ECOLINGUISTICS

L'ecolinguistica è un approccio olistico allo studio della lingua e dell'ambiente. Fornisce quadri analitici per lo studio della lingua in ambienti ecologici, culturali, sociali, economici e politici. L'ecolinguistica offre nuove prospettive su un'ampia gamma di argomenti, tra cui la linguistica applicata, la pianificazione e la politica linguistica, le lingue in pericolo di estinzione e le discussioni sull'Antropocene.

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.

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.

scritto

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

Inglese

Questo insegnamento tratta argomenti connessi alla macroarea "Capitale umano, salute, educazione" e concorre alla realizzazione dei relativi obiettivi ONU dell'Agenda 2030 per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile