英语论文开题报告：A Study of Animal Farm from the Perspecti

　　Topic of Dissertation: A Study of Animal Farm from the Perspective of Biocentrism

　　1. Rationale and Significance of the Proposed Study

　　With the degradation of environmental situation, people are eager to find out a solution to deal with environmental problems. Ecocriticism appears and thrives under such a background. It is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation(Net.1). Anthropocentrism plays an important role in it. Biocentrism is a great representative of anthropocentrism and a main component of ecocriticism.

　　Animal Farm, written by George Orwell, is known as the most famous political allegory in the 20th century. Many scholars have studied it from different perspectives and different theories. However, few of them study Animal Farm from the perspective of Biocentrism when it includes many elements of ecocritism. Nowadays, animal farm is still an outstanding book which deserves people to read it in another perspective—Biocentrism.

　　2. Literature Review (Background)

　　Animal farm is such a famous book that many scholars have studied it from different perspectives and theories.

　　Zhao(2010) studied its black humor from characters while Yi(2012) analyzed female roles in the novel to explore the discrimination that women suffered during revolution and war time. Xu (2009) discussed symbolism of Animal farm and Zhang(2009) studied totalitarianism of it.

　　Most of these theories are related to political perspective. However, a few of them study this novel from the perspective of ecocriticism. Furthermore, the existing study from the perspective of ecocriticism, for example, article of Guo(2010), just focus on Anthropocentrism and ignores values of people.

　　3. Aims and Objectives/Research Questions/Problems to be Investigated

　　(1) In which part of the novel shows that all species are part of a system and rely on each other?

　　(2) In which part of the novel, people can find out that all living organisms pursue their own goods in their own ways?

　　(3) The dissertation will find out evidence that support the opinion that human beings and animals are equal to each other and enjoy same rights.

　　4. Methodology and Data Collection

　　The dissertation will choose Animal Farm (Orwell, 2009) published by Shanghai Sumerian Press as analyzed version for its accuracy.

　　5. Theoretical Framework

　　(1)Overview of Eco-criticism and Main Theories of it

　　(2)Definition and Content of Biocentrism

　　(3)Four Main pillars of Biocentrism

　　6. Outline/Organization of the Proposed Study

　　1 Introduction

　　1.1 Significance and Rationale

　　1.1.1 Significance of ecocriticism and Animal Farm

　　1.1.2 Significance of Studying Animal Farm from the Perspective of Biocentrism

　　1.2 Study Questions

　　1.3 Organization of the Thesis

　　2 Literature Review

　　2.1 Review on Studies of Animal Farm from other Perspectives

　　2. 2 Review on Studies of Animal Farm from Perspective of Eco-criticism

　　3 Theoretical Framework

　　3.1 The Overview of Ecocriticism

　　3.2 The Definition of Biocentrism

　　3.3 The 4 Key principles of Biocentrism

　　4 Text Analysis

　　4.1 Human and all other species are members of same world.

　　4.2 All species are part of a system if interdependence.

　　4.3All living organisms pursue their own goods in their own ways.

　　4.4 Human beings are not inherently superior to other living things.

　　4.5 Summary

　　5 Conclusion

　　5.1 Findings of the study

　　5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Studies

　　7.Tentative Conclusion and Potential Difficulties

　　The dissertation will find out evidence to support human and all other species are members of same world from the perspective of biocentirsm so that they should respect each other. Human beings and animals in the world should be equal and rely on each other.

　　Mistakes of comprehension may occur to author when he read the book, for it is difficult to understand some sentences. Also, it is possible that author cannot understand the theory and make good use of it because of the limitation of time.

　　8. References

　　Net.1. Definition

　　http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecocriticism

　　George, Orwell. Animal Farm. 隗静秋译. 上海:上海三联书店,2009.

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