Volume 10, Issue 3

This article discusses the demarcation of contemporary ecolinguistics. It takes a starting point in different conceptualisations of the field, including (1) the claim that ecolinguistics is an umbrella term for work that attends to interconnections and dynamics in multiple contexts, (2) the claim that ecolinguistics comprises two traditions, a Haugenian tradition and a Hallidayan tradition, and (3) the claim that ecolinguistics consists of four strands that orient to the symbolic, sociocultural, natural, and cognitive ecology of language, respectively. Using bibliometric methods, the article concludes that there is currently no unity in ecolinguistics that warrants the first claim. Further, it concludes that there is no bibliometric or empirical evidence for the second claim, as there is virtually no connection between the two traditions, and hence they are two separate research areas, rather than two traditions within one field. Finally, it is shown that while there do indeed exist four ecological frameworks in linguistics, they are not subfields within ecolinguistics. It is concluded that contemporary ecolinguistics is defined by its preoccupation with natural ecologies. Based on this conclusion, it is suggested that the ecolinguistic preoccupation with natural ecologies presupposes treating language as integral to living and the ecology.

This study employs corpus-based ecological discourse analysis to explore representations of the ecological attitudes in English-language news reports on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in China, India, and the United States from 2013 to 2022. It reveals the media’s perception and attitude towards the BRI in these nations. The analysis reveals that media outlets in each country project different ecological stances using varied attitudinal resources. The Chinese media frequently deploy beneficial attitudinal resources to highlight the BRI’s achievements and advocate for broader international engagement. In contrast, the Indian media exhibit a balanced usage of beneficial, neutral, and destructive attitudinal resources, reflecting a prudent and observant attitude towards the BRI. The American media corpus displays a greater prevalence of neutral and destructive attitudinal representations over beneficial ones, suggesting a comparatively skeptical reception of the initiative. The study argues that these divergent patterns of ecological attitudes and the selection of attitudinal resources are shaped by factors such as economic development, geographical context, and social values.

This paper proposes the innovative concept of lexical niche to analyze the ecology of vocabulary from an ecolinguistic perspective. Through the examination of niche breadth and overlap, we quantitatively assess the vitality and competition of six typical Chinese eating verbs: shi (食), fan (饭), can (餐), dan (啖), ru (茹), and chi  (吃). The analysis reveals their diachronic evolution in the history of the Chinese language (temporal niche), their synchronic distribution in Chinese dialects (spatial niche), and their verb-object collocation (functional niche). The findings indicate the following: (1) Shi , fan , can , dan , and ru originated in Early Old Chinese, while chi emerged in Late Old Chinese. (2) The niche breadths of the six eating verbs are as follows: 2.585, −2.391, −2.242, −0.108, −1.734, and 3.889, respectively. Chi demonstrates the highest vitality, followed by shi ; fan , can , dan , and ru exhibit extremely low vitality. (3) Shi originated in the Pre-Qin dynasty, serving as the dominant eating verb in ancient times with robust competition. However, in modern times, it has evolved into a morpheme for compound words, displaying weak sustainability. Chi , born in the Han dynasty, replaced shi as the dominant eating verb by the late Tang dynasty, establishing itself as the most competitive verb to date, characterized by strong sustainability.

This article is about the interpersonal side of the clause in Arabic. It more specifically studies all the different speech functions inherent in the exchange of meanings: offer, command (viz. proposals), statement, and question (viz. propositions). The main question that this article seeks to answer is how Arabic realizes these different speech functions through variations in mood choices. The purpose of the article is to fill a gap in the literature. In fact, there have not been many major attempts to describe the Arabic system of mood in the reference grammars of Arabic. Although this article defines the delimitation of the system of mood in Arabic from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics, it also draws from the work of earlier Arab grammarians which has been either ignored or misinterpreted for centuries. For the purpose of this study, dialogic texts from various sources have been analysed including scenes from movies, plays, novels, and The Noble Quran . The findings show that the system of mood in Arabic is different from its English counterpart and from that of other languages.

Readability receives attention from people with different theoretical bases. Starting from a new perspective of interpersonal metaphor, this paper aims to deal with the readability and adaptation of children’s literary work. Adopting a qualitative method, this paper selects a small portion of the data from a larger data set for illustration, in the hope of approaching the two aspects: (1) the manners of realization in the adaptation of the parts concerning mood and modality metaphor in the data; (2) the strategies of the adjustment of interpersonal metaphor-related parts in the data, and the effect of these strategies on readability. The research findings are: (1) two manners of realizations have been found regarding adjustment and readability involving either mood or modality metaphor; (2) three strategies are evidenced to be entailed: unpacking, demetaphorization, and maintenance, where the first two reduce readability, and the last one contributes to the same readability. Thanks to the consistency in the exploitation of the theoretical basis, the study offers fresh insights into readability studies.

Substantial research has drawn upon the notion of interpersonal metafunction proposed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to approach the interpersonal meanings construed in different contexts. However, there is a lack of review on the recent research of this domain. The objective of this paper is to survey the patterns and trends of literature on interpersonal metafunction in SFL tradition and guide future research. This paper reviews 160 studies published from 2012 to 2022. Four themes emerge from the review: theoretical explorations, multilingual studies, discourse analysis, and language education. These contributions shed light on the applicability and flexibility of SFL as a theoretical tool across a wide range of genres and languages. The four streams of research are guided by the fundamental concepts of SFL and interrelated by the concept of context and the tenet of language as social semiotic. Future directions lie in theoretical model refinement, methodological developments, typological descriptions of interpersonal grammar, and the extension of application areas.

Identity plays a crucial role in determining whether diasporic minority communities either integrate into the host country or resist acculturation and assimilation. Since identity is performed and negotiated through discourse, the study of connections between identity and language practices of migrant groups is crucial in understanding how language is used to express their multilayered identities. Using sociolinguistic interviews as the primary data source, this research analyzes how three generations of a Pangasinan-American family negotiate their complex identities and express their attitudes towards English, Filipino, and Pangasinan. Findings show that their Pangasinan-American identity is performed through translingual practices, which enable the portrayal of their membership to their home community and their integration into the host society. Each participant situates their Pangasinan identity in relation to their other identities – Filipino and American – which emerge in the diasporic context. This study contributes to the research on the role of language in the development of community membership and allegiances of bi-/multilingual transmigrants.