ECOLINGUISTICS

Ecolinguistics is a holistic approach to the study of language and environment. It provides analytical frameworks for studying language in ecological, cultural, social, economic, and political environments. Ecolinguistics offers new perspectives on a wide range of topics, including applied linguistics, language planning and policy, language endangerment, and discussions of the Anthropocene.

The course is divided into five thematic blocks, each comprising three lessons. Students will learn basic concepts of ecolinguistics, understand how contact under conditions of inequality changes language ecologies, and how language conceptualizes and constitutes physical, imagined, and lived spaces. They will also recognize the political dimensions of ecolinguistics in the Anthropocene and acquire analytical tools for independent ecolinguistics research and study projects.

Students will have to read and discuss a text per week. No prior knowledge of linguistics or ecolinguistics is required.

Contents
I. BASIC CONCEPTS
1. Getting started: New ways of meaning
2. Ecologies as a social construct
3. The economy of language

II. ANALYTIC TOOLS
4. Environmental metaphors
5. Linguistic landscapes and soundscapes
6. Visuals

III. CONTACT, INEQUALITY, AND CHANGE
7. A typology of language ecologies
8. What is lost in language loss?
9. Ecolinguistic perspectives on language planning and policy

IV. LANGUAGE, SPACE AND PLACEMAKING
10. Language in lived space
11. The ecolinguistics of placenames
12. Metrolinguistics: Language in the city

V. ECOLINGUISTICS IN THE ANTHROPOCENE
13. The ecolinguistics of climate change
14. Natural disasters in media reports
15. Eco-Advertising

Braun, Bruce (2002) The Intemperate Rainforest: Nature, Culture, and Power on Canada’s West Coast. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Cresswell, Tim (2004) Place: A Short Introduction. Malden: Blackwell.
Fill, Alwin F. & Hermine Penz (eds) (2018) The Routledge Handbook of Ecolinguistics. Abingdon: Routledge.
Halliday, Michael A. K. 2001. New ways of meaning: The challenge to applied linguistics. In Alwin Fill & Peter Mühlhäusler (eds.): The Ecolinguistics Reader: Language, Ecology and Environment (pp. 175–202). London: Continuum.
Harrison, David K. (2007) When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mühlhäusler, Peter (2000) Language planning and language ecology. Current Issues in Language Planning 1(3): 306–367.
Mühlhäusler, Peter (2003) Language of Environment, Environment of Language: A Course in Ecolinguistics. London: Battlebridge.
Pennycook, Alastair and Emi Otsuji (2015) Metrolinguistics: Language in the City. Abingdon: Routledge.
Stibbe, Arran (2024) Econarrative: Ethics, Ecology and the Search for New Narratives to Live By. London: Bloomsbury.
Wendel, John & Patrick Heinrich (2012) A framework for language endangerment dynamics. The effects of contact and social change on language ecologies and language diversity. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 212: 145–166.

written

Five open-book quizzes with equal weight (6 points each) for the final vote.

English

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development