from Linguistic Ecology
to Ecology of Language
to Ecolinguistics
Voegelin to Haugen to Halliday

1Voegelin & Voegelin: linguistic ecology
Voegelin and Voegelin said that “in linguistic ecology, one begins notwith a particular language but with a particular area” (1964; cf. Haugen,1972: 328), and this emphasized the importance of the place or theenvironment or the situation of a language.
This ecological perspective encouraged linguists to describe languages interms of their areas and situations of use. However, the focus remainedon languages.
Language was viewed in terms of human geography: How did theenvironment (qua speakers’ geography) affect language?
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Haugen’s social “environment”
Haugen elaborated a richer “ecology of language” by saying that “thetrue environment of a language is the society that uses it as one of its
codes. Language exists only in the minds of its users, and it onlyfunctions in relating these users to one another and to nature, i.e., theirsocial and natural environment. Part of its ecology is therefore
psychological: its interaction with other languages in the minds of biand multilingual speakers. Another part of its ecology is sociological:
its interaction with the society in which it functions as a medium ofcommunication. The ecology of a language is determined primarily by
the people who learn it, use it, and transmit to others.” (1972)3

Language in Society
Haugen’s ecological questions about language help us tounderstand how languages function and change in their socialenvironments.
Haugen’s perspective helped us to understand how language
can change society and how society can change language.
The individual psychological aspects of language helps us tounderstand how language changes one speaker at a time.
4Halliday goes beyond society
At the 9th World Conference of Applied Linguistics in 1990, Michael
Halliday delivered a keynote paper entitled “New Ways of Meaning:
the Challenge to Applied Linguistics” which claimed that “classism,growthism, destruction of species, pollution and the like [...] are notjust problems for the biologists and physicists. They are problems forthe applied linguistic community as well”; and Halliday encouraged
linguists to care about the environment in which language occurredby asking questions such as: Do linguistic patterns, literally, affect thesurvival and wellbeing of the human species as well as other species onEarth?
5Halliday’s “ecolinguistics”
Halliday’s perspective encourages us torealize that linguistic effects are notlimited to the social environment.
The physical environment can also affectlanguage.
Language can even affect the physicalenvironment.
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Stibbe’s new normative perspective
Halliday is optimistic that we can change out world by changing how we talkand think about it: “We are not the prisoners of cultural semiotic; we can alllearn to move outside it. But this requires a positive act of semiotic
reconstruction. We are socialized within it, and our meaning potential isderived from it.” (1978: 140)
Arran Stibbe, founder of the International Ecolinguistics Association, took
Halliday’s recommendation to heart. Stibbe has written: “Ecolinguistics is thestudy of the impact of language on the life-sustaining relationships among
humans, other organisms and the physical environment. It is normatively
orientated towards preserving relationships which sustain life.” (2014)78