Ambivalent or beneficial? An ecolinguistic study of news reports on the northward migration of a herd of Asian elephants

ABSTRACTThis corpus-assisted ecolinguistic study examines the representation of the northward migration of a herd of Asian elephants in China’s official English-language media. The analysis reveals that the Asian elephants’ northward migration is conceptualized as a journey and an exodus. The Asian elephants in the news are represented in a mixed way: both as babies and villains. The authorities are portrayed in the news coverage as heroes: responsible protectors and resourceful problem-solvers. Locals are constructed as environmentally conscious friends, in contrast to an earlier image as victims. Based on [Stibbe, A. 2021. Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 14] ecosophy of “Living!”, the representation of Asian elephants is seen as anthropocentric and problematic in some respects. However, the prominence given to nonhuman reports in the official media has a positive effect on raising public awareness of wildlife conservation. Therefore, the series of reports is considered an ambivalent discourse. Those responsible for the discourse play a major role in the presentation of the natural world and the promotion of beneficial discourses. In essence, the use of discursive resources by the official media is in line with the prevailing ideology of ecological civilization in China, which in the meantime serves to build a positive image of the country in the international community.KEYWORDS: Representationecolinguisticsnews discoursecorpus-assisted discourse analysisideologyAsian elephants AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the earlier version of the manuscript.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The use of the abbreviation AENM is not meant to objectify the elephants but for brevity.2 China Daily is a leading official English-language daily newspaper in China.3 Global Times is an English-language newspaper under the official flagship of Peoples Daily.4 CGTN stands for China Global Television Network and is a state-owned English-language news channel owned by China Central Television, a Chinese state broadcaster.5 News-www.xinhuanet.com is an English-language website operated by Xinhua News Agency, the largest and most influential media organization in China.6 The * character symbolizes zero or multiple-word tokens.7 Although naughty is generally used in non-serious, joking contexts, in this text it is considered a negative term. The use of naughty suggests that elephants behave badly because they are unwilling to obey human commands. Moreover, the word appears together with the expression a nuisance, which has a strong negative connotation.