German is offered to students as one of the leading foreign languages in Chinese universities, and German language textbooks are an important resource to influence these students’ environmental awareness. Taking transitivity as a theoretical framework, the present research was conducted to explore the transitivity features and ecological view of the environmental content in German language textbooks used in Chinese universities. The results show that transitivity patterns were significantly unbalanced in the environmental content, and an eco-beneficial view dominated to actively encourage students to protect nature. However, the political and cultural values underlying humanity’s destruction of the natural environment were not much touched upon. Corresponding suggestions are made for textbook compilers and classroom teachers.
FUNDING INFORMATION. This research was supported by a Grant from the Foreign Language Education and Teaching Reform of Lanzhou Jiaotong University (JGZ202337). We would like to express our thanks to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their constructive suggestions on this research.