| Ecological discourse analysis can reveal the role of language in the ecosystem and answer how language protects or destroys the ecological environment.The research on ecological discourse analysis can awaken,guide and change human’s cognition of environment and nature.As the development of interpersonal functions in systematic functional linguistics,appraisal theory is practical to reveal the ideology hidden in the various discourse.It can be seen from the current research on ecological discourse analysis that although many scholars try to conduct ecological discourse analysis from the perspective of systematic functional linguistics,most of the ecological discourse analysis relating to news reports ignored the import role of ecological philosophy view in discourse analysis.Therefore,this research tries to conduct ecological discourse analysis of 20 news reports of foreign media on air pollution in China according to the ecological place view and the attitude system of appraisal theory.The purpose is to use the ecological discourse analysis mode to explore the ecological meaning of discourse from the perspective of ecological linguistics and determine the ecological orientation of media news reports.This study will answer the following two questions:(1)What attitude resources were used in news reports to evaluate?(2)What ecological orientation do news reports reflect through these evaluations?Analysis of 20 Chinese air pollution news reports finds that affect,judgment,and appreciation resources all appear in the news reports.Affect resources appear the most,judgment resources take the second place,and appreciation resources appear the least.Among all the attitude resources that appear,negative evaluations far outnumber positive evaluations.In affect resources,negative emotions in news reports originate from things and phenomena that are harmful to the environment,and positive emotions originate from things and phenomena that are beneficial to the environment.In judgment resources,negative judgments in the news are aimed at the government’s ineffective governance measures and its indifferent attitude to environmental issues.Positive judgment is aimed at the government’s measures to help improve air quality and positive environmental protection measures.In appreciation resources,news reports give correct understanding of things that have negative ecological value and carry out negative appreciation on them,the use of negative appreciation resources emphasize the harm that living environment degenerates brings to mankind.On the whole,news reports have negatively evaluated the ecological damage phenomena,behaviors and policies,and expressed dissatisfaction,anxiety and worry about this ecological damage phenomenon and ecological damage behavior.News reports have given positive comments on ecological protection phenomena and behaviors,and expressed their affirmation and support for such phenomena and behaviors.Through these evaluation resources,news reports advocate behavior conducive to the protection of the ecological environment,and call on people to establish a harmonious coexistence between man and nature,the correct ecological place view,and actively protect the natural environment on which we live. |
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