Ecological Discourse Analysis Of The English Translations Of The Analects

At present,the construction of ecological civilization has become an important part of China’s building a socialist modern powerful country.Xi Jinping’s thought of ecological civilization is an important guide to the construction of ecological civilization in China.Ecolinguistics reveals the ecological factors in language and the speaker’s ecosophy and social purpose by analyzing language and environment.Ecological Discourse Analysis is one of the important aspects of Ecolinguistics.SFL is often used as the main research path of discourse analysis to solve the problems related to language.At present,many scholars have analyzed the ecological meaning contained in discourse from the perspective of SFL,but most of them focus on natural poetry and literary works.There are few studies on the EDA of The Analects and its English translation.This study adopts Halliday’s paradigm in Ecolinguistics,focusing on the ecological orientation in discourse.As a tool for analyzing ecological discourse,SFL provides a theoretical framework for analysis.Based on the theoretical framework of SFL,this study selects 11 discourses with ecological implications from The Analects as the Chinese dataset,and the corresponding three English corpora are selected from Legge’s version,Gu Hongming’s version and D.C.Lau’s version.The research adopts quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the distribution of the transitivity system in the selected dataset of The Analects.The transitivity process,participants and circumstances are identified,and the ecological implication is explored by qualitative analysis.The study found that in terms of the overall transitivity system distribution,the proportions of processes,participants,and circumstances in the three translations are quite different,but the proportions of processes and participants are relatively large.which indicates that process is the core element of transitivity system in the ecological discourse of The Analects,and participants are also the main configuration to realize the process,which is also very important in the interpretation experience and process.In terms of the realization of transitivity process in the original and English versions,by describing Confucius’ daily behavior,the material process reflects his strict behavior norms;by describing Confucius’ attitude towards Heaven and all things in nature,the mental process reflects his reverence for nature;by describing the relationship between nature,human and society,the relational process reflects the unity of nature and human The verbal process is mainly used to record Confucius’ words and deeds,the existential process is mainly used to describe the surrounding objective natural and social environment,and the behavioral process is mainly used to describe human physiological behavior,reflecting Confucius’ constraints on human behavior.From the ecological significance contained in The Analects,through the personification and humanization of the participants in the transitivity system,Confucius’ natural ecological view of reverence for Heaven and pursuit of harmonious coexistence is embodied.The description of Confucius’ spiritual world and social scene through process verbs and circumstances reflects Confucius’ spiritual and social ecological view of the unity of man and nature.The results of the study have certain guiding significance for the theory and practice of the later translation of Chinese classics,and provide new ideas and new forces for the construction of contemporary ecological civilization in China.