An Ecological Discourse Analysis Of Definitions Of Ecosystem-related Entries In Modern Chinese Dictionaries

Language plays an important role in shaping and changing people’s ideology.Ecolinguistics,as an interdiscipline,purports to examine how language reflects and even influences the relationship between humans and nature in order to have an impact on shaping people’s ecological consciousness and the way they treat nature.Ecological discourse analysis(EDA),as one of the major research approaches in ecolinguistics,focuses on the ecological analysis of discourses to reveal the underlying ecological and unecological ideologies.However,the expression of ideology is usually implicit rather than explicit,and evaluations and values are closely related to ideology.Therefore,the study of appraisal resources enables us to better analyze and understand ideology in discourses,involving both social and ecological ideologies.Among them,the attitudinal resource,as an important linguistic resource to express the meanings of evaluation,encompasses three subsystems: affect,judgement and appreciation,which have been employed to effectively distinguish the ecological attitudes conveyed through research objects.Dictionaries,as the carrier of language norms and culture,are the products in a specific socio-cultural context and integrity of compliers discourses and institution discourses,reflecting the reality as well as the relationship between man and nature,so as to have an impact on shaping humans’ ecological ideology.This study,integrated with qualitative and quantitative methods,based on the analytic framework of the ecological attitude system and the ecosophy of “Diversity and Harmony,Interaction and Co-existence”,focuses on the ecological discourse analysis of definitions of ecosystem-related entries in two modern Chinese dictionaries exemplified by the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary(The 7th Edition,hereinafter referred to as CCD7)and the Modern Chinese Standard Dictionary(The 4th Edition,hereinafter referred to as MCSD4)in accordance to the principle of exhaustiveness,with an aim to explore the ecological attitudes,including eco-beneficial,eco-destructive and eco-ambivalent attitudes.Two questions to be discussed in this study are as follows:(1)What are the distribution patterns of attitude resources in the definitions of ecosystem-related entries in CCD7 and MCSD4 and how are the ecological attitudes conveyed through these resources?(2)What are the ecological similarities and differences between CCD7 and MCSD4 and which one of the two dictionaries has more positive ecological significance?Through the analysis of attitude resources,the results show:(1)A large number of attitudinal resources are employed in the definitions of ecosystem-related entries in the two dictionaries.There are 1284 attitude resources in CCD7 and 1687 in MCSD4.CCD7 bears a high resemblance to MCSD4 in terms of the unbalanced distribution of attitude resources.Among them,judgement resources are the most,followed by appreciation resources,and affect resources are the least.Judgement resources are predominately used to describe the usefulness of inorganic environment,the edibility and usability of the biological community.Appreciation resources mostly evaluates the worth,efficacy and valuation of the ecosystem components.(2)As for eco-attitudes,eco-ambivalent attitudes account for the largest proportion,followed by eco-destructive and eco-beneficial ones.The non-eco-beneficial attitudes(including eco-ambivalent and eco-destructive attitudes)account for 92.06% in CCD7 and 87.79% in MCSD4 respectively.Both dictionaries,to some extent,are deficient in ecology for the reason that linguistic portrayals of the ecosystem are mostly based on human interests.As for the difference,the Chi-square test proves that there is significant difference between the two dictionaries in the aspect of eco-beneficial attitudes of appreciation resources.MCSD4 has more positive ecological significance than CCD7 in that it explicitly regulates the protection grades and avoids the depiction of the edibility or usability of precious non-human beings.Through the investigation,the study suggests that humans’ ecological awareness leaves much space to be improved,especially the overemphasis on the economic value of ecosystem components and on human subjectivity,which still reflects anthropocentrism.Based on the above major findings,this study then attempts to provide insights for dictionary compilation from the ecolinguistic perspective.Regarding the contents of relevant definitions,the criteria that measure the usefulness of inorganic environment and the usability and edibility of non-human beings in the ecosystem shall be objective and unified.Second,the contents of the definitions that are not in line with the spirit of national laws and the requirements of ecological civilization shall be avoided.Third,the latest version of the laws and regulations should also be referred to for detailed and standardized definitions of the pertinent entries,so as to improve the ecology of dictionaries and strengthen people’s ecological awareness.In terms of labeling,in the process of defining the relevant lexical entries,the ecological attributes of the relevant entries can be labeled by using different signs(such as brackets,square brackets,etc.)with reference to the similar labeling of colloquialisms,dialects,or foreign words,and the specific meanings are expounded in the section of the notes.In addition,the state and society should continuously strengthen the publicity of environmental protection.This study is expected to theoretically contribute to the application of the attitude system within the paradigm of EDA research through the analysis of ecological attitudes embodied in definitions of ecosystem-related entries in the two modern Chinese dictionaries and thus can be envisaged as an extension of EDA.Practically,this paper attempts to explore the ecological ideology conveyed through the linguistic devices in dictionaries and to remind users should not accept all information without rethinking.Meanwhile,it appeals to compilers to reflect on the ecological attitudes embodied in dictionaries,endowing them with ecologically beneficial attitudes and ideologies,and actively guiding people to improve the ecological consciousness of protecting nature and the environment,so as to achieve the harmonious coexistence between human beings and the nature.