Ecolinguistics and Emplacement: Language, Languaging and Place (Routledge Studies in Linguistics)

This edited volume contributes to recent theoretical work in ecolinguistics that treats language as, not about nature, but of nature.

Through a dialogical interplay of theoretical and empirical work, the chapters apply ecological concepts of language, languaging, and emplacement to a multiplicity of issues, settings, and place-worlds. Empirically, the chapters meander through a universe of chimpanzees engaged in problem solving, children playing marbles, political constitutions, agricultural dictionaries, Sicilian nature reserves, children’s experiences of devastating outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, expressions of sorrow across closed borders, and the linguistic conquest of uninhabited islands. By attending to locale, sense of place, and location across this diversity, the volume evokes new empirical, methodological, and practical horizons that allow ecolinguists to ask how people and their emplacement are affected by language and languaging, and how the effects of practices impact on, not just human lifeworlds, but also trillions of bioecologies.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in ecolinguistics, discourse analysis, applied linguistics, language contact, environmental humanities, and human and social geography.

Stephen J. Cowley is Professor Emeritus of Organisational Cognition at the University of Southern Denmark, Denmark.

Martin Döring is Senior Scientist at the Institute of Geography at the University of Hamburg and the Institute for Coastal Research at the Helmholtz Centre Geesthacht, Germany.

Sune Vork Steffensen is Professor in Language, Interaction, and Cognition at the University of Southern Denmark, Denmark.