Ecological Discourse Analysis Of Silent Spring From The Perspective Of Transitivity System

Based on the analyst?s specific ecosophy and functional-oriented linguistics,ecological discourse analysis is mainly to study the impact of language use on human beings,other organisms and the natural environment.At present,ecological discourse analysis mainly uses critical perspectives to reveal the concepts of ecological disharmony hidden in various discourses,but seldom involves revealing how discourses convey the concepts of ecological harmony.In addition,the analysis of Silent Spring at home and abroad mainly focuses on the research in the field of literature.There are few studies on how Carson expresses her attitude towards nature linguistically.Thus,this study will conduct an ecological discourse analysis in Silent Spring of selected chapters and attempts to answer the following questions:(1)what are distributional features of Transitivity system in Silent Spring?(2)In what way are the ecological features of discourse and ecological consciousness represented by the Transitivity system?(3)What?s the ecological philosophy thought embodied in Silent Spring?Based on Transitivity system of Systemic Functional Grammar improved by He et al.,this study first makes a small refinement of the participant roles and then integrates an ecosophy “Harmonious Co-existence between Human Beings and Nature” by combining Stibbe?s ecosophy and Chinese Traditional ethics about human beings and nature,and thus constructs an analytical framework in the paradigm of“Description-Interpretation-Evaluation-Effect”.In view of this,in the functional and ecological aspects,this study makes an ecological discourse analysis of the novel Silent Spring by making use of UAM Corpus Tool.This study mainly focuses on the analysis of process types and participants in Transitivity system,and analyzes the ecological orientation conveyed by the discourses and the impact on people?s behavior.Based on the analyses in Silent Spring of selected chapters,conclusions can be drawn in the following aspects:Firstly,in terms of the distributional features,Silent Spring involves five Transitivity processes,including action process,relational process,mental process,communicative process and existential process.Among them,action process and relational process are majority.The distributional feature of Transitivity processes indicates that Silent Spring mainly focuses on describing the actions of non-human organisms and human beings,and presents the relationships between plants and animals,between human beings and non-human organisms,and between human beings and nature;Silent Spring mainly involves four participant roles,including non-human organisms,human beings,physical participant,and events of chemical control.Among them,non-human organisms account for the highest proportion,followed by human beings and events of chemical control.The distributional feature of participant roles indicates that Silent Spring pays more attention to the actions,relations and conditions of non-human organisms,the vast damage of the chemical spraying towards human beings,plants and animals.Secondly,in terms of ecological features,this novel mainly presents four roles of human beings,including ecological protectors,ecological dependents,ecological destroyers and ecological victims;when non-human organisms act as the participant roles,this novel mainly uses them as the Agent in action process,the Desiderator in mental process,etc.,which indicates that this novel pays more attention to the actions of animals and plants,and the interdependent relations between plants and animals,etc.;when physical participants act as the participant roles,this novel mainly uses them as the Agent and Affected in action process,and the Token in relational process,which indicates that this novel pays more attention to the elimination of the habitat;when events of chemical control act as the participant roles,this novel mainly uses them as the Agent in action process,and the Value in relational process,which indicates that this novel pays more attention to the damage of the chemical spraying towards plants,animals,and human beings.In terms of process types,this novel involves five Transitivity processes.In the action and relational processes,non-human organisms account for the highest proportion,which indicates that this novel pays more attention to the actions of animals and plants,and the interdependent relations between plants and animals;In the mental and communicative processes,human beings take up the highest proportion,which indicates that this novel pays more attention to human being?s cognition and attitudes towards plants and animals;In the existential processes,events of chemical control account for the highest proportion,which indicates that this novel calls on us to stop the overuse and abuse of insecticides by highlighting the damage of chemical spraying.Thirdly,based on the above analysis of Transitivity and the ecosophy of“Harmonious Co-existence between Human Beings and Nature”,the discourses of the selected chapters can be divided into eco-beneficial discourses,eco-neutral discourses and eco-destructive discourses.Eco-beneficial discourses encourage us to pay more attention to the actions,life and value of non-human organisms,etc.;eco-neutral discourses objectively describe the phenomena of the natural world,the attributes and damage of chemicals,etc.;eco-destructive discourses convey the information that is harmful to the ecosystem.Finally,the linguistic representation of Transitivity system also reveals the following five ecological philosophy thoughts in Silent Spring: paying more attention to the actions and value of non-human organisms;valuing the interdependent relationships between non-human organisms,between human beings and non-human organisms,and between human beings and nature;realizing the vast damage and elimination of non-human organisms;stopping the abuse and overuse of chemical spraying;adopting the ecological methods and obeying the natural inherent laws of nature.