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The Routledge Handbook of Ecolinguistics is the first comprehensive exploration into the field of ecolinguistics, also known as language ecology. Organized into three sections that treat the different topic areas of ecolinguistics, the Handbook begins with chapters on language diversity, language minorities and language endangerment, with authors providing insight into the link between the loss of languages and the loss of species. It continues with an overview of the role of language and discourse in describing, concealing, and helping to solve environmental problems. With discussions on new orientations and topics for further exploration in the field, chapters in the last section show ecolinguistics as a pacesetter into a new scientific age. This Handbook is an excellent resource for students and researchers interested in language and the environment, language contact, and beyond.
List of contents
PART I: Languages in their social and individual environment
A. Linguistic and biological diversity: minority and majority languages, endangerment
and revival
1. Biological diversity and language diversity: parallels and differences
Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and David Harmon
2. The ecology of language contact: minority and majority languages
Albert Bastardas-Boada
3. Language endangerment and language death: the future of language diversity
Suzanne Romaine
4. The Economy of language ecology: economic aspects of minority languages
Alwin F. Fill
5. Language Evolution from an ecological perspective
Salikoko Mufwene
6. Ecological aspects of language planning
Robert B. Kaplan
B. Language Contact (bilingualism and multilingualism) and contact languages
7. Individual and societal bilingualism and multilingualism
Sabine Ehrhart
8. Linguistic imperialism and the consequences for language ecology
Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
9. What creolistics can learn from ecolinguistics
Peter Mühlhäusler
10. Ecosystemic Linguistics
Hildo Honorio do Couto
PART II: The role of language concerning the environment (biological and ecological)
A. The role of language in creating, aggravating and solving environmental problems
11. Positive discourse analysis: re-thinking human ecological relationships
Arran Stibbe
12. Using visual images for showing environmental problems
Anders Hansen
13. Investigating texts about environmental degradation using critical discourse analysis and
corpus linguistic techniques
Richard Alexander
14. The pragmatics of metaphor: an ecological view
Jacob L. Mey
B. How environmental topics appear in texts and in the media: ecological and
unecological discourse
15. Lexicogrammar and Ecolinguistics
Andrew Goatly
16. The treatment of environmental topics in the language of politics
Mai Kuha
17. Eco-advertising: the linguistics and semiotics of green(-washed) persuasion
Hartmut Stöckl and Sonja Molnar
18. 'Global warming' or 'climate change'?
Hermine Penz
19. Media reports about natural disasters: an ecolinguistic perspective
Martin Döring
C. How do language and discourse transport ecological and unecological ideas?
20. The discursive representation of animals
Guy Cook and Alison Sealey
21. Euphemisms for killing animals and for other forms of their use
Wilhelm Trampe
22. Overcoming anthropocentrism with anthropomorphic and physiocentric uses of language?
Reinhard Heuberger
23. Ecolinguistics and place-names: interaction between humans and nature
Joshua Nash
PART III: Philosophical and transdisciplinary ecolinguistics
24. The ethics of scientific language about the environment
Brendon Larson
25. Language, ecolinguistics and education
George N. Jacobs
26. The micro-ecological grounding of language: how linguistic symbolicity extends and
transforms human ecology
Sune V. Steffensen
27. Transdisciplinary linguistics: ecolinguistics as a pace-maker into a new scientific age
Peter Finke
28. Religion, language and ecology
Todd LeVasseur
PART IV: New orientations and future directions in ecolinguistics
29. Ecolinguistics in the 21st century: new orientations and future directions
Alwin F. Fill and Hermine Penz
About the author
Alwin F. Fill is Professor Emeritus of English Linguistics at the University of Graz, Austria. His main research areas are Ecolinguistics, Impact Linguistics, Language and Suspense and Linguistics for Kids.
Hermine Penz is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Graz, Austria. Her main research interests lie in the fields of pragmatics and discourse, intercultural communication, and language and ecology. She is the Special Issues editor of the journal
Pragmatics and Society.
Summary
This handbook is the first comprehensive overview of ecolinguistics or language ecology. It discusses language diversity, language minorities and language endangerment; the role of language and discourse in describing, hiding and helping to solve environmental problems; and argues for ecolinguistics as a pace-maker into a new scie
Report
"We live in the world, and shape the world we live in, through the language we use. Ecolinguistics studies this relation between language and the world. Ecolinguists describe, but also critique, forms of language that create but may also threaten environments and languages. This book brings together the best in ecolinguistic scholarship and contains chapters that merge linguistic analysis with reflections on science, politics, philosophy and ethics. Anybody trying to understand our future life on this planet should find something interesting to read in this collection."
Brigitte Nerlich, University of Nottingham, UK
