About the Book
This open access volume is a call for ecological awareness and action through communication. It offers perspectives on how we, as humans, posit ourselves in relation to, and as part of, the environment in both verbal and non-verbal discourse. The contributions investigate a variety of situated communicative practices and how they instantiate and potentially influence our actions.
Through the frameworks of ecolinguistics, multimodal studies and ecoliteracy, the book discusses how the environmental crisis is communicated as an urgent global and local issue in a variety of media, texts and events. The contributions present a wide range of case studies (including news articles, institutional websites, artwork installations, promotional texts, signposting, social campaigns and other), and they explore how communicative actions can help meet the challenges of ecologically-oriented change. The focus is on the impact that linguistic and multimodal communication can have on acting in, with and towards the environment seen as living ecosystems, or ‘lifescapes’. The chapters offer a reflection on the way we experience, endorse, reframe and resist value systems in ecological communication, and propose alternative and healthier perspectives to respect and preserve the common and nurturing lifescapes through awareness and action.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Ecological Communication for Raising Awareness and Ecoliteracy for Taking Action, Maria Bortoluzzi (University of Udine, Italy) and Elisabetta Zurru (University of Genoa, Italy)
Part I: Context Setting
1. Tension in Ecological Communication, Alwin Fill (University Karl-Franzens, Graz, Austria)
2. A Corpus-Assisted Ecolinguistic Analysis of Hurricanes and Wildfires and the Potential for Corpus-Assisted Eco-Pedagogy in ELT Classrooms, Robert Poole (University of Alabama, USA)
Part II: Multimodal Discourses for Ecological Action
3. Discourses of Cycling Advocacy and Power amidst Wars, Petro-Masculinity and Climate Inaction, Maria Cristina Caimotto (University of Turin, Italy)
4. Communicating the Urgency of the Climate Emergency through Verbal and Non-Verbal Metaphors, Elisabetta Zurru (University of Genoa, Italy)
5. Unreliable Narratives and Social-Ecological Memory in Kara Walker’s A Subtlety, Emilio Amideo (University of Naples, 'Parthenope', Italy)
6. (Un)Welcome Waters for Multispecies Hospitality in the Anthropocene, Gavin Lamb (University of Oslo, Norway)
7. Identity Representation of Plants in Relation to Humans and the Lifescape, Maria Bortoluzzi (University of Udine, Italy)
Part III: Ecoliteracy for Citizenship Education
8. Promoting Ecoliteracy in Essayistic Media Texts through the Case of the Anthropocene Reviewed, Andrea Sabine Sedlaczek (University of Vienna, Austria)
9. Picturebook Mediation for Children's Ecoliteracy in English L2, Elisa Bertoldi (University of Udine, Italy)
10. Communicating In and About the Ocean through SCUBA Interaction and Ocean Picturebooks, Grit Alter (Pädagogische Hochschule Tirol, Austria)
11. Positive Multimodal Analysis of EU Learning Materials to Promote Ecoliteracy for Young People, Sole Alba Zollo (University of Naples, ‘Federico II’, Italy)
Conclusion: A Closing and an Opening for Action-Taking through Communication, Maria Bortoluzzi (University of Udine, Italy) and Elisabetta Zurru (University of Genoa, Italy)
Index
About the Author :
Maria Bortoluzzi is Associate Professor of English Language at the University of Udine, Italy.
Elisabetta Zurru is Senior Lecturer in English Language and Translation at the University of Genoa, Italy.
Review :
The contributors to this volume promote ecological action through ecological communication and citizenship education. The focus on the interplay between verbal and nonverbal communication adds a fresh perspective to this still underexplored area in the field of ecolinguistics. This book is an important contribution to ecolinguistic research and education for raising ecological awareness.
A groundbreaking exploration of the interconnectedness between communication and ecoliteracy. Emphasizing the concept of "con-vironment" and introducing the term "lifescape," this indispensable book proposes a transformative process of ecoliteracy that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, providing readers with theoretical and practical perspectives on fostering positive ecological action through language, multimodality, and critical reflection.
This edited volume is an important contribution to the field and an essential read for anyone interested and involved in ecological communication and education, and it would serve as a valuable resource in a course on ecological communication, eco-linguistics, and discourse analysis.
