Ecolinguistics
Ecolinguistics, or ecological linguistics, emerged in the 1990s as a new paradigm of linguistic research, widening sociolinguistics to take into account not only the social context in which language is embedded, but also the environment.
Michael Halliday's 1990 speech New ways of Meaning: the challenge to applied linguistics is often credited as a work which provided the stimulus for some linguists to consider the ecological context and consequences of language. Among other things, the challenge that Halliday put forward was to make linguistics relevant to overarching contemporary issues, particularly the widespread destruction of ecosystems. The main example Halliday gave was that of "economic growth", describing how "countless texts repeated daily all around the world contain a simple message: growth is good. Many is better than few, more is better than less, big is better than small, grow is better than shrink", which leads to environmentally destructive consequences.
Overview
Since Halliday's initial comments, ecolinguistics has developed in several directions, employing a range of linguistic tools to investigate language in an environmental context. The International Ecolinguistics Association characterizes ecolinguistics in these terms:"Ecolinguistics explores the role of language in the life-sustaining interactions of humans, other species and the physical environment. The first aim is to develop linguistic theories which see humans not only as part of society, but also as part of the larger ecosystems that life depends on. The second aim is to show how linguistics can be used to address key ecological issues, from climate change and biodiversity loss to environmental justice."In this way, the 'eco' of ecolinguistics corresponds to ecology in its technical sense of the relationship of organisms with other organisms and the physical environment. This is a sense shared with other environmental humanities disciplines such as ecocriticism and ecopsychology.
The term 'ecolinguistics' has also been used with a metaphorical sense of 'ecology', for example in 'linguistic ecology', in ways which do not include consideration of other species or the physical environment. This is becoming less prevalent as of 2018.
Another aspect of ecolinguistics is linguistic diversity and the embedding of traditional environmental knowledge in local languages. In 1996, David Abram's book, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World, described how the wider environment shapes language in oral cultures, helping people attune to their environment and live sustainably within it. According to Abram, writing has gradually alienated people in literate cultures from the natural world, to the extent that "our organic attunement to the local earth is thwarted by our ever-increasing intercourse with our own signs". As dominant languages such as English spread across the world, environmental knowledge embedded in local cultures is lost.
There are two main areas of interest for ecolinguistics. The first can be described as 'The environmental analysis of language' and the second as 'language diversity'.
Environmental analysis of language
The environmental analysis of language draws on a wide range of linguistic tools including critical discourse analysis, framing theory, cognitive linguistics, identity theory, rhetoric and systemic functional grammar to reveal underlying views or the 'stories we live by'. The stories we live by are cognitive structures in the minds of individuals or across a society which influence how people treat each other, other animals, plants, forests, rivers and the physical environment. The stories are questioned from an environmental perspective with reference to an environmental framework, and judged to encourage people to protect ecosystems, or encourage behavior which damages those ecosystems. Ecolinguistics attempts to make a practical difference in the world through resisting destructive stories and contributing to the search for new stories to live by. Stories which ecolinguists claim are destructive are about consumerism, unlimited economic growth, advertising, intensive farming, and those which represent nature as a machine or a resource. Using "positive discourse analysis", ecolinguistics has also searched for new stories to live by through exploring nature writing, poetry, environmental writing and traditional forms of language around the world.This form of analysis started with the application of critical discourse analysis to texts about environmentalism, in order to reveal hidden assumptions and messages and comment on the effectiveness of these in achieving environmental aims. It then developed to include analysis of any discourse which has potential consequences for the future of ecosystems, such as neoliberal economics, consumerism, gender, politics, agriculture and nature. The cognitive approach and the term 'stories we live by' was introduced by Stibbe in 2015, which describes eight kinds of story: ideology, framing, metaphor, evaluation, identity, conviction, salience and erasure. Approaches such as environmental communication and ecocriticism have broadly similar aims and techniques to this form of ecolinguistics.
Language diversity
Language diversity is part of ecolinguistics because of the relationship between diversity of local languages and biodiversity. This relationship arises because of the cultural adaptation to the environment that is encoded in local languages. The forces of globalisation are allowing dominant languages to spread, and replace these local languages. This leads to a loss of both sustainable local cultures and the important traditional ecological knowledge contained within their languages. Ecolinguistic research aims to protect both cultural diversity and the linguistic diversity that supports it. The United Nations Environment Program's position that:Nettle and Romaine write that "delicate tropical environments in particular must be managed with care and skill. It is indigenous peoples who have the relevant practical knowledge, since they have been successfully making a living in them for hundreds of generations. Much of this detailed knowledge about local ecosystems is encoded in indigenous language and rapidly being lost".
Overall, language diversity is part of ecolinguistics because of the correlation between the diversity of language and biological diversity, with the knowledge of nature embedded in local cultures being the link between the two.