A Study On Ecological Discourse Analysis Based On Appraisal Theory

With the continuous improvement of people’s living standards,the volume of urban domestic garbage in China has shown a rapid upward trend.It results in the problems of ecological environment,which needs to be solved urgently.On 1st July 2019,Shanghai officially implemented the garbage classification policy and the domestic media also reported on this hot topic,arousing widespread concern and discussion in society.Ecolinguistics is an interdisciplinary discipline combining ecology and linguistics.As a flourishing and emerging discipline,it reveals the interaction between language and ecology by studying the ecological factors of language and the relationship between language and ecology.In recent years,linguists at home and abroad have studied environmental issues from multiple perspectives,but few studies have been conducted on the issue of garbage classification.Given this,this thesis takes He Wei and Zhang Ruijie’s ecological appraisal model as the theoretical framework,and He’s ecosophy of “harmony,diversity,interaction and coexistence” as the criteria.It uses the UAM Corpus Tool 6 to analyze the ecological discourse of 67 news articles related to garbage classification in China Daily,to explore the ecological thoughts behind the selected discourse.This thesis aims to answer the following two questions:1.What are the distributional features of appraisal resources in the ecological discourses of news reports on garbage classification in China Daily?2.What ecological thoughts are reflected in the ecological discourses of news reports on garbage classification in China Daily?Based on statistical data and discourse analysis,the thesis finds that firstly,a wide variety of appraisal resources are used in the selected reports,with a total of 1524.Among them,engagement resources occupy the most significant proportion of appraisal resources,followed by attitude and graduation resources.In terms of the distribution of engagement resources,which is the most dominant one in the selected discourse,on the one hand,the news reports use monogloss resources to directly express the views that ecological news reports are intended to convey.On the other hand,hetergloss resources cite different views to enhance the authority and legitimacy of the reports,thus increasing the possibility of influencing the reader’s ecological consciousness in the reading process.In terms of attitude resources,the use of attitude resources in the selected discourse helps to express positive attitudes towards ecology and nature in the news reports,thus presenting an ecological orientation towards protecting the environment.The force type is used most frequently in graduation resources,which further clarifies the extent of attitude and engagement resources,reinforces positive ecological views and blurs negative attitudes and positions in the reports,thus enhancing readers’ attention to positive ecological orientation.Secondly,the ecological orientation conveyed by most of the appraisal resources in the news reports is ecologically beneficial,in line with the ecosophy of “diversity and harmony,interaction and coexistence”,reflecting the efforts for environmental protection and results achieved.Thirdly,the abundance of ecological beneficial discourses in the news reports shows that the ecological news reports in China Daily seek to convey more ecological protective orientation to the public,arouse public awareness of environmental protection,and promote positive environmental practices such as garbage classification.It is hoped that this thesis will contribute to the study and analysis of the ecological discourse on garbage classification,as well as provide some reference for raising human environmental awareness and promoting garbage classification policies.