A Framework For Eco-oriented Discourse Analysis From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Eco-oriented discourse analysis belongs to the field of ecolinguistics,which has attracted the attention of the academia in the past half century.It explores the dynamic relation between language and ecology and reveals the effects of language on different ecological relationships.Eco-oriented discourse analysis is still at its early stage of development,without a unified ecosophy as the guiding standards for linguistic evaluations and without a universally-accepted analyzing framework for practical discourse analysis.Given this situation,the present research constructs a framework for eco-oriented discourse analysis based on the metafunction theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics,with a supporting ecosophy generated from the combination of traditional Chinese ecological philosophies and the Western concept of Sense of Place.Following this framework,researchers can correctly identify the ecological values of different discourses and help produce more discourses that are beneficial to the ecology.The ecosophy of this research involves two parts:(a)the shared ecological principles of the three pillar theories of Chinese Confucianism,Taoism and Buddhism,which are benevolence,frugality and intimacy with nature;(b)the Western human geographical concept of Sense of Place,used to interpret the systemic components of human beings and the living places.By combing the two strands,the research sets up the following ecosophy:human beings should have benevolent hearts towards the living places(physical environment,social environment and non-human organisms);human beings should bear the virtue of frugality and reduce the degree of demand from the living places;human beings should be on intimate terms with living places without willful violation of the law of nature.If a text delivers such ecological meaning,then this text is regarded as eco-beneficial text with eco-beneficial ecosophy,which should be followed and promoted.If a text delivers opposite meanings,then it will be regarded as eco-destructive and should be denied by the readers.If a text does not have a clear ecological meaning,then this text is labeled as eco-ambivalent and requires further critiques and refinements.With the ecosophy being established,the research investigates the ecological effects of language in creating meanings and construing experiences.A text has three metafunctions:the description of experiences,the construction and maintenance of interpersonal relations and the organization of topics,representing experiential,interpersonal and textual meaning.They are realized through transitivity system,mood,modality and appraisal system and thematic,information and cohesive devices.To construct a framework for eco-oriented discourse analysis,this research revisits these systems from an ecological perspective and expands their dimensions from different angles to make them targeted towards eco-oriented analysis.Firstly,the research interprets the potential ecological effects of different configurations of the seven types of processes in the transitivity system.The combination of different Participants,Processes and Circumstances in a clause may have different ecological values.By distinguishing participants with reference to their role in the ecology and categorizing emotive,cognitive and conative processes,this research provides a detailed description of the involved elements of every configuration and their role in the creation of ecological meaning.By following the newly proposed eco-oriented transitivity system,researchers can divide the experiential meaning of clauses into eco-beneficial,eco-ambivalent and eco-destructive ones.Secondly,this research revisits the mood,modality and appraisal system to find out the effects of interpersonal meaning on the ecology.This research proposes that the speaker’s engagement with the ecological issue and his/her choice of mood type work together to produce different ecological effects.There is a discussion of three types of speakers,the risk gainer,the risker loser and the risk manager and their ecological influence with different mood choices.The ecological effect of modality system relies on the ecological value of the unmodified topic.If a proposition or proposal is eco-beneficial,a high degree of modality exerts better effects than a low degree of modality.For the appraisal system,this research believes that the ecological value of the affect resource is closely related to the origination of affects;the ecological value of the judgement resources is influenced by the judging standards;the ecological value of the appreciation resources is decided by the intrinsic values of the targets.Lastly,the research investigates the ecological value of the thematic structure,the information structure and the cohesive devices.The textual and interpersonal Theme exert a stronger influence over the creation of ecological meaning,which is reflected through the cohesion with preceding information and the evaluation of propositions.The ecological value of the information system is affected by its choice of New information and its markedness.When marked New information is about eco-beneficial information,the ecological effect is the strongest.The cohesive devices are divided into two types when it comes to their ecological functions.The phoric relation achieved by reference,substitution/ellipsis and lexical cohesion contributes to the reinforcement of ecological meaning(either beneficial or destructive).The conjunctions also contribute to the making of ecological information through elaboration,expansion and enhancement.Based on the discussions in Chapter 5 to Chapter 7,this research constructs a comprehensive framework for eco-oriented discourse analysis.It starts with the analysis of linguistic features of discourses and ends with evaluations of their ecological values.With the help of this framework,researchers can effectively and directly reveal the ecological meaning realized through languages,so that they can identify the types of discourses to promote eco-beneficial one,resist eco-destructive ones and refine ambivalent ones.In this way,a linguist can fulfill his/her social and ecological responsibility.In summary,this research makes two major contributions.Concerning the field of ecolinguistics,this research has two contributions.Firstly,by combining the Eastern and Western ecological values,the research establishes an ecosophy that defines the value orientation and criteria for eco-oriented discourse analysis.Compared with other analyzing frameworks,this one with specific ecosophy is well-targeted for the eco-oriented analysis of linguistic features and for the evaluation of their ecological values.Secondly,this research makes extensions to the systems realizing the three metafunctions by adding some new eco-related parameters to the systems.Based on this,the research proposes a tailer-made framework for eco-oriented discourse analysis,thus providing a reasonable and feasible analyzing framework for ecolinguistic research.Concerning the field of Systemic Functional Linguistics,this research expands its appliablity into the ecological area and enhances its functions for linguistic research.Being part of the new trend of development for SFL,this research presents itself as an illustration foretelling the great potential of SFL in the development of ecolinguistics.