This module has two main aims: First to introduce students to the burgeoning literature on sociolinguistic and discoursal aspects of the discussion of the environment, sustainability and ecologies. Secondly to encourage students to critically appraise the ways in which the environment, sustainability and ecologies are presented, represented and constructed through a range of contemporary forms of language and communication. Whilst there will be a critical flavour, the module will also take a constructive approach, considering ways in which debates about the future can be informed and developed by scholarship in language and communication.

We are often told that language shapes the social world. However, examples of this might seem rather remote from our daily reality. This module examines ways in which this kind of social construction has a very direct influence on our world by shaping our attitudes towards the very survival of that world as we know it. The module takes a critical view of consumerism, commodification, convenience, individualism and economic models and considers how and why dominant discourses around such topics might be resisted. The module moves on to consider alternative discourses which emanate from third sector organisations such as charities, environmental scientists and campaigners and ‘alternative’, ‘rural’ and indigenous communities. The module examines such themes as the relationship between the global and the local, discourses around food, nature, time, history, leisure and pleasure, science and objectivity, workplaces and work, comprehension and persuasion as they relate to climate change and the environment. To this end, it draws on data from sources including advertising, political debate, the press, television and new media, specialist and lay scientific texts, campaigning texts, films, television, literature and internet sources. The module ultimately asks what ecologies are and how a (socio)linguistic perspective on this concept might provide insights into major environmental debates of our time.

The module draws on various forms of discourse analysis, new literacy studies and ethnographic perspectives. It intends to equip students to reflect critically but constructively on their own language practices and those which surround them and to engage critically but constructively with debates and language activities which may be key to their futures. 

• demonstrate awareness of the key groups of protagonists in environmental and related debates;
• identify themes and patterns in language and discourse on environmental topics;
• differentiate, compare and contrast the diversity of forms of textual engagement with environmental issues;
• recognise how to apply techniques of discourse analysis (broadly defined) to a wide range of texts on environmental issues;
• critically evaluate arguments around environmental issues;
• read, understand and evaluate academic literature on language and sustainability and ecolinguistics;
• produce careful and critical texts on language and ecologies for a variety of audiences and purposes.

Timetabled sessions include2 lectures and 1 seminar per week. During seminars, you may be required to make presentations and lead discussion. You may be required to contribute texts for analysis to lectures.Lectures are usually supplemented with PowerPoint slides and handouts summarising content at a reasonable level of detail. These are usually made available on Learning Central during or immediately after the session. Audio and video areused in this module. Transcripts are provided where the audio or visual texts are analysed in detail or are a core element of the lecture or seminar.You will be encouraged to consider the environmental impact of education; resources will be used in this module with this context in mind.

Critical and other forms of reading and writing; analysis of written and spoken language data; presentation; discussion; listening, reflection on one’s own practices and stances. This module is intended to equip students for their lives in the working world and beyond, in the uncertain future that we face. The module aims to develop critical skills which can be used to evaluate evolving and incomplete information. It also aims to encourage students to consider dissemination of critical literacies about environmental issues. These skills are likely to be useful in the workplace and the social world.

The module is assessed by 100% coursework.

The assessment for this module enables students to critically engage with ways in which they and those around them work with information on environmental and ecological issues. To this end, students will undertake assessment which facilitates reflexivity and rests on text construction and analysis. Sample tasks will include: critical reviews of relevant journal articles; collection of naturally occurring data around an environmental issue or debate and evaluation of those data from a specifically selected perspective; construct a text which aims to facilitate critical literacies in others and writing a meta-commentary on that text. Coursework activities will be grounded in use of relevant research literature and will apply linguistic, sociolinguistic and discoursal concepts to naturally occurring data and ‘real world’ problems.

The module is assessed according to the Assessment Criteria set out in the English Language and Communication Course Guide. Otherwise, there are no academic or competence standards which limit the availability of adjustments or alternative assessments for students with disabilities.

• Explanation and exploration of key terminology and foci – Ecology, ecologies, sustainability, the notion of ‘green’, eco-, consumers and consumerism, nature and natural, our place in a changing world, the individual, commodification, convenience,
• Approaches and perspective – Lexis and semantics, discourse and discourses, pragmatics, ethnographies, literacies
• Pro- discourses and denier/sceptic discourses
• Illocution and perlocution – Environmentalism as bad news
• Constituent groups with interests or stakes in consideration of the environment and related issues:
  • Farmers and farming – Producing and delivering
  • Business and commercial interests – Shops, selling and consumerism?
  • Advertisements and advertisers - Consumerism – dominant discourses and our responses
  • Politics – Legislation, debate and commitments - Law and the environment
  • Scientists and the representation and appropriation of scientific texts, concepts and discourses
  • ‘The people’ – Public discourses of the environment – Activists and activities
  • NGOs and the not-for-profit sector: Local, national and international
  • The media (1) – The press and the news: ‘factual’ media
  • The media (2) – Films, television and online representations: ‘fiction’ in the public gaze [and poster session]
  • Artistic and literary representations of environmental change – alternative representations and telling
  • Online engagement with environmental issues
• Systems in contact

Information overload: Dealing with the volume and diversity of information on environmental topics

This module is designed around a set of readings which will be made available in a course pack. It will be essential that students keep up with readings in the course pack and they will be required to comment on these from time to time during lectures and seminars. The course pack will consist of chapters and journal articles from relevant, rapidly expanding sub-disciplines such as ecolinguistics and sustainability literacies.

The following references will be very relevant to this module:

Books:

Alexander, R. (2009) Framing Discourse on the Environment: A Critical Discourse Approach. London: Routledge.

Fill, A. and Mühlhäusler, P. (Eds.) (2001) The Ecolinguistics Reader: Language, Ecology and Environment. London: Continuum.

Fill, Alwin and P. Hermine (Eds.) (2007). Sustaining Language: Essays in Applied Ecolinguistics. Vienna: LIT Verlag.

Harré, R., Brockmeier, J. and Mühlhäusler, P., (1999) Greenspeak: A Study of Environmental Discourse. London: Sage.

Mühlhaüsler, P. (2003) Language of Environment, Environment of Language: A Course in Ecolinguistics. London: Battlebridge.

Pattenger, M.  (2007)  The Social Construction of Climate Change: Power, Knowledge, Norms, Discourses.  Aldershot: Ashgate.

            Stibbe, A. (ed.) (2009)The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy: Skills for a Changing World.  London: Green Books.

Journal articles:

Carvalho, A. (2005) ‘Representing the Politics of the Greenhouse Effect: Discursive Strategies in the British Media’. Critical Discourse Studies.  2(1): 1-29.

Coupland, N. and Coupland, J. (1997) ‘Bodies, Beaches and Burn-Times: ‘Environmentalism’ and its Discursive Competitors’. Discourse and Society. 8(1): 7-25.

Goatly, A. (1996) ‘Green Grammar and Grammatical Metaphor, or Language and the Myth of Power, or Metaphors we Die By’. Journal of Pragmatics.  25(4): 537-60.

Journal:  Language and ecology  http://www.ecoling.net/journal.html

Full guidance on recommended readings and other resources will be provided during week 1 and expanded on weekly reading lists.