Guiding students to establish correct ecological awareness is an indispensable step of cultural awareness cultivation. Based on the transitivity model, this paper takes the PEP high school ELT textbooks as a case study to analyze the presentation and expression of animal discourse. Pedagogical implications are revealed by combining research findings with the aspects of textual analysis -- “what”, “why” and “how”. Research findings indicate that the ELT textbooks present rich types of animals, apply diverse transitive processes, and convey an ecological concept of “diversity, harmony and interactive coexistence”. Based on these findings, the paper suggests that teachers can pay attention to the change of man-animal relationships with the shift of animal types; guide students to collect and classify the participants and processes for imitation of writing styles; and flexibly choose destructive discourse to develop critical thinking ability. These findings can put forward a framework for teachers, but there is still room for empirical research to pinpoint the efficacy and feasibility of the suggested approaches to analyze texts.

Cancan Li, Jianfen Ying. The Presentation and Expression of Animal Discourse and Implications for Reading Teaching: A Case Study of PEP High School ELT Textbooks. Frontiers in Educational Research (2024) Vol. 7, Issue 10: 162-168. https://doi.org/10.25236/FER.2024.071026.

[1] Meighan, P. J. Transepistemic English language teaching for sustainable futures[J]. ELT Journal, 2023(2):1-17.

[2] Zahoor, M. & F. Janjua. Green contents in English language textbooks in Pakistan: an ecolinguistic and ecopedagogical appraisal[J]. British Educational Research Journal, 2020(2): 321-338. 

[3] Ide, T. The Environment[A]. In E. Fuchs & A. Bock ( Eds. ).The Pal-grave Handbook of Textbook Studies[C]. New York: Pal-grave Macmillan, 2018:357-366.

[4] Ministry of Education of People’s Republic of China. The National Curriculum Standards for Ordinary High School English (Edited in 2017 and Revised in 2020)[M]. Beijing: People’s Education Press, 2020.

[5] He Wei & Shen Wei. The ecolinguistic analysis of the animal discourses in Chinese language textbooks[J]. Foreign Language Education, 2023(4):7-15. 

[6] Stibbe, A. Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By (2nd edition. )[M] . New York: Routledge, 2021.

[7] Xiong, T. Shallow environmentalism: A preliminary eco-critical discourse analysis of secondary school English as a foreign language (EFL) texts in China[J]. The Journal of Environmental Education, 2014, 45(4): 232-242.

[8] Al-Jamal, D. A. & Al-Omari, W. Thinking green: analyzing EFL textbooks in light of ecological education themes[J]. Journal of Education and Practice, 2014, 5(14):151 -157.

[9] Hu Zhuanglin. The Cohesion and Coherence in Discourses[M]. Shanghai: Foreign Language Studies, 1994.

[10] Halliday, M A K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edition)[M]. London: Arnold, 1994.

[11] Jacobs, G. M. & A. Goatly. The treatment of ecological issues in ELT coursebooks[J]. ELT Journal, 2000(3): 256-264.

[12] He Wei &Wei Rong. Diversity and harmony, interaction and co-existence -- ecosophy for international ecological discourse analysis[J].Foreign Language Research, 2018(6):28-35.

[13] Heuberger, R. Overcoming anthropocentrism with anthropomor-phie and physiocentric uses of Language? [A]. In A.F. Fill & H. Penz(eds). The Routledge Handbook of Ecolinguistics[C]. New York: Routledge, 2018:342-354.

[14] Cook, G. & A. Sealey. The discursive representation of animals[A]. In A.F. Fill & H. Penz(eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Ecolinguistics [C]. New York: Routledge, 2018: 311-324.

[15] Yu Hui & Wang Liping. Exploring an ecological transitivity analytic model: illustrated by Educational discourse[J]. Foreign Languages and Their Teaching, 2020, (06):43-54+120+148.

[16] Akcesme, B. An ecocritical approach to English language teaching[J]. Journal of Language and Literature Education, 2013:96-117.

[17] He Wei & Liu Jiahuan. Diversity and harmony, interaction and co-existence: construction and development of ecosophy[J]. Shandong Foreign Language Teaching, 2020, 41(01):12-24.