Literatur und Ökolinguistik: Anthropozentrische, anthropomorphe und physiozentrische Sprache in englischen Gedichten

Abstract

In this article, three ways of writing about nature are distinguished: anthropocentric, anthropomorphic and physiocentric styles. While anthropocentric language names natural phenomena according to their use for humans, anthropomorphic and physiocentric styles are indicative of different degrees of ecological awareness. This threefold distinction is applied to the analysis of a number of English nature poems with a focus on D. H. Lawrence. The analysis shows that it is a simplification to see Lawrence only as a poet who celebrates the divine “Otherness” of Nature. Rather, Lawrence's writing on Nature underwent a development from chiefly human-centred attitudes to an awareness of environmental problems in the modern sense with, in his last poems, extreme criticism of modern competitive society and its exclusive reliance on economic growth. The article also investigates the language of the American conservationist writer Aldo Leopold and, finally, makes an attempt to use the above-mentioned distinction of styles for an analysis of native American poetry.