Harmonious Discourse Analysis Of EFL High School Textbooks

With the continuous advancement of new curriculum reform,"how to fully implement the policy of fostering virtue through education(Li-De-Shu-Ren)in English subject" has become a heated topic in recent years.As it is the highest requirement of education to promote the harmonious development of people,it requires education to set lofty ideals of facilitating harmonious development between man and nature,man and self,and man and society.English textbooks,as the leading carrier of teaching contents,are laden with hidden ideologies and values on the ground that the compiling processes happen under different cultural,political and historical contexts.As such,it serves as the best vehicle for the dissemination of the value of harmony.As a response to the call for the cultivation of virtues and promotion of harmonious development,this study is geared to analyze the way how harmony is represented in EFL high school textbooks from a systemic functional perspective in order to deeply dig into the nurturing value of English subjects.To be more specific,the present study attempts to answer the following two questions:(1)What types of transitivity processes and appraisal resources are adopted in EFL high school textbooks and what are their distribution features?(2)How are these transitivity process types and appraisal resources employed to express harmonious thinking?Findings of this research reveal that:(1)Within the framework of HD A,the attitude and transitivity system can be a tool to study a harmonious version of language.All sub-types of attitude resources and transitivity types are employed in the selected texts,but there appear differences in proportion under different thematic contexts.(2)From the perspective of transitivity,under the theme of man and nature,natural participants(mainly animals and sceneries)are represented as actors,sensers,carriers and thus they are endowed with feelings,thoughts,highlighting its initiatives.And different types of human beings are represented as actors in material processes and sensers in mental processes.It follows that facing environment-related problems,human beings appear as problem-solver agents who actively propose and take measures.Under the theme of man and self,different groups of people are discursively represented as actors,sensers and tokens.Various representations show their self-growth,good living habits and positive attitudes.Under the theme of man and society,human beings are encoded as actors,sensers,carriers,tokens and sayers and their different discursive representations demonstrate their contributions to society and tolerance of different cultures.(3)From the perspective of attitude,under the theme of man and nature,there is a higher proportion of judgment and appreciation resources and their representations signify positive judgment of animals’capabilities,people’s ability to protect the environment and the appreciation of the beautiful scenery.Under the theme of man and self,affect and judgment resources take up the highest percentage,indicating positive attitudes towards living habits and participants’qualities and personalities in the process of accomplishing self-actualization.Under the theme of man and society,appreciation resources enjoy the highest proportion,followed by judgment.By judging people’s capacity and propriety and evaluating its behaviors,its value orientation can enable students to have a better understanding of the meaning of volunteering,helping others,tolerating cultural differences.In conclusion,the analysis of process types and participant roles in the transitivity system and attitude are conducive to unveiling the concept of harmony in EFL high school textbooks and conforms to one assumption and three principles of HDA.The exploration of the harmonious value embedded in EFL textbooks contributes to re-establishing the concept of the nurturing value of English subjects.In addition,it provides theoretical underpinnings for the compilation of textbooks.Meanwhile,in teaching practice,the study can attempt to help teachers dig into the deep meaning of the nurturing value using linguistic theories and improve teaching methods,thus teaching the students to grow up into responsible,mentally and physically healthy citizens who respect nature.