CHPATER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Background
Since World War II, technology has entered into a prosperous stage. With the development of technology, human beings have gotten many benefits, such as the improvement of the living standards. However, there are still some global environmental issues caused by this advancement, including pollutions, resource exhaustion, and ecological diversity loss. Under this background, ecolinguistics which focuses on relationship between language and ecological issues, came into being.
Ecolingistics has history of 40 years. In the ecolinguistic research field, there are two major research paradigms, including Haugen paradigm and Halliday paradigm. Haugen paradigm focuses on the ecology of language, which is a metaphorical mode. In this paradigm, the relationship between language and speech community in which language is used compares to the relationship between other beings and ecosystem. The research based on this research paradigm includes language diversity, language protection and ecological education. As for the other research paradigm, it puts emphasis on the role of language in the aspect of environmental protection. Under the guidance of this paradigm, the major task is to conduct discourse analyses, which includes the critical discourse analysis (abbreviated as CDA), positive discourse analysis (abbreviated as PDA), multimodal discourse analysis (abbreviated as MDA), and ecological discourse analysis (abbreviated as EDA).
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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Research
This thesis conducts an ecological discourse analysis of animal novel, Garnett Dream, with two purposes. On the one hand, this thesis conducts the ecological discourse analysis of animal novel under the ecosophy of Ecological Sense of Place (abbreviated as ESOP) and Chinese traditional ethics of animal protection and the framework of transitivity processes, through which this thesis attempts to enrich the analytical method of EDA. On the other hand, it aims to reveal the ecological meanings contained in this novel and to point out the ecological features of this novel and to make people re-examine the nature-human relationship and animal-human relationship and foster their eco-protective behaviors.
The significance of this thesis will be listed as follows. Firstly, the existing literature shows that the current studies of EDA mainly focus on the advertisements, reports and news concerning the ecological issues, but there have been few ecological studies of novels. Furthermore, the research about animal novels is mainly from the perceptive of eco-literature, eco-ethics and eco-aesthetics etc., while, the research of animal novels from the perspective of linguistics is scarce. Therefore, this thesis hopes to enrich the studies of animal novels and ecolinguistis. Secondly, it is necessary to re-reflect on the nature-human relationship. Thus, analyzing the ecological meanings embedded in animal novels helps to arouse the people’s the ecological consciousness about protecting environment and animals, so as to cultivate the eco-beneficial thoughts about and attitudes towards nature and animals.
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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This chapter reviews the previous studies on ecolinguistics and animal novels from different perspectives. Section 2.2 introduces the development of ecolinguistics and reviews the research under Haugen’s and Halliday’s paradigms. Section 2.3 reviews the studies of animal novels from the difference perspectives. Section 2.4 presents the comments about these studies and then shows the research space for this study.
Since World War II, people have realized the importance of science, technology and economy gradually. People only focused on the development in these fields, while ignoring protecting environment we live by, which leads to increasing ecological issues all over the world. Facing this situation, people begin to view the world and human activities from an ecological perspective. As a result, many disciplines relating to ecological topic have emerged, such as human ecology, social ecology, ecological aesthetics, ecological literature, and ecolinguistics.
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2.2 Previous Studies of Ecolinguistics
2.2.1 Development of ecolinguistics
Ecolinguistics is an emerging interdisciplinary subject. According to Alexander and Stibbe (2014, p. 105), ecolinguistics is the study of the impact of language on life-sustaining relationship among humans, other organisms and the physical environment. It is normatively orientated towards persevering relationships which sustain life. As for the research on the language and ecology, it has a long history. As early as 1912, the American linguist Edward Sapir made a preliminary discussion on the issue of “language and the environment.” What he concerns is the “physical and social environment” of language which comprises geographical characters such as the topography of the country climate, and amount of rainfall, and what may be called the economic basis of human life, and social environment such as mold of life and the thought of each individual (Sapir, 1912, p. 227). Although the “environment” here is not the “environment” referred to by current ecolinguists, it is the first attempt by linguists to establish the connection between language and ecology, which is of great significance.
In 1950s, British scholar John Trim (1959, p. 24) used the concept of “language ecology”. He defines language ecology as “the study of variation with in a speech of community and its function”. Subsequently, the linguist and anthropologist Carl Voegelin (1964, p. 2-3) also proposes “linguistic ecology” and “linguistic ecology... represents a shift of emphasis from a single language in isolation to many languages in contact”. In this article, he explains the differences between interlingual ecology and intralingual ecology.
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CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ................................ 29
3.1 Introduction .................................. 29
3.2 Ecosophy .......................... 29
CHAPTER 4 ECOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF GARNETT DREAM ... 57
4.1 Introduction ........................................... 57
4.2 Ecological Analyses of Transitivity Features in Garnett Dream ........................... 57
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION .......................................... 119
5.1 Major Findings of This Study .............................. 119
5.2 Implications of This Study ........................................ 120
CHAPTER 4 ECOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF GARNETT DREAM
4.1 Introduction
In this chapter, the theory of transitivity processes is applied to conduct the ecological discourse analysis of animal novel, Garnett Dream, qualitatively and quantitatively. In Section 4.2, the analyses of ecological features of transitivity processes and participants are examined respectively. In Section 4.3, the ecological features of this novel are presented.
Based on the ecosophies, these transitivity processes are divided into the eco-beneficial processes, eco-ambivalent processes and eco-destructive processes, whose number shapes the discourse types of this novel. Table 4.2 presents the ecological distribution of transitivity processes to the whole processes.
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CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
5.1 Major Findings of This Study
Under the framework of transitivity processes in SFL, this thesis makes an ecological discourse analysis about the Garnett Dream. By focusing on the ecological features of this novel, this thesis has got the following findings.
Firstly, through the ecological analyses of the experiential meanings conveyed by transitivity process, this animal novel conveys the eco-beneficial information, eco-ambivalent information and eco-destructive information. Based on the statistics results of this research, the transitivity processes expressing eco-ambivalent information take up the largest proportion of all the processes, delivering the eco-ambivalent information in general. Therefore. this animal novel can be categoried as an eco-ambivalent discourse. The eco-ambivalent information in novel is mainly reflected in two aspects. Firstly, the writer describes the process, 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.
Secondly, this animal novel also expresses the eco-beneficial information which is mainly reflected in the following aspects. First, the writer presents the positive descriptions about processes, participants and circumstance to express the positive attitudinal preference to animals and nature. These positive descriptions are helpful for readers to have affective emotional connection and similar cognition about nature and animals. Next, descriptions and introductions to animal’s living habit and environment function as the basic knowledge which is conductive for readers to have the similar cognition about animas and nature. Then, different images of wolves are presented through transitivity processes to the readers. For example, the image of Zi Lan can be the mother, wife or grandmother. These images have similarities with the image in human society. These connections are useful for readers to form the positive emotional connection to the wolf, leading to the eco-protective behaviors. Finally, the eco-beneficial processes involving the human shows the author's call for the establishment of a harmonious relationship between humans and animals.
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