On this page you will find pre-recorded presentations which will be accessible on the days of the conference (12th April to 14th April 2021). They will be embedded on this page and kept on site until the next ICE Conference, with permission from the presenters.
During the conference, a Q&A session for these pre-recorded presentations is scheduled so check the programme for more information. A Discussion box is below the pre-recorded presentation videos at the bottom of this page. Feel free to leave questions/comments for these presenters at the bottom of this page via the Discussion, and they may be answered by the presenters during the Q&A session or typed as replies on this page. Please be aware that any comments which breach the code of conduct will be removed, so keep all comments relevant and appropriate. Scroll down to explore our uploaded presentations ↓
Robert Poole: Abstract
In this diachronic corpus-assisted ecolinguistic analysis, the evolving evaluations of the term wilderness are explored across approximately two hundred years of language use in the Google Books Corpus and the Corpus of Historical American English. The analysis identified the most frequent adjective collocates of wilderness from 1800-2010 and employed Kendall’s Tau correlation coefficient to empirically evaluate the strength of the decade-by-decade increases/decreases in these frequent collocational patterns. The analysis revealed multiple shifting patterns in the representation of wilderness with varying evaluative framings increasing since 1950.This presentation illuminates the potential of corpus-assisted diachronic ecolinguistics, the framework of evaluation, and the collocation analysis method supported by Kendall’s Tau correlation coefficient for assessing diachronic change in the representations of eco-keywords. This project is one chapter of the forthcoming text Corpus-Assisted Ecolinguistics to be published in late 2021/early 2022.
Robert Poole is an assistant professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the University of Alabama. His research interests include ecolinguistics, corpus-assisted discourse analysis, and corpus-assisted approaches to language teaching and learning. His ecolinguistics research has been published in Critical Discourse Studies, Discourse & Communication, and Environmental Communication, and he has a forthcoming text with Bloomsbury titled Corpus-Assisted Ecolinguistics.
Lifetime scholar of linguistics, Alwin Fill has been a Professor of English Linguistics at the Graz University since 1980 and became Professor Emeritus in 2007. His research interests include Ecolinguistics, the language impact, language and suspense. His latest book publications are ‘The Language Impact: Evolution, System, Discourse’ (2010) and ‘The Routledge Handbook of Ecolinguistics’ (2018).
Prof. Alwin Fill: Abstract
In recent years, ecolinguists have embraced two topics which are particularly relevant to the world’s present situation. One of these topics is the role of language in counteracting the ‘climate change’. The second one is its role in maintaining and creating peace all over the world. ‘Peace Linguistics’ deals particularly with the topics ofgrowthismand thinking in contrasts, both of which are anchored in our languages. Michael Halliday (2001) wrote that “language promotes the ideology of growth” of anything human at the cost of nature or what we call the environment. The growth-word is always the neutral word: “how high is the mountain” – never ‘how low’, “how fast is the car” – never ‘how slow’. However, the ideology of growth is counterproductive to creating peace, because each nation and each group wants to grow at the expense of its neighbours, which may lead to violence and war. A second line of thinking also based on our languages is our thinking in opposites. Our languages contain hundreds of word contrasts (large : small, high : low, young : old, friend : enemy etc.). Thus, language makes us think that the world consists of opposites, which is counter-productive to creating peace. We should be aware that between these contrasts there are ‘intermediate values‘, which can easily be expressed with language, e.g. ‘of giant size’, ‘medium size’, ‘rather small’ and ‘tiny’. Similarly, instead of ’friend‘ vs. ‘enemy‘, we should at least use three stages, i.e. ‘like-minded‘, ‘similar-minded’ and ’unlike-minded‘ person. We should also speak in a linear rather than in a polar way, which means dropping our thinking in ’either : or‘ and instead following Chinese recognition of values with ’both … and’ or ‘not only … but also’. Ecolinguistics tries to make people aware of these different ways of thinking based on language; it can thus contribute to peace in our world.
João Nunes Avelar Filho graduated in Language and Literature (English-Portuguese) by Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU), master’s degree in Applied Linguistics by the University of Brasília (UnB) and doctorate in Language and Linguistics at Universidade Federal de Goiás(UFG), Brazil. His teaching experience includes languages with an emphasis in linguistics, focussing on the following fields presently: Ecolinguistics and Discourse Analysis.
Dr. João Nunes Avelar Filho: Abstract
The ideology of progress does not respond to the immense ecological crisis that our planet is going through. The new understanding of life as a scientific frontline shifting from a mechanistic worldview to an ecological worldview could be a reasonable and more satisfactory solution. Thus, it is necessary to establish a counterpoint between traditional epistemological knowledge that prioritizes the indiscriminate use of natural resources – without concern with compensating for huge environmental losses – and the more ecologically viable use of natural resources practiced by landless workers in the Brazilian rural areas. These groups live temporally on settlements while wait to be settled in expropriation areas where they produce a variety of organic food, demonstrating their extraordinary knowledge of the responsible use of the land. Based on Couto’s ecosystem linguistics (2012) this paper seeks to analyze the popular narratives of the peoples from the Brazilian Cerrado, the second largest biome in Brazil, made up of tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas and dry forests.
Ruby Rong Wei works as a lecturer at Department of Foreign Languages, School of Law and Humanities, China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing. Having written a PhD thesis in ecolinguistics, she took up her current position at China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing in 2019. In 2017, as secretary of China Association of Ecolinguistics, she and her supervisor Professor He Wei created WeChat Official Account Ecolinguistics, which aimed to promote the development of ecolinguistics in China. Her research interests include functional linguistics, ecolinguistics, corpus linguistics and discourse analysis.
Ruby Rong Wei: Abstract
This paper explores an interpersonal framework of international ecological discourse analysis within systemic functional linguistics. It shows that the sub-categories of the functional interpersonal framework may need extending in terms of delicacy along the ecological cline to construe the ecological features in the context under investigation. The extension can be achieved through an integration of the following ecological parameters into a functional framework: a system of international ecological factors, a system of international ecological environment, and the international ecosophy “diversity and harmony, interaction and co-existence” (多元和谐, 交互共生 duo yuan he xie, jiao hu gong sheng). This integration builds an “ecological” interpersonal framework for international ecological discourse analysis, which is composed of an “ecological” Mood system, an “ecological” Modality system and an “ecological” Appraisal system. The construction of an ecological interpersonal framework is accompanied by specific case analysis.
KEYWORDS: an interpersonal framework; international ecological discourse analysis; systemic functional linguistics; ecological parameters; international ecosophy
Robin McKenna is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. Before coming to Liverpool, he was a postdoc on the ERC Project “The Emergence of Relativism” at the University of Vienna and a postdoc with the Episteme Research Group at the University of Geneva. He completed my PhD at the University of Edinburgh.
Most of his work is in epistemology, but he is also interested in philosophy of language, philosophy of science and ethics. Within epistemology, he is increasingly interested in applied epistemology, feminist epistemology and social epistemology more broadly.
Green Tongues is a student-led, interdisciplinary group of scholar-activists based at the University of California, Santa Barbara. We use survey methods, ethnographic methods, and focus groups to examine the sociological and linguistic dimensions of climate activism with the overarching goal of inspiring and sustaining action. We ourselves participate in several climate justice-focused organizations, including the Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion, Ecovista, and the Union of Concerned Scientists Team-Based Organizing Initiative. Our members include Ivana Ash (undergraduate student, Linguistics), Julia Coombs Fine (graduate student, Linguistics), Rohit Reddy Karnaty (graduate student, Electrical Engineering), Jessica Love-Nichols (visiting assistant professor, Linguistics), Delcia Orona (undergraduate student, Anthropology), Elena Salinas (undergraduate student, Environmental Studies), Forest Stuart (undergraduate student, Sociology and Language, Culture, and Society), and Shawn Van Valkenburg (graduate student, Sociology).
Click here to see a Pre-Recorded Presentation on ‘Traditional Environental Knowledge and HIV/AIDS Management: Implications for English Language Teaching’ by Geoffrey Maroko and Gladys Mokua. Geoffrey is an Associate Professor of applied linguistics at Machakos University. His teaching and research interests include sustainability in ELT, traditional environmental knowledge in ELT, language & healthcare and ecolinguistics. He is currently leading a project on intervention measures in the management of HIV/AIDS prevalence in Kisii County, Kenya. He has published papers and made conference presentations on diverse aspects of applied linguistics. Gladys Mokua is a lecturer in the Department of Pharmacognosy and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Kenyatta University. Her teaching and research interests include traditional & alternative medicine, natural products chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry. She is a co-investigator in a project on intervention measures in the management of HIV/AIDS prevalence in Kisii County, Kenya. She has published papers in traditional herbal remedies and phytochemistry.