The natural ecology of language
Definition
The natural ecology of language is an approach that investigates how language exists in its natural ecology: it is primarily concerned with investigating how language relates to its biological and ecosystemic surroundings (topography, climate, fauna, flora, etc.)[1] The ecology of language as a framework was put forth by Einar Haugen in his work The ecology of language (1972), in which he defines language ecology to be "the study of interactions between any given language and its environment." [2]
There are general ways in which the natural environment can be reflected in a language. For example, the language-specific knowledge related to plants, animals, and environment can be reflected in the vocabularies of languages, and the topography of the language environment can be reflected in the demonstrative system of a language. Additionally, the classification of flora and fauna based on Latin is attested in many languages.
Some concrete studies on how language is affected by its ecology
- Everett (2013) on how altitude influences linguistic sounds
- Everett et al. (2015) and Everett 2017 on how climate affects the phonological systems of languages
- Blasi et al. (2019) on how changes in human bite configuration has affected the sound systems of languages
Ecological Discourse Analysis (EDA)
Human interaction with the environment is both mediated and influenced by language. EDA is the analysis of any type of discourse under the ecological framework.[3] According to Alexander and Stibbe (2014), EDA can be divided into two main strands: (1) the analysis of ecological discourse and (2) the ecological analysis of discourse. The first deals with “the ways humans use language to talk about ecology” (Alexander and Stibbe 2014: 105). It represents the strand of ecolinguistics which Fill and Mühlhäusler (2001: 6)[4] in their definition of critical ecolinguistics identified as the text-critical one. The second strand takes into account that other discourses, too, have an impact on how humans treat the systems that support life. It includes the system-critical part discussed by Fill and Mühlhäusler (2001: 6) which was pioneered by Halliday’s (1990) “New Ways of Meaning: The Challenge to Applied Linguistics”.
Ecosystemic Linguistics
Ecosystemic Linguistics is an approach developed by the Brazilian ecolinguist Hildo Honório do Couto (2018). According to this approach, the linguist should be an ecologist who studies language phenomena rather than just applying the Penz and Fill ecology metaphor to language. Language is viewed as a process of interaction that consists of the following three types: person-person interaction (communication), person-environment interaction (reference), and structural interaction (grammar).
The linguistic fields related to the natural ecology of language are multiple, as are the possible research questions that could be investigated relating to the natural ecology of language.
- ↑ Steffensen, S. V. & Fill, A. (2014), 'Ecolinguistics: the state of the art and future horizons', Language Sciences, 41, pp. 6-25.
- ↑ Haugen, Einar. 1972. The ecology of language. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- ↑ Alexander, R., & Stibbe, A. (2014). From the analysis of ecological discourse to the ecological analysis of discourse. Language Sciences, 41, 104-110.
- ↑ Fill, A. & Mühlhäusler, P. 2001. The ecolinguistics reader: Language, ecology, and environment. London & New York: Continuum.
