Human-nature relationships in experiential meaning: transitivity system of Chinese from an ecolinguistic perspective

3.2.1. Scale of participants: individual vs. group

Following the ESOP framework, it is observed that in terms of scale, people in living places can be divided into individual or group. For individuals, a place is significant with personal memories, contributing to a stable sense of self (Twigger-Ross and Uzzell 1996). Moreover, the individual exerts influence on a place in either delicate or drastic ways, creating experience-in-place meaning. For a group of people, attachment to a place is reflected in a collective process wherein they may practice. Taking these considerations into the transitivity system, we argue that for the participants of -er role or -ed role, the degree of influences construed through the process can be differentiated in terms of an individual or group scale. For 马克[Ag]到附近公园走走[Pro]散心 (make dao fujin gongyuan zouzou sanxin: Mark walked to the nearby park to release the stress),⁴ we believe that it is potentially beneficial to the ecology. If the Actor of 马克 (make: Mark) is changed into a collective participant, the family of Mark, we may argue that the potential of getting intimate to nature is enlarged to the degree of a group attachment. When an -ed role is involved, for example in 马克[Ag]到附近公园打[Pro]了一只鸟[Af] (make dao fujin gongyuan da le yi zhi niao: Mark went to the nearby park and shoot a bird), the affected participant also matters when it is an individual or group, i.e., a bird or lots of birds in this example. There are also cases when the -er or -ed role cannot be directly scaled as an individual or group. In 北京市[Ag]大力加强[Pro]水资源保护[Af] (beijingshi dali jiaqiang shuiziyuan baohu: Beijing has strengthened the protection of water resources), the -er role 北京市 (beijingshi: Beijing) can be regarded as a collective entity, but the -ed role 水资源保护 (shuiziyuan baohu: the protection of water resources) cannot be assigned to either identity. In an example like this, we regard the -ed role as a collective participant as the protection of water resources matters collectively.

In facing global problems, individual actions have only a minuscule influence on collective outcomes (Olson 1965) and environmental problems can only be solved by the co-ordination of large numbers of people (Cranor 1985). Thus we propose to include the scale of individual or group to the participants involved in all types of processes to measure their degree of influences.⁵

3.2.2. Stakeholders as participants

An ecological discussion often involves striking a balance between the protection and use of natural resources, and this practice is typically complex, uncertain, multi-scale and affects multiple actors and agencies (Reed 2008). A diverse group of involved parties will bring together a variety of perspectives, motivations, past experiences and interests (Madden and McQuinn 2014). Therefore in complicated topics such as ecological protection, sustainability, energy conservation, a classification of the stakeholders in environmental issues is of great importance.

Stakeholders are broadly defined as the people and organizations who are involved in or affected by an action or policy and can be directly or indirectly included in the decision-making process (Freeman 1984; Annan 2007; Sterling et al. 2017). In the network of Figure 1, the entry of people is divided into three types of stakeholders (stance), the risk loser, the risk gainer and the risk manager. The risk loser identifies those who may be adversely affected by an environmental risk action or decision regarding their health, economic, or social well-being and possibly their deeply held values (English 2000). Risk gainer refers to those who may be favorably affected, typically through economic gains and most possibly, those who create environmental risks. The risk manager is responsible for preventing or minimizing the risk.⁶ These three types of stakeholders bring about radically different perspectives to the environmental issues and therefore exerting different influences on the ecology. With this categorization, we can interpret the ecological effects of participants based on their representation of interests and concerns.

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The extract is from an interview of a high official working for a mega oil company. The involved participants include the -er role of 总经理 (zongjingli: the general manager) and the -ed role of 中石油的同志们 (zhongshiyou de tongzhimen: my colleagues in PetroChina). Both the -er role and -ed role can be regarded as risk gainers with their potential to gain economically if they decide to ignore the balance of protecting the environment and using natural resources. However, in this communicative process, the manager describes how he forbids all his colleagues from taking illegal methods to earn money and not making a profit by scarifying the environment. Therefore he takes on the role of risk manager by making decisions to curb environmental risks. This change of stance is backed up by a belief that natural resources should not be depleted for commercial purpose, therefore taking a middle ground in-between being benevolent to the environment and not being greedy of opulence. Based on these analyses, we can conclude that in this text, a risk gainer switches his stance to risk manager with ecological awareness beneficial to the ecology, making this text an ecologically beneficial one.

3.2.3. Circumstantial role of place

The previous two sections discuss the potential of ecological implications from the participants, mainly through the interpretation of the role of human beings. This section turns to the critical component of the people-place relationship, the function of place in the transitivity system. A place appears in various process types. In the system network of He et al. (2017), there is a participant of Direction: destination, such as in 猎队[Ag]将[PrEx]羚羊[Af-Ca]赶[Pro]到[PrEx]了悬崖边[Dir: Des] (liedui jiang lingyang gan dao le xuanya bian: A hunting team forces a group of gazelle to the edge of a cliff). 悬崖边 (xuanya bian: the edge of a cliff) is understood as an indispensable participant of the action process of 赶到 (gan dao: force … to …). A place can appear as the Phenomenon of a mental process, such as 他[Em]从小就热爱[Pro]家乡的山山水水[Ph] (ta congxiao jiu reai jiaxiang de shanshanshuishui: He developed a love for the mountains and waters in his hometown at a young age). A place can also be frequently found in the relational process as Carrier, Attribute, Token, Value, Location (also in the existential process), Source, Destination, Possessor, Possessed and Correlator. An example of this would be 熊猫和和[Ca]居住[Pro]在美丽的竹子林里[Loc] (xiongmao hehe juzhu zai meili de zhuzi lin li: The giant panda Hehe lives in a beautiful bamboo forest). As for the communicative and behavioral process, a place can appear as participants, but in the form of personification.

Beyond these cases as participants, a place is generally regarded as a supportive role, nestled in the label of circumstance in the transitivity system. Circumstantial roles, as Halliday and Matthiessen (2014, 221) remarks, “are more peripheral and unlike participants, they are not directly involved in the process.” In the example 马克到附近公园走走散心 (make dao fujin gongyuan zouzou sanxin: Mark walked to the nearby park to release the stress), 附近公园 (fujin gongyuan, the nearby park), which is the destination of the -er role Mark, works as a circumstance to the action process. However, if we follow the analytical network of transitivity system and leave out the circumstantial role in this process, its ecological value is severely downplayed. In example 马克[Ag]到附近公园打[Pro]了一只鸟[Af] (make dao fujin gongyuan da le yi zhi niao: Mark went to the nearby park and shoot a bird), we cannot decide if the bird means a real one were it not for the place of 附近公园 (fujin gongyuan: the nearby park) since it can be a virtual image in a video game. Again the ecological implication of this clause would be misguided without the circumstantial role of place.

As this research places much emphasis on the people-place relationship and also believes that a place matters more than just a supportive role, it is suggested that the circumstantial role of place should be highlighted as a crucial contributor to the construing of ecological meaning in a clause. This particular action serves two purposes: firstly, it brings to the front stage the living places that sustain and constitute human existence; secondly, it embodies the position of the human being as a component rather than a ruler of the living environment.

3.3.1. Action process

An action process construes the flow of events through some input of energy, involving participants such as Actor, Affected, Created, and sometimes Affected-Carrier, Manner and Direction. Based on the transitivity system of Chinese, the semantic structure of the following two examples are presented.

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(3)

To interprete their ecological value, we need to decide the attitude of the speaker/writer through several indicators. To begin with, both of the clauses include a Created participant without any Actor, therefore there will be no further discussion of the scale and stance of the agentive role. Besides, both of these clauses contain a place, in example (2) 珠海横琴 (Hengqin, Zhuhai) and in example (3) 我国西北 (woguo xibei: southwest of China). The first place is a specific, local community, while the latter one represents grand wildness.

For example (2), the speaker/writer uses positive appraisal resources of 隆重 (longzhong: grandly) to indicate his/her affective attitude toward the launching of the circus festival. Human beings taking pleasure in the suffering of non-human animals causes more than moral problems, but also rarity and vulnerability of the species of the animal concerned. Activists for animal rights as well as environmentalists have gradually recognized the human/animal continuation rather than the human/animal opposition. Thus promotion of such an event in this particular place cannot be regarded as beneficial to the ecology. For example (3), the Created element is the “Chinese southwest shelter forest belt”, which is made to slow wind erosion, and also to protect the land and underground water. This clause is likely to be found in govern reports or news page, to publicize the Chinese government’s effort in protecting the ecology. Clauses like this constitute the typical beneficial discourses and should be promoted to raise group awareness.

3.3.2. Mental process

A mental process is concerned with the experience of the world of consciousness, containing participants such as Emoter, Perceiver, Cognizant and Phenomenon. Example (4) and (5) provide two mental processes with semantic structures outlined.

(4)

(5)

Example (4) includes a place as personal property and its visitors with a promotive sense. It serves to develop a sense of desire among the Agent-Perceivers for places like 千万豪宅 (qianwan haozhai: multi-million house). The participants involved have the potential of becoming risk gainers if they follow such extravagant living style, inflicting more pressure on the environment with industrial products and potential wastes. Affective attitude toward places like this does not meet the ecosophy of frugality. Therefore what is constructed in this clause is eco-destructive and should not be promoted. Example (5) includes a scene or a place where a group of people is looking at slaughtered whales. Based on the contexts, the participants are not risking gainers and are likely to be risk losers or risk managers, and their negative emotion toward the scene will probably lead to resistance to such behaviors. Besides, the negative emotions from the participants toward such a scene reflect a sense of benevolence, therefore making this clause a beneficial one to the ecology.

3.3.3. Relational process

The relational process serves to characterize and to identify, involving participants of Carrier, Attribute, Token, Value, Location, Source, Path, Destination, Possessor, Possessed, and Correlator. The following two examples represent the possessive process and directional process.⁸

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(7)

Both of these two examples include a place that works as a participant, in example (6) 鳄鱼的腹部中间位置 (eyu de fubu zhongjian weizh: the central part of crocodile belly) and in example (7) 城市 (chengshi: the city). For example (6), the place is exceptional, as itself is part of the living organism. Ironically, the connection between the Carrier and the location is one between something belonging to the human world and somewhere from the non-human organism. Unlike ordinary occupation and utilization of a place, this particular interaction between people and the place is fatal, bearing no benevolent attitude to the living creatures. Therefore the experience represented in this clause is by no means beneficial to the ecology. For example (7), a causative process happens when 泉水 (quanshui: spring) is regarded as an agentive role in making the city (where human presence is embedded as passive role) alive. It is evident that the speaker/writer has affectionate feelings toward this place and also believes that being intimate with nature makes a city better. Following our ecosophy, this clause exerts beneficial effects on the ecology.

3.3.4. Behavioral process

The behavioral process sits in-between the material and mental process to construe physiological and psychological behavior. The participant is typically a conscious being labeled Behaver. In processes like this, a place appears normally as the circumstantial role.

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(9)

In the above two examples, people-place interacts can be overtly identified. For example (8), the place is the Range of a behavioral process of watching. Together with the preceding information of standing at the deck of a boat and holding 18 feet shafts in hand, the behavioral process describes an experience of hunting for shark at sea, which is not consistent with the ecosophy of having benevolence to the non-human creatures. For example (9), the participant develops a sense of proximity to his hometown and the scenery in a behavioral process of dreaming. The speaker/writer describes the attractiveness of a place in nature and also an intimacy to this place, which according to the ecosophy proposed before, brings beneficial effects to the ecology. Therefore based on the analysis, we can conclude that these two have opposite ecological orientations.

3.3.5. Communicative process

This process contributes to the accounts of dialogue, with the process of saying interpreted in a broad sense, including any kind of symbolic exchange of meaning. The configurations of this process type contain participants of Communicator, Communicatee and Communicated.⁹

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For example (10), the event happens most possibly in a circus where people go to see the show of imprisoned animals. The presence of the place, a circus operated within the social community, is embedded in the clause as part of the risk gainer participant. The people-place interaction is the potential of people going to such a place incited by the promotion of 免费和老虎合影 (mianfei he laohu heying: taking a picture with the tiger for free). By the standard of being benevolent to all living creatures with respect, the construed meaning of caging wild animals for commercial purposes is not beneficial to the ecology. For example (11), the people-place interaction is human beings studying the earth’s atmosphere, which is the living environment for themselves. The clause presents the fact that the natural environment is having a problem, therefore raising people’s awareness toward the shared living place. Thus this communicative process construes beneficial meaning to the ecology.

3.3.6. Existential process

In construing the existence of an entity in a particular place, the existential process in nature includes a place as a participant. While some of the processes construe people-place relationships directly, some construe indirectly.

(12)

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These two examples depict two different types of place, one with human beings and another without human presence. In example (12), the place is 屋内墙上 (wunei qiangshang: on the wall inside the room), which is a human-related place while the Existent is 硕大的鹿角 (shuoda de lujiao: a huge antler), which represents an animal. The existential process implies preceding experiences of killing, selling and purchasing of the deer for commercial purposes and also indicates people’s appreciation of antler as decorations. Neither of these two facts respects the ecosophy of showing benevolence to other creatures, therefore delivering a negative message to the readers. Example (13) construes a scene of nature with water, sky and clouds interacting with each other, without any human presence. This description is made out of the speaker/writer’s intimate observation of nature with keen and affective senses. Therefore the clause is delivering information beneficial to the construction of human knowledge of nature.

3.3.7. Meteorological process

The meteorological process resides between the existential and action process. The basic configuration of the meteorological process consists only of a Process element and a ProcessExtension element. The Process is typically realized by verbs such as 下 (xia: drop down) and 刮 (gua: blow). The ProcessExtension is commonly realized by words such as 雨 (yu: rain), 雪 (xue: snow) and 风 (feng: wind). Some of the typical processes are 下雪了 (xia xue le: it is snowing/snowed) and 打雷了 (da lei le: it is thundering). Though this type of process directly reflects the phenomenon of nature, it does not reflect much ecological implication with its lack of human attitude.

However, there are many other metaphorical ways of construing climates or weather conditions. For example, in 强冷空气将袭击我国大部分地区 (qiang leng kongqi jiang xiji woguo da bufen diqu: A strong cold air will hit most parts of our country), there is a place-based experience in which 强冷空气 (qiang leng kongqi: a strong cold air) is regarded as an attacker. The use of 袭击 (xiji: hit) represents the speaker/writer’s negative emotion toward the meteorological phenomenon, therefore consolidating people’s oppositional attitude toward nature. Examples like this are abundant, especially in weather forecasts. Therefore it is suggested that for the benefits of a harmonious attitude toward nature, clauses about meteorological information should avoid depicting the natural phenomenon as enemies to human beings, but instead as warnings of deteriorating human-nature relationships.