An Ecological Discourse Analysis Of Animal Novels From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistics

With the aggravation of ecological problems,the ecological turn has become more prominent and then ecolinguistics came into being,which mainly studies the influence of language use on human,nature and other beings.Ecological discourse analysis is one of the main tasks of ecolinguistics.And many scholars have conducted eco-oriented discourse analyses by adopting different analytical frameworks,including critical discourse analysis,positive discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis.But the eco-oriented discourse analysis is not the same as ecological discourse analysis.Ecological discourse analysis is based on the ecosophy and employs linguistic theories to analyze discourses,aiming to clarify discourse types,to put forward eco-friendly suggestions,and to achieve a positive ecological turn of humans' behaviors.Currently,most studies of ecological consciousness in novels are guided by the theories of literature criticism,ecological aesthetics,and ecological ethics,but few studies are carried out within framework of transitivity system in Systemic Functional Linguistics.Therefore,this thesis employs transitivity system to analyze animal novel Garnett Dream and provides a new perspective for studying ecological consciousness in novels.Under the framework of transitivity system,this paper takes Ecological Sense of Place and Chinese traditional ethics of animal protection to conduct ecological discourse analysis of animal novel,Garnett Dream,aiming to clarify ecological features and eco-orientation of this novel.The research findings are listed as follows.Ecological information conveyed by transitivity processes in this novel includes ecobeneficial information,eco-ambivalent information and eco-destructive information.Among them,the transitivity processes expressing eco-ambivalent information occupy the largest proportion,so this novel conveys eco-ambivalent information in general,and the novel is an eco-ambivalent discourse.i.e.the writer of this novel holds a neutral attitude towards ecology.The eco-ambivalent information in novel is mainly reflected in two aspects.Firstly,the writer describes the processes,participants and circumstances in transitivity processes with neutral attitudes,expressing indifferent emotion and zero cognition about nature and animals.Secondly,the transitivity processes don't involve ecological concepts.Nevertheless,this novel also expresses eco-beneficial and eco-destructive information.The eco-beneficial information is reflected in two aspects.First,the writer expresses affection to animals and nature through positive descriptions of transitivity processes.Second,this novel describes habits and living conditions of animals and presents an unbroken environment,which helps readers to form similar cognition and foster conation behaviors.The eco-destructive information is reflected in relationships between human and animals and between wolf and other animals.Through analyses,the relationships between human and animals are exploitation and conquest.The relationship among humans and dogs and red deer is exploitation.In this relationship,dogs serve as tools,and red deer is considered as property of humans.Furthermore,the relationship between human and wolf is conquest.Humans celebrate their own success after conquering wolves.Besides,there are many descriptions about wolves and other animals depreciating each other,showing hostile relationship between wolf and other animals.This research is significant in theory and practice.Firstly,the eco-analyses of transitivity processes elements show that theory of transitivity system is feasible in analyzing eco-discourse and displaying ecological consciousness of novels.Secondly,due to research result that this novel is eco-ambivalent discourse,it could produce positive or negative ecological attitudes towards nature,which could lead to positive or negative ecological behaviors correspondingly.Therefore,for playing the role of ecological consciousness conveyed by animal novels in ecological education,this paper puts forward some practical suggestions for production of animal novels: perfecting the eco-ambivalent information in the novel,increasing positive descriptions,and resisting the ecological destructive information at the same time.