An Ecological Discourse Analysis Of The Discursive Representation Of Nonhuman Animals

Ecological issues,closely relevant to human life,have always attracted much attention.And ecolinguistics,as an emerging discipline,concentrates on the ecological issues in language.Linguists in this domain hope to reveal deep ecological ideas in language and guide language users to replace ecologically destructive expressions with more ecologically friendly ones to promote the harmonious relationship between man and nature and the sustainable development of society.Additionally,it is universally acknowledged that nonhuman animals are essential subjects of the natural environment.And the discursive representation of them in news reports,especially official ones,is of high importance for their publicity and protection.Nevertheless,currently,few scholars select such reports for ecological analysis.Besides,most existing ecological discourse analyses focus on the overall ecological ideas of the discourse,with a few studies touching on the discursive representation of nonhuman animals.Even fewer studies focus specifically on this issue.Based on the above analysis,under the ecosophy of “diversity and harmony,interaction and co-existence,” this study,starting from the perspective of ecological discourse analysis,concentrates on fish-related reports chosen from China Daily.And Systemic Functional Grammar,a pretty appliable theory,serves as the theoretical and analytical framework.This study explores how nonhuman animals are represented and why they are represented in such a way,and then delves into the ecosophy hidden in discourse.On the one hand,transitivity analysis focuses on how the corpus represents fish through various clauses.This study shows that the material process clauses are the most,and most of them are transitive clauses having human-related subjects as the Actors and fish-related subjects as the Goals,representing fish as the object that humans help and protect.Then,the relational process follows.And most of them have fish-related subject as the Carrier and the Identified,representing fish as a group with high value and under humans’ attention.The following two clauses are verbal and mental processes.Most Sayers and Sensers are human-related subjects,representing fish as the subject with lower consciousness but frequently evoking humans’ mental activities.Last,the least two are existential and behavioral clauses.The Existent is often fish,while the Behaver is primarily a human,representing fish as the animal evoking humans’ physical activities and concerned by humans.On the other hand,attitude analysis focuses on how the corpus represents fish through diverse attitudinal resources.The research demonstrates that the appreciation resource is the most,the judgement resource is the second,and the affect resource is the least.To begin with,in the appreciation resources,fish or something related to fish is mainly the target being appreciated,representing fish as a group with high value and under humans’ research and consideration.Second,there are more “propriety” and“capacity” in the judgement resources,representing fish as a group protected,studied and affected by humans.Last,the affect resource is the least one,representing fish as a group often affecting humans’ emotions and also a group with certain emotional abilities.Thus,based on the above analysis,the fish represented in this corpus has several characteristics.First,they are a group of high value.Second,they are concerned,studied,protected and valued by humans.Third,fish has a certain ability to perceive emotions and can have some physical and mental activities.Fourth,fish constantly influences humans’ emotions and is also affected by human beings.Fifth,overall speaking,fish has certain initiative,but their initiative is significantly weaker than that of human beings.According to the characteristics of fish,the ecological philosophy in news reports includes two aspects,which should be viewed comprehensively and prudently.On the one hand,humans recognize the value of fish and are helping and protecting them.In the meantime,like humans,nonhuman animals can have some physical and mental activities,which is beneficial to ecological protection.On the other hand,these reports still do not eliminate the shackles of anthropocentrism since humans’ activeness is significantly higher than that of fish,which needs further reflection.Based on the above findings,it can be seen that this study has some research value and significance.Theoretical significance: first,the study further proves the applicability of systematic functional linguistics in ecological discourse analysis and proves that the transitivity and appraisal systems can be well combined for ecological discourse analysis;second,the study can attract more scholars in the field of ecolinguistics to pay attention to the discursive representation of nonhuman animals;third,it expands the research corpus of ecological discourse analysis,including animal-related news into the research scope;last,this study also delves into the reasons behind this kind of representation,which is in depth.Practical significance: on the one hand,this research can attract news writers and readers to how nonhuman animals are represented in news discourse,helping them cultivate better ecological thinking patterns;on the other hand,it can arouse the public’s attention to nonhuman animals,promoting the development of the national ecological cause.