Danish psychologist Rubin in 1915 and later it is used by gestalt psychologists as the framework of perceptual organization;it is used by cognitive linguists to analyze the meaning of linguistic structures.The principle of figure-ground segregation is one of the basic cognitive principles according to which space is organized,and it can also be applied to language as a basic cognitive principle by which language organizes its concepts.The selection of figure and ground is the mutual effect of objective and subjective factors,but it mainly depends on the latter.In the light of this theory,English cleft sentences are revisited.