An Ecological Discourse Analysis Of High School English Textbooks From The Perspective Of Transitivity System

With the continuous improvement of people’s ecological awareness,ecology is widely used in natural science and humanities,such as political ecology and economic ecology.As one of the important activities of human life,language plays an important role in the ecosystem.In order to achieve harmonious development between human and ecology,many linguists try to solve ecological problems from the perspective of ecolinguistics.On the framework of transitivity system,this research uses ecological discourse analysis framework proposed by He Wei with “ecological community of harmonious interaction” as ecological philosophy.This research chooses discourses about humans,human and non-human beings,and human and nature from high school English textbook published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press and adopts qualitative and quantitative research methods.The purpose of this study is to explore the ecological ideologies embodied in the transitivity system of textbook,and to provide new ideas for the study of ecological consciousness of textbook,so as to encourage teenagers to pay attention to the use of language and cultivate ecological consciousness.This research aims to solve the following problems: 1)How are the transitivity processes distributed in terms of the three indicators(humans,human and non-human,human and nature)in the high school English textbook? 2)What ecological ideologies does the distribution of the three indicators convey in the high school English textbook?The study finds that the distribution of transitivity processes ranked in descending order are as: action process,mental process and the relational process.Secondly,each relationship contains three ecological types,namely,eco-beneficial discourse,ecoambivalent discourse and eco-destructive discourse.In the relationship among humans,the action process accounts for the largest proportion,which reflects the mutual help,solidarity,and promotion of interpersonal communication and cooperation between people,which belongs to the ecological beneficial discourse.In terms of the relationship between human and nature,the action process and the relationship process account for the same proportion,which reflects the harmony and unity of man and nature,their interdependence,and their love for nature.It belongs to the ecological beneficial discourse.In the relationship between human and non-human beings,it mainly conveys hierarchism,the opposition between human and non-human beings,and reflects anthropocentrism,which belongs to ecological destructive discourse.This study not only broadens the research path of ecological consciousness in textbook discourse,but also confirms the value and feasibility of transitivity system.It explores the relationship between human and ecology in the teaching material discourse,which arouses human’s protection of ecological environment in a certain sense,and also plays a role in cultivating teenagers’ ecological consciousness.