ELS 150 (Green) Ecolinguistics PDF

(GREEN)ECOLINGUISTICS AN INTRODUCTION ACTIVITY 2 You have 40 minutes for this Take a picture and take note activity. of postings/signages that Find a partner (2 persons you think are “green”. Take...

(GREEN)ECOLINGUISTICS AN INTRODUCTION ACTIVITY 2 You have 40 minutes for this Take a picture and take note activity. of postings/signages that Find a partner (2 persons you think are “green”. Take at least 10 pictures per pair. per group) Take a walk around the Be ready to present what you’ve found it in class. campus. Look at postings on billboards, walls, etc. ECOLINGUISTICS Ecolinguistics – sometimes also called language and ecology – is a relatively new sub ield of language scholarship which takes into account the physical and social ecological context in which language operates, and in turn, how language and discourse a ect the environment and ecology. f ff WHY DO ECOLINGUISTICS? Ecolinguistics is an emerging (still) ield whose history roots from the ecological crisis that characterizes the Anthropocene. f ECOLOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC NECESSITIES FOUR ECOLOGICAL NECESSITIES: THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS AS AN ESSENTIAL ROOT 1. The birth of the ecology of language as an ecological metaphor Languages do have life, purpose, and form [italics in original], each of which can be studied and analyzed as soon as we strip them of their metaphorical or mystical content and look upon them as aspects of human behavior. (Haugen 2001 : 58) ECOLOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC NECESSITIES FOUR ECOLOGICAL NECESSITIES: THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS AS AN ESSENTIAL ROOT 2. The contributions of linguists to ideological problems like anthropocentrism in a literal sense There must be an active presence of linguists in challenging unecological ideologies like classism or the need for humanists and linguists to work with scientists such as biologists and ecologists. ECOLOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC NECESSITIES FOUR ECOLOGICAL NECESSITIES: THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS AS AN ESSENTIAL ROOT 3. The contemporary disconnection between ecological problems and linguistics, As far as I am aware, a systematic linguistic debate about the phenomenon ‘ecological crisis’ has not as yet taken place. Consequently, we are at present still far removed from seeing the close connection which exists between the violation, destruction and estrangement from our natural environment and linguistic actions. (Trampe 2001: 232) ECOLOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC NECESSITIES FOUR ECOLOGICAL NECESSITIES: THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS AS AN ESSENTIAL ROOT 4. Some preliminary consequences how the environmental crisis is re lected in both linguistic studies and how language bears on linguistic actions and habits that a ect environmental issues The themes of explorations of language- environment relationship can be topics such as ecological problems of language and linguistic roots of the environmental crisis, and vice versa. f ff Van Lier (2004) argues that ecology can o er an ecocentric worldview which can o er “an overt ideology of transformation”for linguistics and the role of ecology in language education. ff ff This perspective can overtly oppose unecological ideologies — classism, growths, and speciesism — criticized by Halliday Bang and Døør (2007) explicate ecology to o er a framework of dialectical ecolinguistics that captures the main two senses by identifying ecological problems and ecological philosophy. ff LINGUISTIC NECESSITY For the last few decades, ecological linguists have addressed this daunting task: they have sought to re- orientate linguistics to “external landmarks” that could lead the language wanderer from the structural wasteland into a fertile terrain of human activity, saturated by language, interactivity, and co-existence. (Ste ensen and Fill 2014: 7) ff LINGUISTIC NECESSITY Many seek to come to ‘know’ language, not as a biological phenomenon, but as a structured system that is somehow “out there” But Kravchenko argues that individuals should be seen as a “third order” of living organisms in order for eco linguistics to make an epistemological turn. ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 90’s Critical Environmental 2000’s Ecological Epistemological Scienti ic 2020 Radical f ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 1990’S - THE CRITICAL TURN THE CRITICAL TURN Michael Halliday 1990 — “thinking critically” - critical ecolinguistics critique of “linguistic anthropocentrism” where humans, in their casual everyday language, both dismissed and devalued the natural world around them, and used discourse that perpetuated or exacerbated ecological problems ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 1990’S - THE CRITICAL TURN THE CRITICAL TURN Peter Mühlhäusler - Ecolinguistics: The State of the Art and Future Horizons Mühlhäusler’s contribution to ecolinguistics has inspired many environmentally concerned linguists to study how linguistic practices have contributed to the current ecological crisis, and this work laid the ground for the ‘critical turn’ of ecolinguistics in the 1990s ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 1990’S - THE CRITICAL TURN THE CRITICAL TURN - critical move towards questioning fundamental premises of linguistic theories and methods that involves three main facets: 1. Thinking critically 2. Researching critically 3. Developing a critical ecolinguistic voice ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 1990’S - THE CRITICAL TURN To think critically, one should take an epistemological stance that used an eco-critical perspective that falls within the framework of linguistic theories One must adopt an eco-critical discursive approach to discourse by exploring topics like inequalities between human beings and other life forms ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 1990’S - THE ENVIRONMENTAL TURN Harre et al. - dangers of “greenspeak” in environmental discourses Muhlhausler - greenspeak can open up an environmental turn for linguistics which can be used to promote metalinguistic awareness among scientists and linguists ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 2000’S - THE ECOLOGICAL TURN Two Dimensions of Ecological: 1. Ecological concern and the ecological crisis as presented in dialectical linguistics 2. Enabling the humanities and social sciences explore human ecological dependence and ecological embedding ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 2000’S - THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL TURN Kravchenko - highlights the epistemological trap of language at a historical level, attempts to establish an epistemological foundation at a conceptual level, and insists that there are many epistemological realities for observers at a practical/methodological level ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 2000’S - THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL TURN Instead, language is viewed as biologically grounded, socially determined, cognitively motivated orientational (semiotic) activity in a consensual domain. Linguistic interactions that de ine and sustain the cognitive niche of the human society as a living system are a crucial ecological factor, a ecting human evolution. (Kravchenko 2016: 104) ff f ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 2000’S - THE SCIENTIFIC TURN There is a ‘wind of change’ driven by the insight that we cannot solve a problem by using the same methods that did create it. This is why we need a scienti ic turn. (Finke 2018: 406) f ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 2000’S - THE SCIENTIFIC TURN The scienti ic turn “aims to stop the current lack or misunderstanding of diversity, including even scienti ic diversity itself” by “practicing connective knowledge” and “a reassessment of the role of diversity and a new understanding of boundaries” f f ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 2000’S - THE SCIENTIFIC TURN In appealing to connective knowledge, Finke (2020) proposes that we embrace a new epoch of the Gaiacene where connective knowledge can mesh knowledge, culture, and the corona crisis. Such a new era can replace the Anthropocene by integrating connective knowledge with anthropogenic activities. ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 2020’S - THE RADICAL TURN Distributed Language Movement The study of languaging can be the basis for ecolinguistics ECOLINGUISTIC TURNS 2020’S - THE RADICAL TURN Extended Ecology Hypothesis One can integrate the sociocultural and the natural ecologies into human beings’ small-scale cognitive ecologies by extending the importance of human values and meanings as part of ecological structures ECOLINGUISTICS AND THE (POST) PANDEMIC  WHY WILL THE POST-PANDEMIC ERA NEED ECOLINGUISTICS? We are now in a position where the old stories are crumbling due to coronavirus and the increasingly harmful impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss. There has never been a more urgent time or greater opportunity to ind new stories. (Stibbe 2021a: 2) f WHY WILL THE POST-PANDEMIC ERA NEED ECOLINGUISTICS? Overcoming the corona virus crisis demands new stories and a new civilization that combines radical views on language, environment, and ecolinguistics. Using ecolinguistics as a pacesetter into a new scienti ic age can use connective knowledge embodied in ecolinguistics to cope with the ethical and axiological issues in forms of languages and discourses called “coronaspeak” (Fill 2020). f WHY ECOLINGUISTICS NEEDS EPISTEMOLOGY? One epistemological turn and the unsystematic epistemological inquiries in ecolinguistics are not enough to respond to errors in the diagnosis of the ecological crisis. WHAT IS ECOLINGUISTICS? FIVE SIDES OF ECOLINGUISTICS GEOGRAPHICAL SIDE Haugen - ecology of language (origin of ecolinguistics) Ecolinguistics originated in Europe A new ecolinguistics paradigm was created by Halliday by taking a new task of creating ecological awareness Ecolinguistics has extended its area of activity to several countries in which it was formerly not present, where it is set to play an increasingly central role. (Fill and Penz 2018: 437) GEOGRAPHICAL SIDE The larger areas it encompasses, the more philosophical diversity can be used as joint e orts to foster a deeper sense of interdependency. The booming popularity of eco-linguistics as a young discipline can be attributed to the severity of the ecological crisis ff CONCEPTUAL SIDE The concept of ecolinguistics was derived from “the ecology of language” As opposed to this [the ecology of language], European ecolinguistics takes ecology literally, as it were, and explores the role of language in the current ecological and environmental crisis. (Fill 1997: 455) CONCEPTUAL SIDE The term ‘ecolinguistics’ has turned out to be the best word to comprise all approaches to language and ecology. (Fill 2018: 2) DISCIPLINARY SIDE “A discipline is de ined according to its content: what it is that is under investigation”. Halliday (2001: 176) The scopes and frames of a discipline depend on its disciplinary relations to others. f DISCIPLINARY SIDE LeVasseur (2015), it deals with “the study of universal features of language relevant to the ecological issues” A linguistic and transdisciplinary approach that generates empirical hypotheses which describe and explain the manifestation and organization of linguistic processes in organism- environment relations. (Bang and Trampe 2014: 89) METHODOLOGICAL SIDE As an approach, ecolinguistics can o er critical discourse analysis as a discursive practice about ecological systems (Stibbe 2014) and be introduced to ecolinguistics proper systematically (cf. Stibbe 2015, 2021a). ff  METHODOLOGICAL SIDE Ecolinguistics becomes a “new linguistics” of holistic communication that uses ecopsychology and transpersonal psychology to de ine human communication as a life process (Bogusławska-Tafelska 2015, 2016; Zhou 2019). f METHODOLOGICAL SIDE The challenge is to create functional interconnections between philosophical and empirical approaches to ecolinguistics and to apply such an integrated approach to practical problems faced by the users of languages. (Nash and Mühlhäusler 2014: 33) PRACTICAL SIDE On a practical side, ecolinguistics can be positioned either as a pacesetter for a trans- discipline, or a platform, or a philosophy. As a pacesetter, ecolinguistics can help language science enter into a new scienti ic age, based epistemologically or connective knowledge (Fine 2018) f PRACTICAL SIDE Ecolinguistics as a platform would be like a launch-pad from which it is possible to take o in several directions. It would be a platform from which we study any language phenomena from a uni ied point of view. (Couto 2014: 127) f ff PRACTICAL SIDE Ecolinguistic practice can aspire to enhance the ecological turn in both humanities and social sciences by bringing ecolinguistic values to a larger landscape of ecological humanities and above all, seeking to rebuild a more ecological civilization in the post-pandemic era (Stibbe 2021a; Zhou 2021). THREE UNDISCUSSED ISSUES The multidimensionality of ecolinguistics can help clarify three conceptual issues: 1. One can seek to connect the conceptual elements in striving to reach the colingual goal of a uni ied framework that can link the Extended Ecology Hypothesis with a naturalized view of language. f THREE UNDISCUSSED ISSUES The multidimensionality of ecolinguistics can help clarify three conceptual issues: 2. The unity of language, ecology or environment, and interaction THREE UNDISCUSSED ISSUES The multidimensionality of ecolinguistics can help clarify three conceptual issues: 3. Ecolinguistics, as a transdiscipline that reaches beyond “all other sciences and paves the way to transdisciplinarity” WHO ARE DOING ECOLINGUISTICS? WHO ARE DOING ECOLINGUISTICS? An Ecolinguist is a research or a linguist who does Ecolinguistics — an investigator who acknowledges that he/she is going Ecolinguistics, or using ecological concepts in his/her linguistic research, and/or is dealing with environmental questions in relation to language. WHO ARE DOING ECOLINGUISTICS? WHERE IS ECOLINGUISTICS GOING?