Lexical Indicators for Chinese Language Ecological Discourse Analysis: Design and Testing of a Novel Framework

This paper introduces the results of an exploratory study, aimed at designing and testing an ecological discourse analysis framework, applicable to texts in Chinese language. Focusing on vocabulary, the study followed an iterative deductive-inductive process. First, a preliminary framework of lexical indicators was identified through literature review, adapted to Chinese language by means of a pilot analysis, and validated based on experts’ judgement. The framework was then tested on a sample of documents relevant to an environmental justice case in China. Results indicate that our Chinese Language Ecological Discourse Analysis (C-LEDA) framework can assist a coherent ecolinguistic characterization of Chinese texts by highlighting lexical patterns that reflect diverse social-ecological values and worldviews. Our work is a meaningful contribution to developing reliable tools for ecolinguistic analysis and lays the ground for further advancements in the field. More specifically, it constitutes a first step to support the development of: (a) multi-criteria annotation schemes for quantitative, corpus-assisted ecological discourse analysis; (b) qualitative and quantitative comparative studies, broadening the scope of analysis to the wider Sinophone context; and (c) co-creative protocols to re-story documents used in environmental planning to address the extractivist bias inherent in such processes.