Shallow Environmentalism: A Preliminary Eco-Critical Discourse Analysis of Secondary School English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Texts in China

Abstract

The school textbooks have been a useful site for inquiry into ways environmentalism is communicated. Rooted in the dominant social value of exploiting nature to satisfy human desire, shallow environmentalism treats environmental and ecological destruction by addressing immediate physical symptoms but refuses to reflect critically on the underlying cultural, political, and ideological matters. This study presents an eco-critical discourse analysis of five series of state-sanctioned English as foreign language textbooks currently used in China to discover whether and how shallow environmentalism is represented in these materials. Shallow environmentalism was analyzed as taking three forms: the first, obscuring human agency in environmental destruction; the second, overusing linear problem-solution discourse patterns; and the third, positively portraying the Chinese government's role in environmental protection. A document study of these materials found that their purpose in exploring environmental topics mainly functioned to raise awareness of environmental issues rather than encourage real active participation and transformational practice.

Green contents in English language textbooks in Pakistan: An ecolinguistic and ecopedagogical appraisal

“…However, personification of nature in human terms can be taken as ecocentric to the extent, as opined by Adunga (), that it can help child readers envisage animals as a life form, as sentient beings, like their own selves and consequently develop a sense of belongingness, regard, empathy and love for them. Xiong (), in an ECDA of secondary school EFL texts in China, also reported personification to be exploited as a discourse strategy to bring the animal world to life and avowed it to be ‘an accessible means to have students appreciate that nature should be treated in the same way as humans are treated’ (p. 240).…”

“…The ecolinguistic study of ESL/EFL teaching materials has emerged as yet another potential research area lately. There are just a few published researches in the area so far, including: a survey of international ELT textbooks by Jacobs and Goatly (), reporting a general lack of curricular activities concerning environmental protection; a content analysis by Kirova and Veselinovska () of the EFL textbooks used in Macedonia, to explore the frequency and treatment of ecological topics in them; a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of Japanese EFL textbooks by Stibbe (), exposing shallow environmentalism in the examined textbooks; a CDA of a sample of EFL textbooks used in Iran by Amalsaleh et al () to analyse the linguistic and ideological construction of different social actors in the community as well as nature; a CDA by Akcesme () of certain leading English coursebooks consumed globally, to find out in what ways nature is represented and how the different representations of nature propagate certain eco‐ideologies; Al‐Jamal and Al‐Omari’s () content analysis of the state‐sanctioned EFL textbooks used for 10th graders in Iran, pointing out the scarcity of global ecological themes in the textbooks; Xiong’s () ECDA of EFL textbooks used in China, exposing the shallow environmentalism propagated in them; and a recent study by Brown () studying the use of the relative pronoun ‘who’ with non‐human animals in English dictionaries and graded readers in the English as an additional language (EAL) context.…”

Environmental Discourse in EFL Textbooks in Egypt: A Critical Ecolinguistics Case Study

“…The study by Xiong (2014) aimed at identifying the form of participation mostly promoted by the discourse of a sample of 28 bestselling ELT textbooks in China as an indicator of the ideological orientation of these textbooks. Analysis showed that nature topics constituted only 4% of the 188 units in the sample.…”

“…The limited appeal to real life concrete participation not only endangers environmental education by becoming more theoretical, but it also increases the students' isolation from nature as one of the negative effects of modern technology and urbanization which minimizes contact with live animals for most people (Cook 2015;Jacobs & Goatly, 2000). Consequently, the students are not prepared to be ecologically critical thinkers who are able to make environmentally sound decisions and carry out their environmental responsibilities (Xiong, 2014).…”

“…EE encompasses non-traditional "moral and ethical dimensions" through instilling a sense of moral obligation towards humans and nonhumans and towards future generations (Xiong, 2014). It adopts an information-based strategy in order to change attitudes and behaviors making 'knowledge' and 'informedness' the "proxies for measuring the effect of an EE program" (McGuire, 2015, p.696).…”