A Transitivity-based Analysis Of Ecological Home Consciousness In Wang Wei's Poems And The English Versions

Nowadays,the rapid development of economy and technology has tremendously improved the living standard of human beings,and has brought many environmental problems simultaneously.Therefore,people generally have a sense of losing home.Ecological home consciousness not only conveys the aesthetic relationship between human and nature,but also contains the poetic dwelling of human beings.As one of the representative landscape poets in Chinese history,Wang Wei has created hundreds of poems which convey profound ecological home consciousness.Therefore,a transitivity-based analysis of ecological home consciousness in Wang Wei?s poems and the English versions can be helpful for human beings in the establishment of an aesthetic existential state in accordance with the ecological law,which can in turn provide guidance for the transmission of Chinese ecological wisdom and the construction of modern ecological civilization.Therefore,this study aims to solve the following questions:(1)How is the transitivity system distributed in Wang Wei?s poems and the English versions?(2)What is the realization of transitivity system in Wang Wei?s poems and the English versions?(3)What kind of ecological home consciousness is constructed through transitivity system in Wang Wei?s poems and the English versions?As the founder of Systemic Functional Linguistics,Halliday(1966/1977)notes that transitivity involves the whole content of the clause,which includes processes,participants and circumstances.Therefore,this study takes the transitivity system as the theoretical framework and selects 20 original poems of Wang Wei to create the Original Version of Wang?s Poems Corpus(hereafter,OVWPC).The corresponding English versions are selected from Xu Yuanchong?s Selected Poems of Wang Wei and Stephen Owen?s An Anthology of Chinese Literature to create Xu Yuanchong?s Translation of Wang?s Poems Corpus(hereafter,XTWPC)and Stephen Owen?s Translation of Wang?s Poems Corpus(hereafter,STWPC)respectively.The study is based on quantitative and qualitative methods.The quantitative method is used to find out the statistics about the distribution of transitivity system in the three corpora,and the qualitative method is used to identify the realization of transitivity system in the three corpora.Finally,based on the distribution and realization of transitivity system,the implications of ecological home consciousness contained in the original version and English versions of Wang Wei?s poems will be analyzed.It is found that in terms of the distribution of transitivity system in the three corpora,participant takes the largest proportion among all the transitivity components,which shows that participant is of great significance in the exploration of human beings? relationships toward non-human organisms and the natural environment.In terms of the realization of transitivity system in the three corpora,Material process is used to show the dynamic beauty of the world by describing the activities of human beings and non-human living species in the world;Mental process is used to show Wang?s elegance and pureness by expressing his yearning for the rural life and his indifference toward officialdom;Relational process is used to show the nobleness of the author and the beauty of color in nature by describing the author?s abilities and characteristics of the natural environment;Behavioral process is used to show the cozy and comfortable atmosphere of rural life by describing the physiological state of livestock;Verbal process is used to show the harmonious relationship among people by describing the author?s casual conversation with friends and villagers;Existential process is used to show the tidiness and orderliness of rural area by describing the living environment.In terms of the ecological home consciousness implicated in the three corpora,it is found that a fresh,serene and vigorous natural home has been constructed through the use of Material process;a tidy and pleasant social home where industrious villagers live harmoniously with each other is constructed through the description of various participants in the living environment;a pure and self-content spiritual home is mainly realized through the use of Mental process and Material process done by the author himself.The English versions have both basically transmitted Wang?s ecological home consciousness,while the transformation and omission of certain transitivity components in XTWPC have influenced the transmission of ecological home consciousness implicated in Wang?s poems.During the National Environmental Protection Conference in May 2018,President Xi Jinping stressed that we should protect our environment as protecting our eyes to rebuild the quietness,harmony and beauty of nature.The natural home,social home and spiritual home constructed in the original version and English versions of Wang Wei?s poems have constructed an ideal world where all the living species live harmoniously with each other,which implicates profound ecological wisdom.This thesis,through the exploration of ecological home consciousness in Wang?s poems and the English versions under the theoretical guidance of the transitivity system,hopes to provide references for the transmission of Chinese ecological wisdom.