Regions of the world with greatest biodiversity are shown to exhibit greatest linguistic diversity, strongly suggesting that the relationship between language and ecology is both symbiotic and spatially and temporally determined. This volume examines the expressions of, and threats and challenges to, this relationship in southern and eastern Arabia. Exploring the ways in which indigenous languages reflect the close relationship between people and their natural environment, this book presents an overview of the key threats and challenges, and introduces the methodologies used to investigate them. Across the chapters, case studies are presented dealing with language, gesture and ecology, the significance of naming, the role of narratives in the language–ecology relationship, and conservation and revitalisation of bio-cultural diversity in Arabia. Taking a multidisciplinary view, this book argues for the central role that language plays in facing the challenges and threats to bio-cultural diversity, and presents methods for the study of the language–nature relationship that can be applied globally.

Moving beyond a more traditional view of language as a discrete sociocultural and cognitive entity that distorts our understanding of surrounding ecologies, this book argues that the starting point for ecolinguistics is an appreciation of language as not just about nature, but of nature. Exploring this conceptual change in the field, the book presents a process view in which language is substituted by languaging, emphasising the bioecologies that we cohabit with numerous other species. It puts forward this perspective by looking at the theoretical considerations behind the understanding of languaging as bioecological, and through examining languaging in various contexts and places. Drawing on examples from across the world, it addresses topics such as climate catastrophes, corporate narratives, questions of ecological leadership, the bioecological implications of the COVID pandemic, and relational landscapes. It also makes use of data from across multiple bioecological settings, including the dairy and agricultural industries.

This open access volume is a call for ecological awareness and action through communication. It offers perspectives on how we, as humans, posit ourselves in relation to, and as part of, the environment in both verbal and non-verbal discourse. The contributions investigate a variety of situated communicative practices and how they instantiate and potentially influence our actions. Through the frameworks of ecolinguistics, multimodal studies and ecoliteracy, the book discusses how the environmental crisis is communicated as an urgent global and local issue in a variety of media, texts and events. The contributions present a wide range of case studies (including news articles, institutional websites, artwork installations, promotional texts, signposting, social campaigns and other), and they explore how communicative actions can help meet the challenges of ecologically-oriented change. The focus is on the impact that linguistic and multimodal communication can have on acting in, with and towards the environment seen as living ecosystems, or 'lifescapes'. The chapters offer a reflection on the way we experience, endorse, reframe and resist value systems in ecological communication, and propose alternative and healthier perspectives to respect and preserve the common and nurturing lifescapes through awareness and action. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

In the age of ecological crisis, language and discourse are emerging as a new battleground in the environmental debate. With the rise of new environmentalist movements and their subsequent backlash, we are now exposed to a plethora of different and often opposing discourses on the environmental crisis and our relationship with nature. This book argues for the need to develop classroom practices which aid students in critically reviewing and evaluating different perspectives on discourses of environmentalism and sustainability. Remarking that language and humanities teachers are perfectly positioned to play a key role in the development of eco-critical language awareness at this crucial juncture, this book explores how they can help students utilise a critical perspective to navigate the multitude of cultural messages regarding our relationship with nature. Employing ecolinguistics as a form of eco-critical pedagogy, Emile Bellewes presents key concepts underpinning ecolinguistics, before guiding readers through their application in the classroom. Serving as a bridge between critical perspectives on environmental education and forms of discourse analysis, Ecolinguistics and Environment in Education explains how ecolinguistics can be used to carry out detailed linguistic analyses of environmentally significant messages in the classroom.

Contributing to the rapidly emerging field of ecolinguistics, this book explores the role of language in mediating and determining our relationship with nature and in shaping attitudes and social practices in environmental areas. In doing so, it maps out research pathways for informed ecological debate that concerns both the planet and the discipline. The book centres on two case studies. The first is a nature reserve near Siracusa in Sicily run by Fabio Cilea, where flamingos have begun to breed despite the devastation of the nearby coastline by one of the largest petro-chemical plants in Europe. The second is High Ash farm, a small farm near Norwich, UK. Farmer, Chris Skinner, is a passionate naturalist who for 30 years has presented a programme on BBC Radio Norfolk. Through analysing the discourse of both Skinner and Cilea, the book explores what it can reveal about the underlying environmental visions that sustain them. Together with the discourse of other engaged ecological figures, a picture emerges of the connections that exist between our beliefs/attitudes, language and the natural world. Presenting a framework for analysing environmental discourse from a primarily positivist standpoint, the book draws attention to the discourses that underline social practices felt to be useful, necessary and beneficial in these moments of environmental crisis. Although these contexts are European, the methodologies applied, as well as the ecological and linguistic issues dealt with, are universal, clarifying the relationship between social practices and language itself, viewed in the book as an ecosystem that is also in need of loving attention.

High level linguistic theory monograph looking at the interaction between language and the environment.

Thirty years ago a new linguistic paradigm was created when Einar Haugen combined language with ecology. For Haugen, 'the ecology of language' meant the study of the interrelations between languages in the human mind and in the multilingual community. Since then a special branch of linguistics, named Ecolinguistics, has developed in which the connection between language and ecology has been established in a variety of ways and using a multitude of methods and approaches. In addition to the original ecolinguistic topics of language interrelation, language endangerment and language pressure, Ecolinguistics Reader also gives due consideration to the themes of biological and linguistic diversity as well as the ecocritical aspect.

This book discusses the effects of globalization on languages in Africa. In contrast to previous studies, the contributors examine whether or not globalization is affecting African languages in the same ways and at the same rate in different countries, and how local experiences of language change vary from place to place. Rather than seeing English as the 'killer language' par excellence, the contributors probe ways in which languages are being used side by side to complement each other in some contexts while competing against European colonial languages in others. The result is a diverse canvas of language vitality in the African context, including matters of endangerment and loss, through the lense of globalization in its various interpretations. This book is a must read for students and researchers interested in language change and death and in the fate of European languages in the rest of the world.

In the burgeoning field of ecolinguistics, little attention has been given to the ways in which English language teaching is and has become implicated in global ecological crises. This book begins a dialogue about the opportunities and responsibilities presented to the TESOL field to re-orient professional practice in ways that drive cultural change and engender alternate language practices and metaphors. Covering a diverse range of topics, including anthropogenic climate change, habitat loss, food insecurity and mass migration, chapters argue that such crises require not only technological innovation, but also cultural changes in how human beings relate to each other and their environment. Arguing that it is incumbent upon the field of English language teaching to reckon with such cultural changes in how and what we teach, TESOL and Sustainability addresses the ways in which discourses such as eco-pedagogy, the critique of neo-liberalism, non-Western philosophy and post-humanist thought can and must inform how and what is taught in ESL and EFL classrooms.

This advanced textbook is about Middle Eastern plants and plant ecology, presented within the wider context of the changing landscape, global climate change, and human history (particularly in relation to agriculture, conflict, and religion).