1. Introduction

This chapter introduces the revised Communicative English for Chinese Learners textbook and the purpose of analyzing multimodal elements to investigate ecosophy. The study is significant for educators and textbook writers. It reviews previous studies on multimodal discourse and ecosophy, highlighting the limited research on textbooks' philosophical perspective. Multimodality and ecosophy are essential to analyze the textbook, as they reflect the harmonious coexistence of humans, nature, and society. The relationship between language and ecology has been explored, but ecosophy in textbooks has not been fully examined.

2. Theoretical Framework

Language can influence human ideology and ecological awareness. Establishing a theoretical framework based on a certain ecosophy is necessary for ecological discourse analysis. Chinese ecosophy reflects social values and emphasizes harmony between humans and nature. Systemic Functional Grammar includes the ideational function, interpersonal function, and textual function, as well as context, register, genre, and ideology. Visual grammar consists of the representational meaning, interactive meaning, and compositional meaning. Logical relation between text and image in multimodal discourse is important to explore.

3. Method

This chapter describes the data collection process, including a questionnaire survey of 150 English majors who had used the Integrated Course. The survey results indicated that colored illustrations effectively draw students' attention, and most students were first attracted by the illustrations and then the title of the article. Additionally, 88 discourses were selected from the reading sections of the Integrated Course for analysis. The analytical procedures involved employing an analytical framework to conduct textual analysis, scrutinizing how visual semiotics were designed in the illustrations, and examining the logical relationships between the visual and verbal modes in the discourses.

4. Results and Discussion

This chapter discusses the metafunctions of illustration, including the representational meaning and the three sub-processes within it: narrative process, action process, and reactional process. It also includes the conceptual process, which involves the classificational process, analytical process, and symbolic process. The interactive meaning of the illustrations is analyzed, focusing on factors such as eye contact, social distance, modality, and perspective. Finally, the compositional meaning of the pictures is discussed, specifically salience, information value, and framing.

5. Conclusion

This chapter discusses the results of a multimodal ecological discourse analysis on selected discourses from Communicative English for Chinese Learners. It highlights the prominent features of the illustrations in delivering representational, interactive, and compositional meaning, as well as the realization of ecosophy in the illustrations. It emphasizes the importance of exploring the educational elements and suggests that textbook selectors or designers should consider both content and ecosophy. The chapter also notes the limitation of only investigating the multimodal discourses of title and illustration in reading sections, suggesting that a more comprehensive understanding could be achieved by interpreting all passages and videos.