Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Looking back at the progress human has created during the last one century, we sadly find that our life is seriously marred by the relationship between human and other species. Overwhelming oppression and cruelty has led myriads of animals to the end of their life and catastrophes resulted from human activities are now totally unprecedented. Population increase, climate change, reduction in biopersity, isolation with nature and loss of community are bringing questions into the fundamental stories which the industrial society depends on (Stibbe, 2015: 3). By the time of the 1960s, the growth of population and the rapid development of economics have caused an increasing number of ecological problems. So, it is necessary to reconsider the relationship between humans and other species, the significance of linguistic mediation, and the crucial effects this can have.
With the promotion of ecological awareness, there occurs an ecological turn in scientific research, including the linguistic studies. Eco-linguistics is one representative way to show the combination between ecology and linguistics which will receive more attention from language researchers. Michael Halliday’s constructivism view of language believes that we can modify our world through the language we use. That is to say, language plays an important role in solving ecological crisis. The origin of ecological crisis is a crisis of culture and ideology instead of scientific and technological crisis. Thus, the most vital tasks at present is to set up and disseminate the ecological world view and values among people. Besides, on the way of probing methods to the ecologicalchallenges we face, we may have to explore and reconsider some of the rudimentary stories that underlie our culture (Stibbe, 2015), which indicates the relationship between humans and animals, plants as well as other non-human creatures, and what kind of role we human plays in the story should also be taken into consideration. Since 1990s, more and more linguists have been devoting themselves to finding a linguistic way to contribute to alleviating the world ecological crisis. Recently, a goodly number of methods and abundant data have been taken to show how language has been articulated and deciphered in the environment and ecology fields. Xin Zhiying & Huang Guowen (2013) note that it is the social responsibility of systematic functional linguists to convey ecological consciousness. Later, a branch of those linguists attempt to investigate the ecological problems in language within the domain of Ecological Discourse Analysis (EDA).
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1.2 Research Objective
This thesis conducts an ecological discourse analysis of the commentary of Our Planet, with two purposes. On the one hand, this thesis attempts to enrich the analytical method of EDA and to uncover deep ecological thoughts contained in the commentary by using linguistic devices. On the other hand, it aims to activate the human beings’ ecological thinking—how to use language to establish better ecological harmony or equilibrium between human beings and the nature and foster their ecologically protective behaviors.
There are two significances of this research.
The first one is theoretical significance. Different from the previous studies of ecological documentary from the perspective of discourse strategies and systemic functional grammar, this research uses EDA to analyze the commentary of ecological documentary Our Planet. Thus, the research may fill the insufficiency of previous studies, widen the application of EDA and fulfill the theoretical research of EDA.
The second one is practical significance. Practically, this thesis may help to better understand the ecological value of the commentary in ecological documentary Our Planet, enhance peoples’ ecological awareness so as to protect the home of all species on the planet.
Ecolinguistics is a profitable way for human beings to protect the environment through language. Researchers have made some contributions to ecological discourse analysis from different perspectives. The study of the ecological documentary from the perspective of ecological discourse analysis is relatively few. Different from other theories, EDA has its special theoretical significance in the analysis of documentary discourses, which provides a new perspective for our study on this kind of discourse. On the one hand, this study is able to help human beings comprehend ecological and environmentally friendly ideology better from the commentary. On the other hand, it detects ecological ideologies in Our Planet, which can lead a ecological way to coexist with nature, foster people’s ecological behaviors.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Review on Ecological Documentary
This section gives the definition and features of ecological documentary firstly, then reviews former studies on ecological documentary. In the end, it introduces the ecological documentary Our Planet in detail.
2.1.1 Introduction to Ecological Documentary
Ecological documentary is a vital branch of documentary film on the basis of the theme and topic, but there is no unified definition in the academic research. Scientific documentary, human geography documentary and natural documentary are alternative names for ecological documentary. Some scholars tries to define it from its content and function. Ecological documentary records certain facts and reality about the natural world, mainly assuming the functions of education, instruction or promotion (Hornby, 2005: 589). “Ecological documentary is designed to cultivate the consciousness of ecological protection by truly recording the relationship and interaction among nature, human beings, animals and plants” (Wu, 2006). In a general way, ecological documentary pays much more attention on the survival and the growth of species, therelationship between species or between species and environment, the interaction between human being and nature (Chang, 2014). Nature documentary as a form of mass media is committed to depicting current ecological state or survival and development of other species in nature and the relationships among species, humans and physical environment by means of vivid scenes, lively words and soul-stirring music, through which ecological thoughts shall be conveyed so as to urge people to protect ecological system and live harmoniously with nature (Yuan, 2020). Based on the above conceptions, it can be concluded as follows. The recording target of ecological documentary is natural world, including animals, plants, entities and natural phenomena and etc. It bears the function of education and dissemination. By using the audio-visual language, ecological documentary spreads the thoughts of protecting the ecological world.
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2.2 Review on Commentary in Ecological Documentary
There are two parts in this section. A brief introduction of ecological documentary commentary is given firstly, then some previous studies on ecological documentary commentary are reviewed.
2.2.1 Introduction to Commentary
Sound and images are the main methods of conveying information and emotion in the ecological documentaries. However, they can’t straightway convey some ideological and abstract conceptions straightway hidden in an ecological documentary. Commentary is the most direct and effective way of transmitting information. When comes to the commentary of ecological documentary, many scholars have given its definition based on their related studies. As Chen Shaobo (1997) proposed, written language is too rigid and formal while daily spoken language is too available and flexible. The language of the documentary commentary lies somewhere in between. It is the refinement of the daily linguistic language, maintaining the explicit, concise and popular traits in the meantime abandoning the disadvantages of randomness, discreteness and redundancy of daily oral language. It is a higher level of spoken language and can be regarded as the oral dynamic of literary language. Shi Qi (2000:179) argued that in a documentary, commentary refers to the verbal language except the screen characters' language. Zhong Danian and Lei Jianjun (2006: 54) believed commentary is the externalization of the composer’s rational thoughts. It is a form of communication narrated by the commentator and attached to the images. As the direct externalization of the author's rational thinking, it is used to express,explain, discuss or introduce the author's subjective emotion.
Figure 2 Refinement of Process System
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Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework and Methodology……………………14
3.1 Theoretical Framework of EDA……………………………………………14
3.1.1 Introduction to EDA…………………………14
3.1.2 Naess’s Ecosophy…………………………………18
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion……………………35
4.1 Analysis of Eco-transitivity Process……………………35
4.1.1 Analysis of Material Process…………………………37
4.1.2 Analysis of Mental Process………………………42
Chapter 5 Conclusion ………………………………72
5.1 Findings of the Research…………………………72
5.2 Limitations of the Research………………………75
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Analysis of Eco-transitivity Process
As is mentioned in the above chapter, transitivity is a system which construes the material world and mental world around us, and it is composed of six process types. A process unfolding through time and the participant involved in the process constitutes the core components of the figure. Visualizing the statistical distribution of the process types offers a perspective to present how the events are advanced in the commentary of Our Planet.
First of all, this study will show the distribution of those six process types in Table 4-1:
Table 4-1 Distribution of Process Types
According to the above table, we can see that there are 726 process types in total. Among all processes, material processes account for the highest proportion—48.21% inthe commentary with the total number of 350. Material process expresses that someone is doing something or something is happening, so objective behavior or action is often described by material process. As is known to us all, ecological documentary objectively records the relationship and interaction among human beings, non-human species and natural phenomena, so it is easy to understand why material process is frequently used in the discourse. And it also indicates the emergent ideology of celebrating the power of the nature. Next, relational processes rank in the second highest percentage, whose number is 289, accounting for 39.81% of the whole processes. The relational process is the process of presenting the relationship between two objects or the attribution and characteristics of one object, and it is usually used to describe and evaluate an object or event. As a result, relational process is the most direct way of making judgment and evaluation. In the documentary, this process type is mainly distributed in the following two situations: firstly, it is used to indicate the location; secondly, it is used to denote the special hunting skills or some features possessed by the animals and plants. Existential processes are in the third largest proportion, which account for 5.92% with 43 processes. The fourth place is the mental processes whose number adds up to 31, accounting for 4.27%. The behavioral processes rank the fifth in number with the proportion of 1.79%. As for the verbal process, it refers to the process of communicating information though speech events, typically for human beings. Therefore, it is reasonable to comprehend that verbal process types are scarcely used in the ecological documentary.
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Chapter 5 Conclusion
5.1 Findings of the Research
Displaying a real natural world is the primary mission of ecological documentaries, and they also take on the responsibilities of conveying the ecological thoughts. Commentary plays an indispensable role in the ecological documentary. Under the framework of EDA, this study explores the ecological thoughts in the commentary of Our Planet. With detailed analysis and discussion, this research arrives at the following findings.
Firstly, in terms of transitivity process, the commentary represents the eco-beneficial inclination of process meaning. As for the realization of transitivity process, different processes perform different functions to convey ecological thoughts. In the ecological documentary Our Planet, the use of material process and relational process far outweighs the other processes in the transitivity system, which is determined by its theme and linguistic feature. In order to highlight informative function of ecological documentary, Our Planet describes a real life of other species and physical entities, as well as the interactions among humans, other creatures and physical environment in nature, which isdelivered by material process. To achieve publicity function, Our Planet depicts and characteristics and attributes of animals, plants and physical phenomena, as well as the relationships among them, which is embodied by relational process. Then, the frequency of existential process ranks the second place, followed by mental process. Existential processes in Our Planet show the audience what happens in nature and how the living organisms and physical participants exist in nature. Mental processes mainly represent conscious activities of creatures in nature, and slightly declare people’s attitudes toward nature as well. The number of behavioral process comes in last at 5th in transitivity process, which largely describe living habits and behavior of beings in nature. There is no verbal process in the documentary.
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