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A Contrastive Ecological Discourse Analysis Of English And Chinese Speeches On Environmental Protection

Posted on:2021-05-26Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:H H LingFull Text:PDF
GTID:2415330605457960Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
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Ecolinguistics is a new discipline which aims to explore the interaction between language and ecology.With the increasing of global ecological awareness,ecolinguistics has attracted more and more attention of scholars.Ecological discourse analysis belongs to the field of ecolinguistics.At present,the study of ecological discourse analysis mainly focuses on the natural,economic and cultural ecosystems.However,with the development of the international community,the social ecosystem(especially the international ecosystem)is playing a more important role.Therefore,He and Wei put forward an analytical framework—transitivity analysis model of international ecological discourse in 2017,which is targeted at analysis of the discourse influence of the speaker to reveal the ecological values.At present,environmental problems are extremely urgent.The international ecological discourse analysis on environmental discourses has broad research prospects and important social application value.Based on the transitivity analysis model of international ecological discourse put forward by He and Wei,five speeches by Xi Jinping and five by Donald Trump on environmental protection from 2017 to 2019 were selected as corpora.The international ecological discourse analysis of the speeches was conducted so as to explore and reveal two speakers' ecological values.Through the contrastive analysis of the speeches,it is found that: Firstly,concerning six processes in Xi's and Trump's speeches,the material process occupies the most frequency,manifesting that both China and America are committed to doing something beneficial to the environment.The verbal process,existential process and behavioral process account for only a small proportion,which is consistent with the previous studies and is one of the characteristics of political discourse.For the mental process,the percentage of it in Trump's speeches is much higher than that in Xi's,which shows that Trump tends to express his views and attitudes towards the environment directly.Secondly,in terms of participant roles,the percentage of nonliving participants is much higher than that of living participants and physical participants are more than social participants in Xi's speeches,which reveals Xi's non-anthropocentrism view on caring about environment issues and the construction of global ecological civilization.While in Trump's speeches,living participants take up the most proportion and individual participants are more than group participants,which reflects Trump's anthropocentrism view on highlighting American government's contributions to the environment.For nonliving participants,social participants are more than physical ones,which manifests that Trump upholds pragmatism in the field of environmental protection and emphasizes the significance of politics and economy to environmental protection.Thirdly,with regard to patterns of discourses,the beneficial discourses are used most frequently intheir speeches,and Xi with larger proportion,which reflects Xi's concern for the environment and also his aspiration for green development and mutual benefits.However,for Trump's speeches,in addition to beneficial discourses,the use of ambivalent and destructive discourses is also frequent.For one thing,the employment of more ambivalent discourses shows Trump's ambiguous and uncertain position on environmental protection;for another,the use of more destructive discourses demonstrates Trump's hesitation,doubt and even query on environmental protection.Lastly,it can be concluded that there are three ecological values conveyed in Xi's discourses: first,people should cherish nature the way they cherish life;second,environmental improvement means greater productivity;third,environmental protection is mutually beneficial.It indicates that Xi's ecological values are conducive to the favorable establishment of international ecosystem,ultimately to achieve the benign development and dynamic balance of international ecosystem.Three ecological values of Trump are also concluded: first of all,environmental protection is clearly necessary;then,strong economy is vital to support a healthy environment;at last,environmental protection should benefit America first.Therefore,to some extent,Trump's ecological values have some effect on the development of international ecosystem.However,these ecological values are not conducive to the sustainable development of international ecosystem.From the perspective of ecolinguistics,this thesis makes an international ecological discourse analysis of Xi's and Trump's speeches.First of all,it is a useful empirical examination of the international ecological discourse analysis model.Secondly,this study can enrich the research methods and the scope of ecolinguistics.Finally,the study of the environmental discourses could arouse people's ecological awareness and it is of positive significance for the construction and development of human ecological civilization.
Keywords/Search Tags:English and Chinese Speeches, Environmental Protection, Ecological Discourse Analysis, Ecological Value
PDF Full Text Request
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