'Since Bush rats were considered pests in Europe...'

Ecolinguistics | An Overview

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In today’s Tamil Hindu Thisai, morninger, there’s a lovely feature on Ecolinguistics written by Ms. Narayani Subramanian.

For the benefit of a wider reading public, thought of taking some time off to translate excerpts from this insightful article into English.

snapshot from today's The Hindu Tamil Thisai

So here goes excerpts from the feature for us all -

The Human of the species describes and understands its connectedness with Nature and its various  elements only through the means of language.

The concept of Ecolinguistics [சூழலியல்சார் மொழியியல்] describes how language – that acts as a bridge between the internal and the external world of humankind – functions with respect to ecology!

The term Ecolinguistics was propounded by an English linguist by name Michael Halliday, in the year 1990.

Since the elements of language greatly affect all living organisms including humans, Halliday observes that, linguists should also pay great attention to the ecological disorders, apart from scientists!

To the extent that language reflects reality, it also functions as an instrument that shapes and transforms reality.

The concept of Ecolinguistics hence, examines the contribution of language with regard to the interface between humans and Nature.

There are two components to Ecolinguistics.

Firstly, to examine and reorient language from an ecological point of view;

Secondly, to understand the bond between language diversity and bio-diversity.

In addition, Ecolinguistics also focusses on the importance of fashioning language in a way that would make humans realise their interconnectedness with the environment, and to make use of ecolinguistics in order to handle the ecological crisis in the right way!

When approached from an ecological perspective, especially when it comes to debating on serious ecological problems, there seems to be a lot of inadequacies innate in language!

Added, when such ecological problems are described from a fully anthropocentric perspective, it indirectly results in sowing the seeds for environmental degradation as well.

There is also a fervent plea to users of social media, for the usage of the right and proper words connected with ecology!

In the year 2019, ‘The Guardian’ announced that it was going to give a makeover for important words connected with climate change.

The British colonisers who settled in Australia, came across a little species of mammals that were native to Australia, and classified them under their own nomenclature - Bush rats!

Since Bush rats were considered pests in Europe, there prevailed an attitude from thence on, that it was not wrong to destroy them.

To be continued…

Contact the author at nans.mythila@gmail.com

You may want to read yet another related article on the subject by Ms. Narayani Subramanian, on The Hindu Tamil Website HERE