A Contrastive Study of Chinese and French International Chinese Language Textbooks from the Perspective of Ecolinguistics

International Chinese language textbooks play a vital role in disseminating and promoting China’s ecological values and advancements in ecological civilization. This study, based on the appraisal and graduation framework of ecolinguistics, curries out a contrastive study of two textbooks: the domestically published New Practical Chinese Reader and the French Chinese textbook A Key to Chinese Reading and Writing. Through the discoursal and lexical-grammatical analyses, including object setting, attributes, attitudes, and graduation resources, this research aims to unveil and evaluate the ecological values embedded in these two textbooks. Both textbooks generally endorse positive ecological values, albeit with variations in intensity and ways of expression. New Practical Chinese Reader highlights China’s artificial landscapes and contemporary development achievements in object setting, and tends to employ affect and up-scale graduation in terms of attitude and graduation resources, thereby exhibiting traits of positivity, affirmation, interactivity, and clarity in the relationship between organisms and the natural environment. A Key to Chinese Reading and Writing highlights China’s natural landscapes and environmental features in terms of object setting, and tends to employ appreciation and judgment in terms of attitude resources, meanwhile with less use of up-scale graduation resources.