Ecolinguistic Interpretation Of Chi Zijian’s Works

Born in northeast China, Chi Zijian is a writer who is rich in spiritualityand always maintains an unique creative personality. As‘a literary fairygestated by nature’of the Northeast, Chi brings the magical northern naturalscenery and the wonderful natural species into the horizon of readers,introduces the purest nightingale singing to those who are trapped in theconcrete forest of cities, caresses the empty, homeless soul that has strayedaway from nature. From her homeland where Chi Zijian has frequently looked backto, she picks out the freshest and finest stories and repeatedly intonates theecologically harmonious melody of the native land with laudatory language.While reading the recent research on the works of Chi Zijian, I find thatmost researches on Chi Zijian’s works were concentrated on her native complex,imagery and rhetoric characteristics, paternalism, compassion, and childhoodperspective and so on, that the language study on the works of Chi Zijian wasonly confined to the artistic characteristics and local color, while theinterpretation of the relationship between the ecological factors and thelanguage use in her works was rarely addressed. However, reading Chi Zijian’s works, we can easily detect that her creative writing has always been followingthe ecological path of harmonious coexistence of human and nature; that allher literary works imply an awe of nature, a respect for the right to life ofliving creatures, concerns about the human predicament, and deploration on theextinction of endangered language, all of which were delicately conveyed bya language full of ecological awareness. The development of the emergingacademic subject of Eco-linguistics undoubtedly provides a brand-newperspective to interpret Chi Zijian’s works. This thesis is intended to analyzethe works of Chi Zijian from the perspective of ecological linguistics, so asto make a systematic collation of the important contents conveyed in her works, which include the ecological awareness, the biological diversity and theversatility of language expression of living creatures, the language style thatleads to nature, and the plight and the way out of the native language of Ewenkietc.The thesis first discusses the ecological awareness expressed in the worksof Chi Zijian, analyzes how she abandons anthropocentrism and turn to ecologicalholism, how she depicts the primitive natural environment and explores theinnate connections between language and environment. The free, uniqueecological language is rooted in the primitive natural environment, on the otherhand it uses the particular natural environment as its main subjects. The firstpart of the thesis emphatically addresses the ecological awareness in the worksof Chi Zijian, in order to probe into Chi Zijian’s ecological view of language.The second part of the thesis discusses the diversity of the spiritual livingcreatures and the versatility of language in Chi Zijian’s works. Everythingin the nature has a dignity in her writings. Full of spirituality, they arenatural imageries that even have more sentiment and the brilliance than humans.Chi portrays these free ecological imageries not only by narrating, but alsoby describing, contrasting with or comparing to other ecological imageries soas to present the objects precisely, which on the other hand is expressed throughthe integration of all living creatures linguistically. The thesis adopts aresearch idea of combining the biological diversity and language versatility,analyzing the ways by which the writer recovers the charm of the living creaturesand her creature writing that displays ecological beauty.The third part of the thesis studies on the relationship between textlanguage and environmental problems, emphasizing the counter effect the naturehas on language, to clarify the relationship between nature and language, andexplain the emphasis the text language lays on natural foundation, that is alltext language leads to nature. In Chi Zijian’s works, the unique titles andnames, the joy and sorrows, life, decay and death of the characters, love, sexand so on all take natural imagery as analogy object, trough which human life closely combines with nature, and natural imagery stands out in the expressionof language. The extraordinary linguistic collocation in Chi’s works may appearto have little to do with nature, but the external form of the linguisticcollocation depends on the main content expressed by natural imagery, soeverything is subject to the free expression of nature.he desire to return to nature and boredom of city life enable Chi to addressthe two subjects with different emotions. The most direct manifestation is thetendency of intense likes and dislikes in the language of the texts. Most ChiZijian’s writings imply a deep concern about natural ecology and spiritualecology, a reflection on the city civilization, an appeal to the ecologicalharmony, and an attempt to bring up a solution to the human predicament, whichinspire us to think deeply about ecology and humanities and cry out for theecological aesthetic dwelling.In the last section, the thesis talks about the difficult situation of theendangered language of Ewenki and its way out. This part analyzes therelationship between ecology and language, traces the reasons why it becomesan endangered language, and puts a stress on the interpretation of the way outof Ewenki language designed by Chi Zijian. With a sense of responsibility ofa writer and a deep love for this local language, Chi Zijian has designed afuture for Ewenki language. Regardless of its theoretical and scientifictreaties, her courageous spirit and strong sense of social responsibilityshould be praised.