Attitude in ecological evaluations of college English textbooks in China

Ecolinguistics, as an emerging paradigm in linguistic studies, provides an approach for analysing ecological constructions in texts. However, different contexts feature quite different ecological philosophical traditions. English textbooks, often including imported materials, raise consideration for its ecological suitability for different social contexts. This study examines the ecological evaluations of College English textbooks used in China to elucidate the underlying evaluations and assess them according to Chinese harmonious ecosophy. Adopting Martin and White's (2005) attitude system, this study analyses the selected textbooks from the aspects of affect, judgment and appreciation with the UAM Corpus Tool to annotate instantiations of natural resources. Semantic analyses suggest that the authorial construction of nature in textbooks propagate some inharmonious ecological worldviews. The study not only improves our understanding of stance of textbooks towards the natural world but also helps to explore the role textbooks play in ecological education.