A Multimodal Ecological Discourse Analysis Of Children’s Picture Books With The Environmental Theme

As the ecological environment deteriorates,more and more researchers began to view the world from the perspective of ecology.As an interdisciplinary subject of linguistics and ecology,Ecolinguistics emerges and develops quickly.Children’s picture books with the environmental theme play an important role in cultivating children’s ecological awareness,improving their ecological literacy and promoting the cause of environmental protection.Under the guidance of the ecosophy of Stibbe(2020)and the framework of transitivity and visual narrative(Painter et al.,2013),this study aims to examine the children’s picture books with the environmental theme from an ecological perspective.This study also excavates the ecological thoughts behind it based on a multidimensional and multi-level analysis.Seven picture books with the environmental theme have been chosen in this study.A combination of quantitative research and qualitative analysis has been adopted to investigate the linguistic features to further study ecological meanings in the picture books.Based on the ecosophy of Stibbe(2020),this study firstly explored the ecosophy construction by verbal modes from the perspective of six transitivity processes;and then examined the ecosophy construction by visual modes from the perspective of ideational meaning and interpersonal meaning;it also discussed the underlying ecological thoughts in the picture books finally.Based on research objectives,this thesis attempts to answer the following questions:(1)what are the linguistic features of the verbal modes in children’s picture books with the environmental theme? and how do they convey the ecosophy of Living!?(2)what are the linguistic features of the visual modes in children’s picture books with the environmental theme? and how do they convey the ecosophy of Living!?(3)what kind of ecological thoughts do the children’s picture books imply?The thesis has the following findings:(1)in the linguistic mode,material processes and relational processes account for the highest proportion of 67.5% and21.19%,respectively.And they are used to construct ecological relations,depict ecological images and describe ecological environments;(2)in the visual mode,the[observe unmediated] choice takes up the largest proportion,accounting for 63.4% of the total;the generic style is the most commonly selected one in the picture books,accounting for 76.2% of the total.And in terms of color,the [infused] option accounted for the highest proportion of 63.4%.For character manifestation,[complete manifestation] is the default option in this study accounting for 64.4%;while in interevent,the proportion of [unfolding] and [projection] options are close,at 29.2% and24.2%,respectively.In the visual mode,the choice of perspective,the selection of style and the use of color all play important parts in rendering the ecological atmosphere of the image,arousing the emotional resonance of the reader with other life forms,and praising nature to activate the awareness of nature protection.Finally,the data selected for this study mainly convey the following ecological thoughts: harmonious coexistence,sustainable development,ecocentrism and ecological concern.The findings indicate that ecological thoughts in selected data thoroughly mirror the ecosophy of this study: Living! The meaning-making mechanism serves to cultivate readers’ ecological awareness,which can effectively improve their environmental cognition and ecological literacy.This study,on the one hand,confirms the applicability of the visual narrative analysis framework in Multimodal Ecological Discourse Analysis,and further expands the research scope of Ecological Discourse Analysis to children’s literature;on the other hand,this study is expected to increase the attention of children’s picture book artists at home and abroad to ecological and the environmental theme.