Ecolinguistics and Environment in Education

In the age of ecological crisis, language and discourse are emerging as a new battleground in environmental debate. With the rise of new environmentalist movements and their subsequent backlash, we are now exposed to a plethora of different and often opposing discourses on the environmental crisis and our relationship with nature. This book argues for the need to develop classroom practices which aid students in critically reviewing and evaluating different perspectives on discourses of environmentalism and sustainability. Remarking that language and humanities teachers are perfectly positioned to play a key role in the development of eco-critical language awareness at this crucial juncture, this book explores how they can help students utilise essential critical thinking skills to navigate the multitude of cultural messages regarding our relationship with nature. Employing ecolinguistics as a form of eco-critical pedagogy, Emile Farmer presents key concepts underpinning ecolinguistics, before guiding readers through their application in the classroom. Serving as a bridge between environmental discourse analysis and linguistics, Ecolinguistics and Environment in Education explains how ecolinguistics can be used to carry out detailed linguistic analyses of environmentally significant messages in the classroom.