Ecocritical Discourse Research Articles

Life, Death and Sustainability through Indigenous Literature An Ecocritical Study of Selected Works from Northeast India

Understanding sustainability in the Anthropocene through ecocritical discourses help us to deal with today’s environmental angst. Indigenous literature critically interprets the effects of cultural domination on Indigenous communities. This paper looks at the works of two Indigenous authors from Northeast India to substantiate how literature through its creativity functions as force/medium of renewal and self-criticism of ‘cultural ecologies’, preserve oral narratives, utilize traditional ecological knowledge, use of conceptual categories like ‘ecopsychology’ and ‘topophilia’ in Indigenous literature to reformulate our ideas of life, death and sustainability.

Greening Semiotizations: The Ecocritical-Biosemiotic Literacies of Selected Ecopoems from Sustaining the Archipelago: Philippine Ecopoetry Anthology

This paper is an attempt to flesh out the biosemiotic and ecological literacies of selected ecopoems from the collection Sustaining the Archipelago: An Anthology of Philippine Ecopoetry (2017). I recognize the biosemiotic fact that every living organism of nature possesses the ability to inventively pursue their environments made possible through an active engagement of signs in the environment. Grounded on the ecocritical theories of Hubert Zapf, David Orr and Jacob von Uexkull and the descriptive-analytical research design, I analyze Philippine ecopoetry and how it can substantially bring readers within the environment itself and experience its attendant forces shaping it on both micro and macro heights. Ecopoetry allows us to better comprehend the particularities and complexities of the environment and the workings of our biologies. It positions its readers within the intricate spheres of the environment. Echoing the concept of ecological literacy, the reader becomes more knowledgeable and intimate with the environmental space recreated through the words of the poet. In the analysis, I recognize the ecoliterate affinities of the poets and their works highlighting ecocritical discourses on biophilia, topophilia, topophobia, anthropocentric activities, holism and systems thinking. These affinities are further dissected with the aid of biosemiotics. Biosemiotics looks into the complexities of the environment emphasizing various significant organisms and occurrences that shape environmental connections and disconnections. In the ecopoems, there are signs and occurrences that can be specifically interpreted shaping environmental connections. These are essential in understanding the processes that make nature and culture experience connections and disconnnections.

Ecocriticism of Slovene Literary Authors from Italy

Abstract The aim of this paper is to apply an ecocritical approach to the analysis of selected literary passages by Slovene minority authors from Italy. Drawing from ecocritical discourse, the author presents a diverse conception of living space before delving into the analysis of selected passages, through which she aims to demonstrate that, in the case of minority literary authors, environmental issues intertwine with questions of identity, as threats to the environment as a living space are closely associated with threats to the ethnic community. This is particularly evident in the case of literary authors from Beneška Slovenia. The author concludes her views with an analysis of literary works by the youngest Slovene authors from Italy, who notably engage with ecological themes extending beyond the confines of the living space of the Slovene minority in Italy to address the global ecological crisis.

Do stories need critics? Environmental storyism and the ends of ecocriticism

ABSTRACT Story, storytelling, and storying are exceptionally privileged concepts in contemporary environmental arts, humanities and social sciences research. This provocation does not set out to exhaustively describe the function of story across so large and diverse a scholarly array. It aims instead to characterise the particular, widespread tendency to posit the making of new stories, or the transforming of extant stories, or the ‘storying’ of a particular issue, place, or dilemma as the ultimate ends of environmental humanities work. We call this tendency ‘storyism’. In its broadest sense, our project attempts to construct a transdisciplinary genealogy of ‘storyism’ in relation to environmental concerns, as well as to comprehend its institutional and disciplinary orientations. For the limited purposes of this paper, we explore how ecocriticism, a field primarily interested in reading, interpreting and critiquing story, relates to the methodological innovation we describe. We hypothesise that ecocritical discourses have ironically undermined their critical values by producing and reproducing a storyist teleology which understands the generation of more, new narratives as ultimately, if not singularly, useful. We conclude by suggesting some ways in which literary ecocriticism can break out of this habit while still participating in the wider interdisciplinary field.

Appraisal Patterns in Selected Speeches in COP27: A Cross-Linguistic Eco-Critical Discourse Analysis Study

Appraisal Patterns in Selected Speeches in COP27: A Cross-Linguistic Eco-Critical Discourse Analysis Study

A Corpus-based Ecosophical Analysis of Discourse Produced Around the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)

This research explores the Ecosophy of discourse produced around the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The study starts with building a corpus of texts, taken from the official website of the CPEC. The list of 18 key words was made, based on three United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) out of 17 goals. Theoretical framework of Stibbe’s (2015) ecocritical discourse perspective is used to develop the Ecosophy of the CPEC, while analytical framework is based on three UN sustainable development goals outlined in 2015. Corpus linguistics as a methodology is used to undergo quantitative and qualitative analysis. In quantitative analysis, collocates were analyzed by identifying Mutual Information (MI) score. The highest MI score (11.26013) is gained by the collocation named CPEC-Deforestation and the lowest is of CPEC-Water (0.87352) which show that the infrastructure project of the CPEC caused deforestation and less affected water.

The Boundaries of an Organism: Purposefulness and Autonomy


 
 
 In this article I want to argue that the organic metaphor— most commonly associated with the Romantic notion of an artwork being analogous to a living being—served throughout the last two centuries as a means of conceptualising autonomy, remaining in a dialectical relation to the latter concept: the structure of the metaphor posited within different critical traditions influenced the theorists’, critics’ and artists’ ideas of what it meant for an artwork to be autonomous, while itself being shaped and modelled by their expectations and beliefs regarding the ontology of the artwork and the possibility of the latter’s autonomy. Over this time the metaphor has undergone substantial modifications, supporting both art’s claim for autonomy, and an attempted denial of the latter. In order to illustrate these shifts, I will discuss three theoretical and critical moments in the history of the organic metaphor: Romantic organicism, centred on the concept of the principle of life, New Critical formalist organicism, which turns out to shadow forth what Michael Fried called literalism, and postmodern organicism, as exhibited by the environmental humanities and ecocritical discourses. The brief outline of the recent history of the organic metaphor is intended to offer an aid to understanding the origins of contemporary organicism, and to show that its reluctance towards the idea of aesthetic autonomy stems from the characteristically postmodern notion of organic form. Finally, I propose to show how the concept of organic form can be fruitfully reinterpreted in light of Kant’s considerations on teleological judgement and Anscombe’s views on intention.
 
 

Literature as Resistance: The Pragmatics of Ecological Advocacy in ‘Oil on Water’ by Helon Habila

This paper delves into the linguistic representation of environmental and human degradation in Helon Habila’s “Oil on Water,” a novel that interrogates the socio-ecological impact of oil exploration in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. By employing Critical Discourse Analysis and the Appraisal Framework, the study exposes how language not only reflects but also shapes the perceived reality of ecological destruction and social conflict. The analysis highlights how linguistic strategies in the novel depict the multifaceted relationship between the indigenous communities, the Nigerian government, and multinational oil companies, presenting a landscape marred by exploitation and marginalization. The research identifies the use of vivid descriptive language, metaphor, and narrative perspective to evoke a sensory experience of the Niger Delta’s plight. It illustrates the oil companies and government as neocolonial actors, revealing a complex interplay of power dynamics where the local population is trapped in a cycle of violence and ecological devastation. Habila’s work emerges as a form of literary militancy, advocating for social and ecological justice through a portrayal of the Niger Delta’s disrupted social structures and ravaged ecosystems. Through a close reading of “Oil on Water,” the paper argues that literature serves as a potent tool for environmental advocacy, with the potential to influence public perception and policy. Habila’s narrative technique and linguistic choices function as a call to action, aligning with ecocritical discourses that prioritize environmental sustainability and community autonomy. The study underscores the critical role of language in environmental literature, demonstrating its capacity to engage readers and prompt reflection on the urgent issues of ecological degradation and human suffering.

Within the Landscape: A Postcolonial Ecocritical Reading of Yvonne Vera’s Butterfly Burning

ABSTRACT This paper problematizes the anthropocentrism that dominates critical responses to Yvonne Vera’s Butterfly Burning (1998). It considers how Vera inscribes colonial issues within the landscape and emplaces nature in decolonial thought. Contrary to claims that most African writers have resisted the ecocritical paradigm, I argue that writers such as Vera exhibit an environmental consciousness. In my reading, I focalize the everyday experiences of ordinary people as they relate to nature in the wake of colonial modernity. While colonialism was dehumanizing to black people, Vera underscores the environmental injustice and capitalist phallocracy that undergirds it. The paper draws from and builds on the growing body of work on postcolonial ecocriticism, suggesting that postcolonial and ecocritical discourses can productively enrich each other in deconstructing toxic modernities.

Demystifying the Labyrynth of The Delta: An Ecolinguistic Appraisal of Selected Poems of Tanure Ojaide

AbstractEcological issues in the context of Niger-Delta, Nigeria have been approached mostly from the perspective of environmental degradation, and marginalisation in previous studies. However, in literary pieces, which are mostly the dominant objects of analysis in those studies, there are underlying linguistic imports, which are reflexive of the beauty of the literary discourses revolving around the Niger-Delta environment. It is based on this backdrop that this study sets out to examine selected poems of Tanure Ojaide from an ecolinguistic perspective. To achieve the aim of the study, five poems are selected purposively from Ojaide’s Songs of Myself and analysed using both qualitative and quantitative approaches to data analysis. The data is also examined using the Eco-critical Discourse Analysis (EDA) approach. The findings from the study reveal the use of rhetorical devices to converge towards emphasising the beauty of the ecological characteristics of the physical environment. The use of imagery by the poet draws on readers’ socio-cognitive instincts towards the appealing to their emotive senses. In conclusion, the use of the eco-linguistic approach to examine the poems has not only revealed the poet’s intents but has also demystified the myth behind the ecosystem of the Niger Delta.

Ocean Advocacy in Discourse: Unpacking 'Seaspiracy' through an Eco-Critical Lens

<p><strong>The decrease in the wildlife population over the last 30 years was caused by various human actions, one of them was triggered by various writings and discourses spread in society. This study aims to analyze the narration of documentary film "Seaspiracy" by Netflix, focusing on the representation of marine destruction. This study examines the representation of marine destruction in the context of texts, discourses, social practices and an ecolinguistic perspective. A qualitative approach was used by combining ecolinguistics (Stibbé, 2015) and Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995, 2003 and 2013) and LSF (Halliday, 2014) to analyze the data in depth. The data used in this study comes from the 2021 documentary "Seaspiracy", produced by Netflix. The research findings reveal linguistic features, including metaphor, irony, and similes. Regarding grammar, humans, marine animals, and the unsustainable fishing industry were found as actors, goals and attributes. However, the highest ratio lies in animals as passive participants and fishing industry players as actors (active participants). The discourse practice shows that between Netflix and Ali Tabrizi shape the audience's perspective and understanding of environmental issues and the fishing industry. In sociocultural practice, this film raises environmental concerns to change public perceptions and encourage positive action in protecting the marine environment. From an ecolinguistic perspective, this study identifies the film "Seaspiracy" as a useful contribution due to its wide dissemination to ensure the sustainability of marine ecosystems. These findings can contribute to understanding how language and discourse shape perceptions and attitudes towards environmental issues</strong><em>.</em></p><p><strong><em>Keywords</em></strong> - <em>Eco-Critical Discourse Analysis, Film Documentary, Transitivity.</em></p>

Without Nature

This essay examines two late landscape paintings by Peter Paul Rubens that are characterized by an intense engagement with the wetland in which his property Het Steen was located. On the one hand, the large Rainbow landscape from the Wallace Collection in London offers the chance to inquire about the relevance for Rubens’s landscapes of the Stoic imperative of a ‘life in accord with Nature’. On the other hand, the approximately contemporary Flat landscape with clouds from the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, which powerfully evokes the fragility of landscape painting’s bond with an understanding of Nature as an abstract quantity, makes it possible to illuminate the ecological sensibility with which Rubens approaches terrestrial interconnections even beyond prevailing orders of Nature and their implicit hierarchies. In sum, this paper proposes to sound out fresh perspectives that early modern art history can contribute to recent ecocritical discourses.

Voicing the Silence of the Stigmatised: Communication with the Landscape in Selected Poems of Thomas Hardy and Gerard Manley Hopkins

Most human beings continue to erroneously claim speech and communication as exclusive attributes of the supposed superior human race, presumably due to humanity’s adherence to the dominant anthropocentric teachings of the Great Chain of Being. The voices or articulations of other living beings such as animals, birds, insects and the flora (trees and grass), here considered as the stigmatised are ignored or simply rendered inexistent by humans. This paper investigates he communicative abilities of landscape beings as delineated in selected poems of Thomas Hardy and Gerard Manley Hopkins. It adopts the ecocritical views of Cheryll Glotfelty, Christopher Manes and Michael J. McDowell to argue that the notion speech and communication is not limited to humans. The paper stresses that non-human beings are endowed with the ability to communicate and that it is possible for humans to learn the language of other beings for mutual communication. It further stresses that an understanding of the speech and communication potentials of the non-human neighbours of humankind would trigger a reconsideration of the ‘inferior’ position human beings have ascribed to other creatures. The paper emphasises that keen observation of the behaviour, facial expressions and postures of non-humans would facilitate the understanding of their language and communication. It equally sees Manes’ and McDowell’s ecocritical discourses as suitable perspectives to be adopt in order to fill the existing communication gap between humans and other landscape beings. The paper concludes that mutual communication between landscape beings would curb the indifference, negligence and, above all, the cruelty the supposed stigmatised ‘inferior’ non-human beings endure from human beings.

Ecological Discourse and Environmental Education in English Textbooks: A Multimodal Eco-critical Discourse Analysis

Ecological Discourse and Environmental Education in English Textbooks: A Multimodal Eco-critical Discourse Analysis

Rethinking African Ecocriticism Beyond Regional Boundaries: Corporate Capitalism, Global Periphery and Subalternity in Nigerian Novels

ABSTRACT This article interrogates the epistemological grounding of African ecocriticism and the semantic knowledge of the label in global and Africa-centred eco-critical discourse. Drawing on important insights associated with postcolonial (eco-critical) theory, it contends that the label triggers local-global dichotomy and crises of taxonomy, identity and belonging, since it arguably constructs the image of otherness for environmental criticism in Africa. We argue that the physical world is a composite of ecosystems, hence the label is seemingly misleading, constricting, and indicts African agency in the inferiorisation of its knowledge production. The eco-poetics of two Nigerian writers is equally analysed, focalising the subtexts of corporate capitalism and how life-forms in Africa interconnect with the rest of the world. We submit that the activities of corporate powers reinforce their primordial conception of postcolonial society as the global periphery propitious for primitive accumulation at the expense of the environment and Indigenous rights.

Love as Trope in Nigerian Ecocritical Discourse: Analysis of Selected G’ebinyo Ogbowei’s Poems

ABSTRACT Eco-conscious writers mitigate environmental drawbacks by not only bringing to the fore existing challenges but also by professing a love for nature and the environment. This article interrogates eco-awareness and consciousness through 10 purposively selected poems from two collections by Niger Delta poet, g’ebinyo ogbowei. I assert that to champion the restoration of ecologically degraded environments, ogbowei manipulates erotic love – which he expresses to the women in his life – and connects this to environmental consciousness and awareness. This is evidential of the writer’s intention to foreground the generational existential plight and despair of the Nigerian Niger Delta. In addition, through the intersection of body love and love of land in the selected poems, I engage with how the poet underscores the place of self- and other-love in the discourses around ecocriticism. These are wielded by the poet to call for responsibility in turning the tides and in renewing nature.

Editorial Presentation: Critical perspectives in social innovation, social enterprise and/or the social solidarity economy

Editorial Presentation: Critical perspectives in social innovation, social enterprise and/or the social solidarity economy

A vicious cycle of superficial conceptualization: Deconstructing nature in social innovation (policy) discourse

Critical studies of social innovation (SI) reveal sustainability concepts are widely used by scholars, policy makers and practitioners on a superficial level (Eichler & Schwarz, 2019). Even if SI is mainly linked to social and economic dimensions, the relationship between SI and environment is still vague and needs further research. One possible reason for this disconnectedness would be the dominating anthropocentric assumptions instead of ecocentric assumptions? To fill this gap, this paper aims to explore the conceptualization of nature in SI documents. We do this through an analysis of United Nations (UN) publications, particularly, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Accelerator Labs. In addition, we consider how SI is understood, executed, promoted and how perceptions of nature affect SI. Eco-critical discourse analysis (ECDA) is adopted as an analytical approach for this study. This study utilizes texts as empirical material on SI published by the UN. The focus on the UN is appropriate, as they are a highly influential institution on national economies in shaping their SI policies and practices. Therefore, this study is undertaken on the basis that the discourse of these documents affects the SI discourse and practices of countries and the field. The contribution of this study lies in its effort to reveal embedded propositions in SI texts through language-driven analysis, then to discuss how a deeper understanding would regain the agenda for long-lasting socio-economic problems through an ecocentric critical discourse.

The ecological discourse analysis of news discourse based on deep learning from the perspective of ecological philosophy.

Recently, ecological damage and environmental pollution have become increasingly serious. Experts in various fields have started to study related issues from diverse points of view. To prevent the accelerated deterioration of the ecological environment, ecolinguistics emerged. Eco-critical discourse analysis is one of the important parts of ecolinguistics research, that is, it is a critical discourse analysis of the use of language from the perspective of the language's ecological environment. Firstly, an ecological tone and modality system are constructed from an ecological perspective. Under the guidance of the ecological philosophy of "equality, harmony, and symbiosis", this study conducts an ecological discourse analysis on the Sino-US trade friction reports, aiming to present the similarities and differences between the two newspapers' trade friction discourses and to reveal the ecological significance of international ecological factors in the discourse. Secondly, this method establishes a vector expression of abstract words based on emotion dictionary resources and introduces emotion polarity and part-of-speech features of words. Then the word vector is formed into the text feature matrix, which is used as the input of the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model, and the Back Propagation algorithm is adopted to train the model. Finally, in the light of the trained CNN model, the unlabeled news is predicted, and the experimental results are analyzed. The results reveal that during the training process of Chinese and English datasets, the accuracy of the training set can reach nearly 100%, and the loss rate can be reduced to 0. On the test set, the classification accuracy of Chinese text can reach 83%, while that of English text can reach 90%, and the experimental results are ideal. This study provides an explanatory approach for ecological discourse analysis on the news reports of Sino-US trade frictions and has certain guiding significance for the comparative research on political news reports under different ideologies between China and the United States.

Metafora w dyskursie ekokrytycznym. Od retoryki do ontologii

Metaphor in Ecocritical Discourse. From Rhetoric to Ontology: Despite their initial mistrust towards the metaphorical language, ecocritics have started to attach increasing importance to the use of metaphors, and now they more frequently analyse the language used to talk about nature and the climate crisis. An important task of ecopoetics is to revise the understanding of the nature and function of language, inherited from poststructuralism. One of the areas of such revision is reflection – often entering the area of ontology – on the function, performance and nature of metaphor. There are various concepts, but they have some common features, resulting from holistic thinking about reality. In my article I analyse and sometimes criticize selected ecopoetic and ecocritical approaches to metaphor.