Message from Arran Stibbe:

Dear Colleagues,

One of the first things I did on taking up the position as Lecturer in
Humanities at the University of Gloucestershire is to propose a new module
in 'Language and Ecology'. This may be the first full undergraduate
ecolingusitics course taught in a UK university, so it's exciting to put it
together. It's passed the first approval committee, which is good news.

To get final approval from the academic board I have to show that I have
sought and responded to external advice, which is something I very much want
to do anyway. If you have some time it would be very valuable if you look at
the rationale attached to this email, assess the suitability of the course,
and suggest any changes which would improve it. Of course, I know that most
of you are extremely busy and I'm certainly not expecting everyone to reply.
But if one or two could make some comments then that would be great.

all the best,

Arran

Arran Stibbe
founder, Language and Ecology Research Forum

Rationale for addition of module “Language and Ecology”

Arran Stibbe, October 2005

The University of Gloucestershire has been awarded the foremost international standard ISO14001 in environmental management, in line with its vision of being ‘a high quality community university with global reach which is passionate about…sustainability…” . Among other things, the ISO14001 status includes a commitment to the introduction of sustainability across the curriculum . To achieve this, the university has established a ‘curriculum strategy’, which includes the statements that:

• Increasingly, sustainability "literacy" is in demand in the workplace in the private, public and voluntary sectors.
• The University of Gloucestershire is committed to Education for Sustainable Development and aspires to be an exemplar of good practice in this area. It will provide appropriate curricular opportunities for students to develop knowledge and skills relevant to sustainable development, and to explore values and attitudes, both their own, and those of others.
• The strategy includes a commitment ‘To ensure all newly validated provision as a minimum provides opportunities for students to engage with ESD”

Against this background, and the demand for additional modules in English Language, I propose a new module called ‘Language and Ecology’. This module would take the term ‘sustainability literacy’ quite literally, encouraging analysis of values and attitudes towards nature, the environment, and sustainability as they are expressed in written texts, making use of linguistic tools such as discourse analysis.

At first, the connection between language and sustainability may seem unclear. However, if people are reading books, magazines and newspapers which represent the world in particular ways then it is possible to consider those representations in the context of sustainability. To give a simple example, a poem by Wordsworth may contain ways of thinking about nature which encourage sustainable behaviour. On the other hand, advertisements which use language in ways which portray unnecessary consumption as the path to happiness may lead to more destructive behaviour. Thinking about all kinds of texts in the context of the future of the world can give clarity and urgency to ancient wisdom passed down in literature, and can give new insights into the way that the everyday texts around us represent the world.

There is now sufficient literature in the area of ecolinguistics, geo-poetics, and eco-criticism to provide a solid base for the course, and I have published a number of papers in ecolinguistics myself. In addition, I have produced an 18,000 word report ‘Rethinking ecological literacy: from microeconomics to haiku’ which brings together reviews of the literature, a wide variety of practical examples of analysis, and consideration of pedagogic issues. This report was written specifically towards the goal of establishing a course combining Education for Sustainable Development with language studies, and can be edited to form a course booklet.
The following page provides a provisional outline for the course. The outline will amended slightly after seeking further external advice from members of staff of the Centre for Human Ecology in Edinburgh, and advice from an international panel of experts in language and ecology brought together by the Language and Ecology Research Forum (http://ww.ecoling.net) of which I am a founder member.
Provisional Outline

Week 1: Introduction to human ecology: Describes how the ultimate cause of ecological problems are the social and cultural structures which underlie unsustainable practices. Language plays a role in creating and maintaining these structures, but can also be a site of transformation to more sustainable practices.

Week 2: Ecosystems. Describes how the concept of an ‘ecosystem’ focuses attention on interaction among species rather than considering species in isolation. Practical analysis will include looking at the discourses of zoos and botanic gardens to determine the extent to which the language used focuses on interaction or isolation. In addition to language, the ‘discourse’ also includes the design of cages and layout of the gardens. The class will therefore include multimodal analysis of photographs of cages alongside information panels about the animals within them. We will discuss how zoos and botanic gardens can change (and are changing) their descriptions of animals and plants, in conjunction with physical changes in layout, to promote more sustainable education. We will also discuss intervention in discourse practices, such as customer insistence on a more ecologically based linguistic representation and physical treatment of animals and plants.

Week 3: Biodiversity. Explores the multiple definitions, uses and metaphors associated with biodiversity, from ‘number of species in the world’, to ‘web of life’ and ‘burning library’. Practical analysis will look at how newspapers and television programs can trivialise biodiversity by portraying it as an obsessive concern with esoteric rare species, and the commercial pressures which might encourage them to do so. On the other hand we will explore alternative representations of biodiversity which represent it as a fundamental necessity for the existence of life.

Week 4: Economics. This class will start by examining the discourse of microeconomics and its special ways of using terms such as ‘rationality’, ‘utility’, and ‘efficiency’, as well as macroeconomic concepts such as ‘growth’. From this basis we will examine how economic discourse has a pervasive influence on a range of everyday language including TV news, government speeches and, most importantly, advertising. Economic discourses, and their ability to create social structures which depend on unsustainable consumption, have profound ecological implications. In addition to traditional economic discourses, this class will analyse the emerging discourse of ‘New Economics’.

Week 5: Gender. This class will investigate how certain discourses of masculinity encourage men to engage in ecologically unsustainable behaviour such as excess meat consumption, purchase of large cars, excess alcohol consumption, reliance on junk/convenience food, and conspicuous consumption. Likewise, certain discourses of femininity are geared around creating dissatisfaction and encouraging consumption of unnecessary cosmetics, accessories, dieting goods, fashion items etc. This class will involve practical analysis of the discourse of men’s and women’s magazines with the aim of revealing and resisting ecologically (and socially) destructive ideology.

Week 5: The representation of animals in the animal product industry. The scale of the animal products industry, and the high intensity close confinement system of farming on which it depends, is a major causes of ecological destruction. This class will investigate the idea that the existence of modern high intensity farms depends on radically new discursive ways of representing animals. Practical analysis will include looking at metaphors and grammatical constructions which represent animals as object or machines, and considering the ecological consequences of physically treating them in line with the metaphors.

Week 6: Counter discourses: This class will investigate discourses which aim to ameliorate the effects of ecological destruction, including environmentalism, ecology, animal rights, and wildlife conservation. The question is whether these discourses provide new representations which can lead to cultural change, or whether they are based on the same assumptions as destructive discourses. From analysis is will be clear that the majority of mainstream counter-discourses do not approach the deeper social and cultural roots of ecological destruction.

Weeks 7-10: Alternative discourses: these classes will look at discourses which represent the world in radically different ways, breaking free of the assumptions of oppressive discourse and providing ways of thinking compatible with ecological harmony. These will include the discourse of romantic poets such as Wordsworth, the discourse of Haiku in both Japanese and English, contemporary poets who explicitly align themselves with ecology such as Gary Snyder, and science writers such as Rachel Carson and David Abram, who manage to mix lyrical and poetic writing with scientific discourse.

Week 11: Multi-modal discourse. This final class will bring together everything in the course by looking at a range of discourses in conjunction with the visual representations that they use. Through examination of a range of materials, from diagrams in biology textbooks to the stunning environmentalist photography of Yann Arthus-Betrand, students will get an appreciation of how the discursive features of language are reflected in the structure of the images.

Example Assessment Exercise

Analyse a common discourse that you feel represents the world in ways which may have potentially ecological destructive implications. Contrast this with a poem or piece of prose which represents the world from a very different perspective, one that you believe could contribute to sustainability (you can take the poem from any source or write it yourself). What linguistic features of the poem/prose help to encourage suitability?