Ecocritical Studies Of "Greenspeak"-Based On Ecocritical Discourse Analysis

Ecolinguistics is a cross-disciplinary science which combines the development both in ecology and in linguistics. By means of studying the potential ecological elements in the English language system, the interactions between any given language and its environment are revealed. Adopting the theory of ecocriticism, this thesis is devoted to exploring the ecological and unecological elements in the English language system by way of conducting the ecocritical discourse analysis of six "Greenspeaks", and thus calling on the deep ecologization of the English language system or the grammar as Halliday calls it. There are two originalities in this study, on the one hand, based on M.A.K. Halliday's claim that several unecological elements exist in the SAE (Standard Average European) languages system, the author puts forward five means to facilitate the deep ecologization of the English language system; on the other, the author conducts a deep thinking in terms of deep ecologization on the philosophical level. The author has no intention to change the current English language system, and this ecocriticism is meant to be placed within the Critical Language Awareness movement rather than in the neighborhood of creating another newspeak.Based on CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis), ecocritical discourse analysis conducts a criticism of socialized ecological ideologies and action. Language, an eternal interfering force keeping the society in order, reflects reality from various perspectives and affects the social process development by means of representing the ideologies; while texts are the tool for language to reshape the social order, adopting a certain style of text is usually determined by the current ideology to realize the particular purpose.By means of analyzing six environmental texts or "Greenspeaks", the author intends to find answers to the following three research questions:1. What kind of unecological elements exist in the English language use as well as in the English language system?2. Based on the first research question and following the three ecological principles, are there any ways that facilitate the deep ecologization of the English language system? If any, what are they? 3. To what extent people's thinking and action are influenced by "Greenspeak"?By the way, two points need to be clarified: the object of this study is the English language system, a category in descriptive linguistics, on the one hand; this study is synchronic, on the other. The science of ecology, as a dominant natural science, would play a part in manipulating the social thinking patterns.Through the ecocritical discourse analysis of six "Greenspeaks", the study proves and substantiates that some unecological elements are indeed deep-rooted in the English language system, such as anthropocentrism, growthism. The meaning and grammatical structure internalized are against the current ecological principles. At the same time, following the ecological principles, the author tries to conclude five means to facilitate the deep ecologization of the English language system: externally, maintaining the linguistic and biological diversity; internally, making full use of ergativity, nominalization, existential construction and reciprocal verbs. Finally, the author tends to think that the environmental texts tend to mould people's thinking and action.