A Comparative Study of Silent Spring and A Sand County Almanac under Ecocriticism Theory

Abstract

Silent Spring is important in the field of natural literature. However, studies on it are only few, and most of them are based on traditional literary study methods. Corpus stylistics emerged in the 1980s, providing a new paradigm for literary research which transcends traditional literary research methods in many aspects. Based on ecocriticism, this study conducts a comparative study on the themes, language features and narrative perspectives of Silent Spring and A Sand County Almanac by using corpus tools. The results show that, as for the themes, Silent Spring pays attention to the intervention of human activities on nature, while A Sand County Almanac focuses on the charm of nature itself. In terms of language features, Silent Spring is more objective and convincing, while the language of A Sand County Almanac is more vivid. As for the narrative perspective, Silent Spring often uses an objective third-person perspective, while A Sand County Almanac uses a subjective first-person perspective. Although Silent Spring and A Sand County Almanac are different in themes, language features and narrative perspective, they both reveal a love for nature and strong awareness of environmental protection.