Introducing some of the members...

Albert Bastardas-Boada is Professor of Sociolinguistics and Language Policy at the General Linguistics Department, University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and director of CUSC – University Center of Sociolinguistics and Communication. His interest in language and ecology comes from the need to build socio-cognitive models of language life, evolution, development, and death, from the 'complexity' perspective. He is the author of Ecology of Languages. Sociolinguistic environment, contact and dynamics (1996) published in Catalan, and editor of Diversities. Languages, species, and ecologies (2004), and co-editor (together with Emili Boix) of One state, one language? The political organization of language diversity (1994), published in Spanish.

Alwin Fill is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Graz, Austria. His interest in language and ecology was first triggered in the 1980s when he became a linguist and at the same time an activist in the environmental protection of the Austrian Alps. He is the author of a German written Introduction to Ecolinguistics (1993) and co-editor (together with Peter Mühlhäusler) of The Ecolinguistics Reader (2001).

Andrew Goatly is an associate professor in the English department at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. His research interests are in stylistics, metaphor, pragmatics, critical discourse analysis and ecolinguistics. His two most well known books are 'Critical Reading and Writing', which includes an important chapter on ecolinguistics, and 'The Language of Metaphors'

Arran Stibbe is a Reader in Ecological Linguistics at the University of Gloucestershire. He has conducted research into the discursive construction of the environment, health, animals, disability, illness and alternative medicine. In this research he has analysed a wide range of media including newspapers, magazines, television programs, non-fiction books, textbooks and films, within a Critical Discourse Analysis framework. Current projects include the analysis of discourses implicated in ecological destruction (such as neoliberal discourses) and exploration of alternative discourses drawn from traditional Japanese culture. He is editor of The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy (Green Books) and author of the book Animals Erased: discourse, ecology and reconnection with the natural world (Wesleyan University Press).

Brendon Larson is an associate professor in the department of Environment and Resource Studies, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo, Canada. He has a B.Sc. in biology from the University of Guelph, an M.Sc. in evolutionary ecology from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in science and society from the University of California at Santa Barbara. His research focuses on social dimensions of biodiversity conservation, with a focus on the role of metaphors in biodiversity discourse. His book on this subject, Metaphors for Environmental Sustainability: Redefining Our Relationship with Nature, was published by Yale University Press in 2011.

Brigitte Nerlich is Professor of Science, Language and Society at the Institute for the Study of Genetics, Biorisks & Society. She has written books and articles on a variety of subjects in the humanities and the social sciences. Her research interests include the cultural and political contexts in which metaphors are used in the public and scientific debates about cloning, GM food, and the human genome project. Currently she is working on a project 'Caught between science and society: Foot and mouth disease' on the social and cultural impact of foot and mouth disease. For more information see this website or blog.

Catherine Baumgartner is an artist and interdisciplinary "inquirist" exploring the ways in which individuals and cultures organize sensory experience into worlds of meaning. Her work encompasses artistic practice in poetry, collaborative performance and installation art, as well as study of embodied ways of knowing, drawing upon research in neuroscience, cognitive science, sensory anthropology, and human geography. Catherine is currently completing an M.A. in Transformative Arts at John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, California. Her poetry can be found online at www.wingbone.net.

Chet Bowers wrote his first book on the connections between education, cultural ways of knowing, and the ecological crisis in 1974. The title of the book was Cultural Literacy for Freedom. Since then he has written over 95 articles and 19 books that examine how language reproduces ways of thinking that were formed before there was an awareness of ecological limits, the connections between emancipatory/transformative ways of thinking and the globalization of the West’s industrial culture. In more recent years attention has been given to understanding the educational implications of eco-justice for Third World cultures, the prospects for future generations, and the need to revitalize the world’s diverse cultural commons as sites of resistance to economic globalization and further environmental degradation.

Davi B. Albuquerque is a Ph.D. student at the University of Brasilia, Brazil. He is completing his thesis on the Portuguese language variety spoken in East Timor, called O português de Timor-Leste: uma abordagem ecolinguística (East Timor Portuguese: an ecolinguistic approach). He applies ecolinguistics concepts to the East Timor environment, following a holistic view for ecolinguistics. There are several papers on East Timor ecolinguistics by Davi B. Albuquerque available at his blog (in Portugese and English) which is dedicated to the studies of East Timor languages.

David Bland is a postgraduate student of Psychological Research Methods with the Open University. He has a first degree in English and Sociology / Social Anthropology (University of Keele), and a background in market research. His research interests include consumer culture and psychology, discourse analysis, semiotics, and environmentalism. He is currently working on a dissertation project entitled ‘Environmental discourse in action: an ethnographic study of green consumers in Ireland’

Denise Dillon completed undergraduate studies in psychology and English literature at James Cook University, Cairns, Australia. Her PhD thesis examined the consequences of language dynamics, where word meanings vary over different contexts of use for different people. A case study made use of text analysis and concept mapping techniques to explore the expression ‘environmental values’ as used by environmental scientists, managers and conservation activists in the context of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, in Australia. Suggestions for a less burdensome use of ‘values’ include the substitution of ‘values’ with ‘attributes’, ‘features’ or ‘processes’ when talking about the biophysical environment and the management of natural resources. General research interests include knowledge elicitation, language meaning and understanding, social representations, metaphor, and statistics anxiety.

Edward Haig began his academic career as an ecologist in England. After obtaining a PhD in ecology from London University in 1989 he went to Japan to teach English for a year. He has been there ever since and is currently a lecturer in the Graduate School of Language and Cultures at Nagoya University. He teaches courses in Ecolinguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Systemic Functional Grammar and Multimodal Discourse Analysis. His interest in ecolinguistics stems from his belief that ecological problems are not so much scientific/technological ones as cultural/ethical ones and that language, or discourse, plays a crucial role in determining the way such problems are conceptualized, debated and either exacerbated or overcome. His research interest is in environmental education, specifically with respect to ways of developing 'critical eco-literacy' in the foreign language classroom.

Francesca Zunino is a lecturer of Spanish and Ibero-American languages, literatures and ecology, cultural and identity issues in Latin America and translation studies at the University of Modena and at the University of Venezia, Italy. Her research deals with historical and contemporary communication between Western and non-Western discourses, focusing on Latin American ecological issues. She is particularly interested in linking XV and XVI century documents which reveal European and pre-Hispanic ideas and perceptions of nature, with contemporary discourses on ecology, as well as exploring alternative and environmentally-sound cosmogonies. After a PhD investigating Columbus’ visions and descriptions of the ‘Indias’ space (nature and peoples), as well as the newly encountered lands’ use planning as portrayed by the first Italian and Spanish explorers and conquerors, she is currently researching on global greenwash discourses, landscape ecolinguistics, and cross-cultural translation and mediation envronmental and gender-identity issues in Spain and Mesoamerica.

Gabriela del Carmen González is a professor in the Universidad de Colima, in Mexico; she has a PhD in Social Sciences from El Colegio de Michoacan, A.C. and a Masters Degree in Linguistics from Universidad de Colima. Her research interests are metaphor from a cognitive perspective, ecolinguistics, natural risk perception from a discourse analysis perspective, cultural models and cultural meanings. Her current work is involved with perception of risk generated by hurricanes and the sea. She is working on the perception of numinous risk in rural contexts.

George Jacobs is the president of Vegetarian Society (Singapore) (www.vegetarian-society.org) and is a freelance educator. He serves on the Executive Board of the International Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education (www.iasce.net) and edits the newsletter of the TESOLers for Social Responsibility caucus of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (www.tesol.org). His research interests are related to language variation, vegetarianism, environmental education and cooperative learning. He has published a large number of books and articles in these and other areas.

Graham Smart is an assistant professor in the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He has published studies of writing in workplace and academic settings as well as work on interpretative ethnography. His book Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking will be published by Equinox in early 2006. Long an enthusiastic canoeist on Canadian lakes and rivers, his recent research focuses on environmental discourse—studying how organizations such as environmental NGOs, business corporations, governments, bureaucracies, Aboriginal groups, faith communities, and think-tanks employ language and other symbol systems to represent and make arguments about the environment in attempting to accomplish their goals.

Hildo Honório do Couto is professor of Linguistics at the University of Brasília. He began as professor of Phonology and Creolistics, including language contact. The latter deals with the ecology of languages. Of late he has conducted all his investigations in the domain of Ecolinguistics and Taoism. Being a practioner of tai chi chuan he believes that Deep Ecology, which he has followed for some years now, confirms almost in totum the main principles underlying Taoism. He has published articles and books in Phonology, Guinea-Bissau Creole and Ecolinguistics. His 462-pages book ECOLINGUÍSTICA - ESTUDO DAS RELAÇÕES ENTRE LÍNGUA E MEIO AMBIENTE (Ecolinguistics - Study of the relationships between language and environment) appeared in 2007. His latest book is O TAO DA LINGUAGEM, that is, The tao of language, in which he defends the thesis that the taoist and the deep-ecologist view of language are very similar.

Jill Jepson is an Assistant Professor of English at the College of St.Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.. She has a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of Arizona. Her current work focuses on environmental discourse, the relationship between linguistic and ecological diversity, endangered languages in India, and the spirituality of writing.

Magdalena Steciag is an Assistant Professor of Polish Philology at the University of Zielona Góra, Poland. She has a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Wroclaw (Poland). Her current work focuses on environmental discourse, its manifestation in Polish public debates and the mechanisms of creating ‘green public spheres’ in Eastern European countries.

Meryl McQueen is a writer/poet, consultant and public sector project manager in Sydney, Australia. Her current research interests include ecolinguistics and metaphor, discourse analysis, proxemics, Aboriginal housing, and nonprofit sector development. Born in South Africa, she has lived in Italy, Belgium, and the United States. Meryl speaks five languages and has also worked as a social worker, HR consultant, and university lecturer.

Rui Ramos has a PhD in Linguistics, he is an Assistant Professor of Portuguese linguistics and language teaching at the Institute of Education, a school of the University of Minho, Portugal. He is a member of the Research Centre for Child Studies and his main fields of research are Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis. He is developing his work on the interaction between environmentalism as a discourse and other discourses from the public sphere. He also studies the role of children´s literature in the promotion of ecoliteracy.

Tema Milstein is an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, specializing in a critical cultural approach to communication and human-nature relations. Her research looks at the culture of nature and the nature of culture. She is particularly interested in liminal interactive human-nature spaces, such as eco-tourism sites. Her overall research and teaching goal is to explore and pursue harmonious societal alternatives for the ways humans interact with each other and the rest of the living world.