Plenary Speech
Ecological discourse analysis of an ELT textbook
Abstract: Ecological discourse analysis examines how ways of meaning shape human impacts on the environment. In recent years, research adopting a systemic functional perspective has primarily concentrated on transitivity in ecological discourse analysis. However, the complexity of ecological meanings construed at the clause level has not yet been fully explored. In response to this gap, the present study develops an analytic framework for ecological transitivity analysis grounded in the transitivity system of systemic functional grammar. By integrating the transitive and ergative modes, the classification of participant roles across different process types is refined and made more nuanced. Ecological orientations of different processes are then determined under the guidance of ecosophy. This study seeks to systematically uncover the implicit ecological perspectives embedded in an ELT textbook, thereby not only providing eco-oriented references for textbook development and pedagogical practice, but also offering new insights into the expansion of methodological approaches within ecological discourse analysis.
Keywords: ecological discourse analysis; systemic functional linguistics; transitivity; ergativity; ELT textbook