Anthropomorphic Representation Of Animal Images:an Ecological Critical Discourse Analysis Of Shen Shixi’s Animal Narratives

Representation of animals has been the site where the relationship between human and animal is constructed.Anthropomorphism in animal narratives functions to construct animals as both rhetorical symbols and sentient beings,serving the dual purpose of rendering back the visibility of animals as subject of a lifeworld and evoking a reflection on human selves and society.Previous studies on anthropomorphic animal representation fail to capture the dynamic nature of anthropomorphism in animal narratives as being the continuum between the human domain and the animal domain.In addition,the nature of anthropomorphic animal representation as being ideologically manipulative has been overlooked.A linguistic approach to studying animal representation in animal narratives,which aims to justify anthropomorphic animal representation as an effective resource to facilitate meaning construction and construal,is thus necessary.In the field of ecolinguistics,no satisfying attempts so far have been made to offer systematic and cohesive interpretation for the existing framework of ecolinguistic studies from the perspective of critical cognitive discourse analysis.Considering these factors,the present study attempts to construct an ecological cognitive-critical discourse analysis framework of animal representation.Within the framework,the study conducts endeavors to explore anthropomorphic representation of animal images in Shen Shixi’s animal narratives.It attempts to answer how language resources and discursive strategies help to construct anthropomorphic representation of animals.It delves into investigating how anthropomorphic animal representations can be legitimized.And it tends to explore how anthropomorphic representation of animals is conceptualized.Furthermore,it puts the topic in the broad social and cultural context in an attempt to reveal the three-dimensional interaction between human beings,discourse and animals.Among the major findings are: 1)Referential and predication strategies work to construct the constituted reality about animals in Shen Shixi’s animal narratives.Referential strategies involve individualization and assimilation.Individualization is the referential strategy of naming and names,aimed at individualizing animals as subjective beings.Assimilation involves the referential strategy of the pronoun use of “you” which blurs the boundaries between human and animals.Predication strategies in Shen Shixi’s narratives are realized by using action verbs and mental predication.The use of action verbs constructs animal behaviors as meaningful and authored;the use of mental predication acts to shape animals as sentient beings.2)Legitimising strategies are used to endorse anthropomorphic representation of animals in Shen Shixi’s animal narratives.They are manifested through grammatical cohesion,evidentiality and epistemic modality.3)Metaphor as the way of conceptualizing animals in animal narratives is inherently ideological.“Human is animal” and “animals are more or less the same as human” work to construct interrelationships between animal and human domains.The impositive metaphor “human is animal” tags value judgment sanctioned by human society on anthropomorphic representation of animals in narratives.The approximative metaphor“animals are more or less the same as humans” appraises animals from the lens of human on the basis of emotional similarity.4)Human perspective and animal perspective negotiate with one another in anthropomorphic representation of animals.By writing out a pleasant blending of human and animal horizons,anthropomorphic animal representation in Shen Shixi’s narratives offers prospects for eradicating dualist conceptuality on the relationship between human and animal.In resonance with Chinese harmosophy,it can be deemed as ecologically harmonious.It is concluded that anthropomorphic representation of animal images in Shen Shixi’s animal narratives is effective in manipulatively shaping people’s construal of animals and provides meaningful discoursal recourse for promoting harmonious relationship between human and animal.The study contributes an insightful observation of animal representation in Shen Shixi’s animal narratives,offers a possible and plausible perspective to anthropomorphic animal representation research and adds an extension to current literature on ecolinguistic study.It is helpful in facilitating an intercultural dialogue between the eastern and western eco-discursive paradigms,thereby making a joint effort in improving ecological consciousness worldwide.