An Ecological Discourse Analysis Of Commentary In BBC Planet Documentary Series Based On The Transitivity System

Ecological discourse analysis aims to provide an ecological interpretation of human discourse in order to reveal the impact of human speech and behavior on everything in the world.Stibbe divides discourse into three categories: beneficial discourse,destructive discourse and ambivalent discourse,reflecting the complex relationship between humans and other species in the ecosystem.As a platform for connecting people to nature and reflecting the real natural world,the unique language style of the BBC Planet documentary series contains profound ecological thoughts.Based on the transitivity system,guided by Stibbe’s three patterns of discourse,this thesis selects the commentary of five BBC Planet documentary series(Frozen Planet,Planet Earth II,Blue Planet II,Seven Worlds,One Planet and A Perfect Planet),which have been popular with audiences from 2011 to 2021,and creates a corpus using the UAM corpus tool.The target corpus contains 89847 words and 7782 clauses.Through qualitative and quantitative analysis,three main research questions are as follows:(1)How are transitivity systems distributed and realized in BBC Planet documentary series?(2)What kind of ecological orientation of the BBC Planet documentary series is reflected in the analysis of the three patterns of discourse?(3)What are the ecological thoughts of the commentary of the BBC Planet documentary series?It is found that,on the transitivity system level,the participant roles(45.08%)make up the largest proportion of the distribution of transitivity system,identifying their status in exploring ecological ideas,and BBC Planet documentary series place more importance on non-human organisms(43.25%)and physical participants(26.83%).The commentary of BBC Planet documentary series involves six processes in transitivity system.Material processes(60.40%)appear most frequently in the documentaries,depicting the real lifestyles of non-human organisms and physical participants.Relational processes(24.75%)describe the attributes and characteristics of non-human organisms and physical participants.Mental processes(7.45%)mainly describe the conscious activities of non-human organisms in nature.Behavioral processes(3.71%),verbal processes(0.60%)and existential processes(3.09%)describe the behavioral habits,communication abilities and states of being of non-human organisms.On the ecological orientation level,the ecological thoughts of the BBC Planet documentary series are ecologically beneficial.The beneficial discourses(59.70%)in the BBC Planet documentary series are mostly concerned with non-human organisms and physical participants.The ambivalent discourses(30.88%)are mostly about facts in nature.The destructive discourses(9.42%)are mostly concerned with the human organisms.On the ecological thought level,BBC Planet documentary series reflect the thought of biocentric equality and the ecological view of the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature.This thesis analyses the ecological thoughts of BBC Planet documentary series under the guidance of the transitivity system and the three patterns of discourse,expanding the research method of combining systemic functional linguistics and ecological linguistics,which not only enriches the research perspective of documentaries but also deepens the understanding of the ecological thoughts embodied in documentaries,awakens people’s ecological awareness and establishes the correct ecological view.