本文以SFL的及物性系统为基础，运用语料库标注软件，通过定量和定性研究相结合的方法，对小句参与者的角色进行了界定，并赋予他们不同的生态属性。此外，在理论的指导下，本文还分析和探讨了评论是如何通过语言表达自然意象的。本研究对从语言功能语言学和及物性系统的角度研究文献语言生态思想的理论和实践具有一定的意义和启示。
Chapter Ⅰ Introduction
1.1 Background of the Research
The development history of human civilization shows the changing process of therelationship between man and nature, that is, the change process of humans’ attitudesand behavior towards nature. In the modern society of industrial civilization, with thecontinuous progress of science and technology and the improvement of machinery andequipment, human beings use everything in nature as much as possible to improve thequality of production and life, which shows the domination and manipulation of natureby human beings. It has achieved a qualitative leap in promoting the development ofproductive forces and accumulated a lot of social material wealth
However, various ecological problems brought about by the development ofindustrial civilization cannot be ignored. The problem of ecological environment refersto the phenomenon that the structure and function of ecosystem are seriously out ofbalance due to the destruction of ecological balance, thus threatening the survival anddevelopment of human beings. Nowadays, environmental problems are not only socialproblems, but also economic and political problems. In the face of various kinds ofecological environment damage caused by unreasonable development and utilization ofnatural resources, such as soil erosion, grassland degradation, land desertification andsaline soil, reduction of forest and lake area, destruction of mineral resources, reductionof ecological persity, frequent drought and flood disasters, water pollution, etc; on theother hand, there are also environmental pollution caused by urbanization and highdevelopment of industry and agriculture, for instance, waste water, waste gas, wasteresidue pollution, noise pollution, pesticide pollution and so on.
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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study
Huang and Zhao (2019) have mentioned that：“As linguists, we can not guaranteethat we can solve the ecological environment problems and change the ecological statusimmediately through language, but we can often change people’s attitude and behaviortowards the ecological environment through language.”
Therefore, through analysis of the discourse in the documentary of Blue Planet Ⅱfrom the perspective of SFL, first, the thesis intends to describe the distributions oftransitivity processes, then explains why they are distributed in this way and thefunctions of this kind of distribution that conforms to the need of dissemination ofecological thought of the discourse. Second, through case studies, the thesis analyzesecological features in the process of meaning construction of the commentary. Finally,through the analysis of the meaning construction of the text, as well as the analysis ofecological features, the thesis summarizes the ecological ideology of the commentary ofthe documentary. It is hoped that it will inspire the ecological construction of modernsociety and remind people to embrace, care for and feel nature.
The thesis makes an EDA of the commentary of BBC natural documentary fromthe perspective of SFL and wish to analyze the transitivity process of the discourse,reveal the linguistic ecological features and ecological ideology of the documentary.The significance of this thesis will be listed as follows:
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Chapter Ⅱ Literature Review
2.1 Relevant Researches about Ecological Discourse AnalysisAbroad and at Home
2.1.1 Relevant Researches about Ecological Discourse Analysis Abroad
Ecolinguistics is a relatively young field of study. It has gradually developed into astable discipline since it originated in 1970s. This part summarizes the research resultsof domestic and foreign scholars and researchers in ecolinguistics and EDA in recentyears.
Ecolinguistics is an interdisciplinary subject formed by the combination of ecologyand linguistics. It is a new branch of linguistics developed in recent decades (Huang,2016). Although it is a new branch of linguistics, it has been explored and studied bymany scholars at home and abroad. In comparison, foreign researches in this field areearlier, more in-depth and more systematic, while domestic researches started later andhave a lower level.
In the field of ecolinguistics, there are two widely accepted research approaches:one is Haugenian approach, and the other is Hallidayan approach (Fill, 2001; Alexander& Stibbe, 2014; Huang & Zhao, 2017; Miao & Lei, 2019; Chen, 2019 ).
Einar Haugen, a professor and scholar at Stanford University, who first proposedand used the concept of “ecology of language” (Haugen, 1971). In The Ecology ofLanguage, he mentioned that what “ecology of language” should study is “interactionsbetween any given language and its environments”, and made metaphorical analogybetween language environment and biological ecological environment.
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2.2 Relevant Researches about Documentaries Abroad and atHome
Zhang (1996) held that from the day it was born, documentaries have been close tothe society, life and human beings. Since the day they accepted the films, the audienceof documentaries has always paid attention to the destiny of human beings andeverything around them. Nie (2010) discussed the origin of the documentary as the firstpart in his work. In his point of view, the origin of documentary was closely related tothe origin of movies.
At the beginning of its birth, movies are far from being the movies in our currentconcept, but a comprehensive modern art that includes documentaries, dramas, cartoonsand other film types. As the notion of documentary in social ideology has graduallybecome the mainstream, the documentary component of art works has also changedaccordingly, that is, works with documentary nature are separated from the original artcategory and become independent styles. The early documentary films were born underthe birth of such mainstream ideology, and it met the needs of social and culturalprogress at that time as well as laid an important foundation for the birth ofdocumentaries.
2.2.1 Relevant Researches about Documentaries Abroad
From documentary films to the birth of documentaries, several foreign film mastershave made significant contributions to the origin and development of documentaries.
Robert Flaherty, who produced his first film Nanook of the North in 1922, wasknown as “the father of documentary film” in the United States. Nie (2010) pointed thatthe film can be said to be a miracle in film history because it was still being screened asa film appreciated by general audiences, not as a research object of scholars. Thesignificance of Nanook of the North to the development of documentary art lies in: itsunique aesthetic value, non-fictional performance, in-depth understanding of the subject,emphasis on picture effect and its legendary story.
Table 3-2Structure of Mental Process
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3.1 Transitivity System in Systemic Functional Linguistics.................................... 15
3.2 Ecosophy...............................................19
3.3 Summary...........................................21
Chapter Ⅳ Research Methodology.......................................23
4.1 Research Questions..................................23
4.2 Research Subject........................................23
4.3 Instruments for Data Processing.............................24
Chapter Ⅴ Results and Discussion........................................29
5.1 Analysis of Transitivity Processes in the Commentary of Blue Planet Ⅱ.......... 29
5.1.1 Transitivity Processes Involved in Blue Planet Ⅱ.................................... 29
5.1.2 Distribution of Transitivity Processes in Blue Planet Ⅱ...........................37
Chapter Ⅴ Results and Discussion
5.1 Analysis of Transitivity Processes in the Commentary of BluePlanet Ⅱ
The analysis of transitivity processes of Blue Planet Ⅱ includes two aspects: one isto refine the process types and participants’ roles with examples, and the other is topresent the distribution of transitivity processes in commentaries with tables.
5.1.1 Transitivity Processes Involved in Blue Planet Ⅱ
According to Halliday, “language enables human beings to build a mental pictureof reality, to make sense of what goes on around them and inside them.” “The clauseplays a central role, because it embodies a general principle for modelling experience-namely, the principle that reality is made up of PROGRESS.” That is to say, thetransitivity system is a semantic system, which expresses people’s understanding andexperience of the real world and inner world in several processes, and specifies theparticipants, process types and environmental components involved in the process. Thetransitivity system can intensively reflect the conceptual functions of language, becauseit can reveal the various processes in which things are in, so as to convey information tothe listener.
(1) Material Process
Material Process is an action process, which means that an entity does something.In the commentary of Blue Planet Ⅱ, the material process is the most commonly usedprocess type among all transitive processes, then through studying this process andparticipants involved in it could show us that how lovely underwater animals leadinteresting and competitive lives, what human beings do to marine ecology, and whatchanges these behaviors have brought to the living environment of marine organisms.
Table 5-1The Distribution of the Process Types
Chapter Ⅵ Conclusions
6.1 Major Findings
According to the above analysis and discussion, the findings of this paper can bedescribed as the following three parts:
Firstly, the commentary of Blue Planet Ⅱ involves six processes in the transitivesystem, including material process, mental process, relational process, behavioralprocess, verbal process and existential process. Material process appears mostfrequently in documentaries, accounting for 61.93%, which is to show the growthprocess of various species in the ocean, like how to prey, how to mate and how tomigrate. On the one hand, it presents the autonomous activities of marine organisms, onthe other hand, it exposes the reality of various changes of marine organisms and marineenvironment caused by human activities in recent years, and the measures we shouldtake to face the current marine life ecological problems, therefore, these expressions areall related to material process. The relational process accounts for 24.55%, and that’sbecause the need of attracting the audience’s attention and presenting the attributes,habits, abilities and status of some marine organisms more accurately and truly;documentaries also need to describe a large number of objective activities such asmarine organisms, environment and geographical location according to different scenes.Therefore, the relational process that could describe or identify the attributes, features oridentities of objects such as people and objects is widely used. The reason why othertransitivity processes account for less is that documentaries mainly introduce anddescribe real situations and existing circumstances, so there are not many descriptionsof physiological activities and speech acts.
Secondly, third language features of this documentary imply ecological meanings,namely pronouns, nonhuman agents and ergative structure. The use of pronouns isintended to reflect that the documentary language does not oppose humans and animals,but uses words referring to humans to narrow the distance between humans and animals.This language phenomenon helps to interpret the ecological significance ofdocumentary language and spread the ecological idea of harmony and equality betweenhuman beings and nature; the animals in the Blue Planet Ⅱ commentary are differentfrom what traditional grammar thinks. They are agents with autonomy in actions, that is,nonhuman agents. They have the ability to issue actions rather than just accept and bearhuman actions.
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