ECOLINGUISTIC PARAMETERS

A PAPER

Submitted to Fulfill the Course Assignment Ecolinguistics

Lecturer : Dr. Nur Syamsiah, M.Pd

Arranged by :
Group 9
1. Ervinda Agesti (1911040079)
2. Tri Rahayu (1911040505)

Class : 6E

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

TARBIYAH AND TEACHER TRAINING FACULTY
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY RADEN INTAN LAMPUNG
2022
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

Fill and Muhlhausler argue that eco-linguistic is applied linguistics that is crossfield
(interdisciplinary).1 Furthermore, Fill and Muhlhausler explain that eco-linguistic as a
broader study of its scope in studying syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and hence the
need for some innovative new theory to investigate these ideas empirically.2 According to
Crystal, eco-linguistic is a study that reflects the nature of ecology in biological studies, in
which the interaction between language and cultural environment is seen as the core: it is
also called the language ecology, linguistic ecology and sometimes green linguistics.3
Alexander and Stibbe define eco-linguistic as a study of the impact of language use in
survival that bridges relationships between humans, other organisms, and the physical
environment that is normatively oriented towards the preservation of sustainable
relationships and life.4

Thus, eco-linguistic is closely related to how language plays a role in, shaping, nurturing,
influencing or destroying relationships between people, living conditions and the
environment. This is the case with the opinion of Stibbe, ecolinguistic evolved as a result of
the development of human ecology associated with various systems (economic, social,
religious, cultural, linguistic, and ecosystem systems) that are interdependent and related to
each other.5

Based on the above description, it can be concluded that the study of eco-linguistic has
parameters of diversity (language and environmental diversity), interrelationships

1
Alwin Fill and Peter Muhlhausler. The Ecolinguistics Reader Language, Ecology and Environment.
(London: Continuum, 2001), p. 11.
2
Ibid., p. 51.
3
David Crystal. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 6th Edition. (United Kingdom:
Blackwell Publishing, 2008), p. 161-162.
4
Richard Alexander and Arran Stibbe. From the Analysis of Ecological Discourse the Ecological
Analysis of Discourse in Language Sciences. (Amstredam: Elsevier)
5
Arran Stibbe. Eco-linguistic and Globalization. in Nikolas Coupland (ed) The Blackwell Handbook
of Language and Globalization. (London: Blackwell, 2010), p. 1.
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(language and environment interrelation), and environment (physical and social

environment).6

6
Aron Meko Mbete, Panutan Singkat Penulisan Proposal Penelitian Ekolinguistik (Denpasar: Vidia,
2013), p. 27-28.
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CHAPTER II
LITERATURE OF REVIEW

A. Ecolinguistic Parameters
Ecolinguistics is a field of linguistic studies that looks at language from the perspective
of its environment. The language environment referred to in ecolinguistic studies is the
physical and social environment in which a language lives and develops. Furthermore,
ecolinguistics observes human and cultural resources related to the natural environment
which are symbolized verbally in the local language. This clarifies and reinforces a
language relationship with the environment, both the social and natural environment,
including language and cultural symbols that describe the verbal symbolic relationship
between humans and humans, humans and their creators, and humans and their natural
surroundings.

The language environment is a dimension of the environment, namely the physical and
geographical aspects of which all languages and their speakers live. To understand
deeply the language relationship between language and environment, an ecolinguistic
study is needed. Ecolinguistics, an interdisciplinary science, is an umbrella for all
research on language (and languages) that is related in such a way to the ecology stated
by Fill7, namely an approach that studies language and relates it to the environment.
Ecolinguistics has three parameters, namely (1) diversity, (2) interrelationships and
(3) environment.8 The three ecolinguistic parameters, in particular the existence and
presence of languages which must be present with humans, humans who are also
highly interdependent and interact with everything in their environment, make
ecolinguistics a life-science, the science of life, and of course a socioecological healthy
life, maintained in harmony and sustainability.9

7
Alwin Fill and Peter Muhlhausler. Op. Cit, p. 126.
8
Ibid., p. 1.
9
Aron Meko Mbete. Loc. Cit.
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B. Diversity Parameters
Fill and Muhlhausler stated that the diversity of the vocabulary of a language indicates
that the physical environment and social environment or cultural environment where
the language is located and used.10 The physical environment in question is the natural
environment, geography which concerns topography such as climate, biota, rainfall,
while the cultural environment relates to the relationship between thoughts and aspects
of people’s lives such as religion, ethics, politics, art, and so on. The completeness of
the language vocabulary also depends on the perspectives, attitudes, and behavior as
well as the work (profession) of the people who speak the language.

The diversity of species, fauna, flora in one natural environment parallels the diversity
of language vocabulary in the social environment of the speech community and vice
versa. This diversity of biota enriches the vocabulary of the language. Diversity can
also refer to or have implications for the relationship between the source and target
domains in a metaphor. To a target domain, several target domains can be applied, and
vice versa, a target domain can come from several source domains.

C. Interrelationships Parameters
The existence of species and conditions of life, cannot be viewed as two separate parts,
but as a whole, as well as mother tongue and ethnicity cannot be characterized
individually. This parallel relationship does not mean that language and biological
species are the same in all respects. One absolute thing that can distinguish the two is
that language is not a living organism. Language is transformed and passed down from
one generation to the next by the speakers of the language and its use. In contrast to
biological species that are passed down through marriage.

The existence of a language is highly dependent on the number of speakers. Naming

and classifying the names of plants and animals and types of rocks depends on the
conventions of the speakers. The term convention here cannot be interpreted as is

10
Alwin Fill and Peter Muhlhausler. Op. Cit, p. 2.
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usually the term convention used in linguistics, namely a term that refers to an arbitrary
relationship between linguistic forms or symbols and the meanings they contain. The
term convention is addressed to the level of agreement on the use of language in the
language community.

The parameter of interrelationship between linguistics and ecology is the reciprocal

relationship between creatures in the natural environment and their ecology which can
be reflected in ecological metaphors with nuances of environmental issues, encoded
into language in a wide range. The concept of metaphor as described by Kovecses
contains a source scheme, which in this case involves the physical realm, which is
coded verbally to the abstract realm, such as the green house metaphor, green speak,
and others.11 Ecological metaphors according to Fill and Muhlhausler, depend a lot on
the sociocultural and cognitive elements of the community speaking the language.12
The time, situation, and domain of language use also affect the metaphorical form of
the language. The connection between these elements is clearly illustrated as in the
early nineteenth century, the need for water as a basic ingredient of life, is exclusively
equated with money which gives rise to metaphors such as ‘central money supply’,
‘central water supply’, and the metaphor ‘water is money’ very popular at that time. In
practice, the English metaphor, ‘water is money’, or the Indonesian metaphor, ‘air
adalah uang’, also clearly illustrates how water sources (minerals) are exploited and
have high economic value, including damaging and eroding the environment.

D. Environmental Parameters
Humans interrelate, interact, and even interdependence with various entities that exist
in a certain environment (ecoregion), give names in their local language, understand
the traits and characters that are coded verbally, solely for the purposes and interests of
humans (anthropocentrism) and also because humans are ecological creatures who

11
Zoltan Kovecses, Language, Mind, and Culture (New York: OUP, 2006), p. 171.
12
Alwin Fill and Peter Muhlhausler. Op. Cit, p. 104.
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really need everything that exists for the sake of living biologically (biocentrism), both
animals, plants, rocks, as well as air and physical breadth of vision (cosmocentrism).

Various ways humans affect the environment, as previously discussed. People’s

attitudes towards the natural environment are based on the cultural patterns of the
community. For example, a society’s view of animal meat such as beef, chicken, duck,
goat as human food is related to human needs.

The existence of these animals which are related to their breeding is very much
considered by the people in the natural environment. In turn, the nature of the animal
becomes part of the public’s attention, in other words, local knowledge and human
knowledge about the natural environment has influenced the way of life, culture,
language and cosmology of the people who depend on it. According to Muhlhausler
that the classification of animals and plants is actually a reflection of the environment
with its biodiversity where the community lives.13

The natural environment is used as a parameter to build or give these names over a
very long period of time, which is passed down continuously from the previous
generation to the next generation. From the results of his research, Muhlhausler
suggests that the time required for labeling names can take approximately three
hundred years to connect a language with the biological environment of its speakers.14

E. Example of Ecolinguistic Parameters

The three ecological parameters applied in ecolinguistic studies are: (1) diversity,
(2) interrelationships and (3) environment, although in this description they are
separated, in essence they cannot be separated from one another. In certain
environments, for example in Trumon Village, Aceh, there must be diversity or
biodiversity and non-biological (abiotic) both plants, animals, humans, and other
13
Peter Muhlhausler, Language of Environment, Environment of Language: A Course in
Ecolinguistics (Wickford: Battlebridge, 2003), p. 37.
14
Ibid., p. 59.
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(abiotic) objects. In that environment, there is always interaction, interrelation, and

interdependence, especially between the Acehnese speaking community and the
diversity that is marked and recorded verbally. Even though the Acehnese speaking
community has the same language, namely Acehnese, the degree of familiarity with
certain entities in certain environments is also different as reflected in the accuracy of
the vocabulary of words that encode them.

Fill and Muhlhausler also emphasize the existence of ethnodemographic variables and
ethnocultural variables in this case language speakers with different degrees of
familiarity and knowledge, ethnocultural variables which are understood as traditions
and cultures of certain ethnic and sub-ethnic, each with knowledge, understanding, and
the experience of interacting, interrelation, and interdependence with certain entities in
a very special and varied manner.15 This specificity is reflected in the vocabulary of
words and even metaphorical expressions based on the diversity of plants or animals,
or also familiar abiotic elements in certain ecoregions or environments.

It is the degree of closeness that can distinguish between groups of speakers or

subgroups of speakers of the same language in a certain ecoregion from other groups in
the same language. It is the variety of metaphorical expressions that enriches the
treasures of language diversity and the expressions of a language. Further traced, an
expression or several metaphorical expressions in the same language, may only be
owned, understood, and used in certain environments according to the degree of
closeness of interrelation, interaction, and interdependence with biological and non-
biological diversity in certain environments.

15
Alwin Fill and Peter Muhlhausler. Op. Cit, p. 44.
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CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION

A. Conclusion
Ecolinguistic is an approach that studies language and relates it to the environment.
Ecolinguistics has three parameters, namely (1) diversity, (2) interrelationships and
(3) environment. The three ecolinguistic parameters, in particular the existence and
presence of languages which must be present with humans, humans who are also
highly interdependent and interact with everything in their environment, make
ecolinguistics a life-science, the science of life, and of course a socioecological healthy
life, maintained in harmony and sustainability. Parameters in ecolinguistic studies are
used to see how strong the relationship between language and ecology.
 REFERENCES

Alexander, R. & Stibbe, A. (2011). From the Analysis of Ecological Discourse the
Ecological Analysis of Discourse in Language Sciences. Amstredam: Elsevier.

Crystal, D. (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 6th Edition. United

Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing.

Fill, A., & Muhlhausler, P. (2001). The Eco-Linguistics Reader. Language, Ecology and
Environment. London: Continuum.

Kovecses, Zoltan. (2006). Language, Mind, and Culture. New York: OUP.

Mbete, Aron Meko. (2013). Panutan Singkat Penulisan Proposal Penelitian Ekolinguistik.
Denpasar: Vidia.

Muhlhausler, Peter. (2003). Language of Environment, Environment of Language: A

Course in Ecolinguistics. Wickford: Battlebridge.

Stibbe, A. (2010). Eco-linguistic and Globalization. in Nikolas Coupland (ed) The

Blackwell Handbook of Language and Globalization. London: Blackwell.