Ecological Discourse Analysis of News Reports about East Lake—from a Systemic Functional Perspective
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DOI: 10.25236/apssh.2019.061
Corresponding Author
Fei Liao
Abstract
The ecological discourse analysis, by conducting discourse analysis about ecological issues, is targeted at uncovering the implied ecological philosophy and the relationship between language and ecology. In doing this, it can help to improve people’s ecological awareness and change their life style, thus contributing to the green and harmonious world. As a vital public discourse, the news report can deeply influences people’s thoughts and actions. Halliday’s Systemic Functional linguistics (SFL), which highlights the close relationship between language and ecology, holds that the use of language can deeply affect the environment. What’s more, SFL, which contains the tendency for Marxist, offers several practical analytical tools to explore ecological discourses. With Marxist ecological concept as the ecosophy, this study, by adopting the analytical tools of cohesion and appraisal of SFL, analyzes the language features in 10 news reports selected from China Daily about East Lake. Through analysis, the study is aimed at digging out how the Marxist ecological concept is revealed, and discussing how the reporter influences people’s ecological awareness through language.
Keywords
Ecological discourse analysis; East Lake; ecological awareness; cohesion; appraisal