A Study Of Tourism Information Texts From The Perspective Of Multimodal Ecological Discourse Analysis

With the development of discourse analysis,it has been impossible to carry out in-depth and comprehensive analysis on discourse from a single linguistic point of view and discourse analysis has turned from language research to multimodal discourse analysis in which language is included.With the development of economy and technology,ecological problems have become increasingly prominent.More and more people have begun to pay attention to ecological problems,and the ecological turn in discourse analysis has also appeared.Tourist information texts,as one kind of tourism discourse with multimodal ecological features,is becoming a focus for linguistic research.However,few studies have been conducted to explore their linguistic strategies.Therefore,it is necessary to reveal the strategies for representing multimodal ecological characteristics in tourist information texts from the perspective of Multimodal Discourse Analysis and Ecological Discourse Analysis.In view of this,this paper has selected 20 tourist information texts from six famous foreign tourism websites as research object.With the theories of Hallidayan models and ecosophy,as multimodality as representative method,the paper is to reveal ecological features in tourist information texts represented by multimodal ways,including language modality,image modality and inter-semiotic complementarity from the integrated perspective of multimodal ecological discourse analysis,under the research methods incorporating qualitative and quantitative parts.It is found that nature is mainly highlighted by its intrinsic unique features and the intimate relations established between human beings and nature.The specific research results are as follows: firstly,in language modality,material clauses and relational clauses which dominate transitivity system and appreciation resource in attitude system are mainly used in tourist information texts to highlight the intrinsic features of nature;secondly,in image modality,the strategies of conceptual representation,high modality and salience are carried out to highlight intrinsic attributes of nature,like ecology.Demand in contact,close shot and frontal equal angle,are used to describe intimacy between nature and human beings;fourthly,in inter-semiotic complementary part,the interaction between language and images is mainly manifested by the repetitive and collocative ways,and in this process,ecological features are highlighted;fifthly,the multimodal ecological features reflect three kinds of ecosophy,including highlighting the nature’s value;focusing on interaction with the nature;pursuing a simple and process-oriented way of ecotourism.In this study,tourist information texts,which were less studied,are taken as the research object,which have been researched from the newly combined research paradigm of Multimodal Ecological Discourse Analysis.This study has provided a new perspective for the research of tourist information texts,and has certain enlightenments and values for the research of ecological discourse analysis,multimodal discourse analysis and tourism discourse.