An Ecological Discourse Analysis of Border Town from the Interpersonal Function Perspective: A Literature Review

Abstract

Facing the current needs of socially sustainable development and ecological civilization construction, how to devote ourselves to the conservation of the ecosystem has become the focus of an increasing number of scholars. In the field of linguistics, the study of ecological discourse has become a new direction. Ecological Discourse Analysis is to reveal the ecological means of discourse through language analysis in order to prevent the ecological damage of human action. Hallidayan's approach emphasizes the role of language in ecological issues and the impact of language on ecological relationships, and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) lays stress on describing and analyzing linguistic facts in order to construct reality. Accordingly, this thesis conducts an ecological analysis of Shen Congwen’s classic book Border Town under the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics to explore the ecological relationship between man and nature reflected by the novel, with the expectation that this thesis will further arouse people’s awareness to environmental issues, lead people to rethink the role that human and nature play respectively and provide a new research direction for ecological discourse analysis.