An Ecological Discourse Analysis of Attitude Resources in Chinese and American News Discourses on Climate Change

Climate change is a serious challenge to all mankind, and has gained unprecedented attention of the international community.News discourses, as an important carrier of mass communication, can convey certain attitudes, intentions and emotions, and then affect the public cognition and behavior.Based on an ecolinguistic perspective and the ecosophy in the context of climate change, this study conducts an in-depth analysis of the attitude resources in Chinese and American news discourses on climate change in order to explore the ecological ideology and orientation.The findings are as follows:(1) There are significant differences for the frequency of affect resources, judgement resources and appreciation resources in Chinese and American news discourses.The affect and judgement resources in Chinese news discourses are less than those in America, while the use of appreciation resources is more than that in America; (2) Attitude resources in both Chinese and American news discourses reflect the beneficial, ambivalent and destructive ecological orientation; (3) By examining the attitude resources in Chinese and American news discourses, we can explore the ecological view of "ecological priority" and "benefit priority" respectively.