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Title ERASURE IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE BOOKS: AN ECOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS

Author(s) WAGMA FAROOQ

Abstract This study analyzes the use of the strategy of erasure in three environmental science books. These environmental science books draw on various linguistic resources to construct erasure of the ecosystem and animals from consciousness. Stibbe’s (2015) theoretical framework has been used as a lens to study erasure in the texts. He asserts that the natural world is marginalized in texts through the use of certain linguistic strategies; these strategies run throughout the whole discourse to construct the erasure of the ecosystem. Stibbe mentions nine linguistic strategies for the construction of erasure in environmental discourses. These strategies are passive voice, nominalisation, co-hyponymy, hyponymy, metaphor, metonymy, construction of noun phrases, transitivity patterns and massification. The researcher has looked for the aforementioned linguistic strategies in the discourses to see how the erasure of the ecosystem has been constructed. Through the analysis of these linguistic strategies, she has identified erasure of the ecosystem at three levels: complete omission (void), partial omission (trace) and misrepresentation of the reality (mask). It is argued that all these strategies are repeatedly used in environmental texts to construct erasure at the three levels-void, mask and trace. The frequency of the occurrence of these devices varies across the books. The study suggests a new way to look at the language of ecological discourses and proposes further studies on how the use of euphemistic language in these discourses can negatively influence readers.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2021-12-24

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