Constructing Ecological Awareness Through Transitivity: An Ecological Discourse Analysis Of A Ted Talk

Abstract

This study examines how transitivity features construct ecological meanings in Xiaowei R. Wang’s TED Talk “Why entrepreneurship flourishes in the countryside.” Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics and ecosophy theory, the analysis focuses on process types, participant roles, and circumstantial elements, using UAM CorpusTool for clause-level annotation. The findings show a dominance of material and relational processes that foreground rural agency, sustainable practices, and ecological identity. Participant roles such as Actor and Goal emphasize action and consequence, while circumstantial elements anchor ecological actions in time, place, and cause. The ecological orientation analysis reveals that ecologically beneficial clauses often align with grassroots innovation, whereas ecologically destructive clauses reflect systemic pressures like industrialization. This interplay of linguistic structure and ecological meaning demonstrates how language can construct ecosophical values such as harmony, stewardship, and interdependence. The study contributes to ecological discourse analysis by offering an integrated approach to examining how public discourse fosters ecological awareness and reimagines the countryside as a site of environmental innovation and sustainability.