Applied Cognitive Ecostylistics

Book excerpt: This book offers an up-to-date account of one of the most influential strands of eco-research: cognitive ecostylistics. The onset of the 1970s saw a global shift in scholarly perspective upon the relation between egocentric and ecocentric views of the world. The so-called eco-turn was not only linguistic at its roots, but engaged the bulk of academic thought in social sciences and humanities. Cognitive ecostylistics invites a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the conceptual relations between oral or written texts and their impact on the environment. This volume is a collection of the latest research that seeks to apply the theory and methodology developed over the last 40 years to both literary and real-life texts, engaging with a wealth of examples from First World War poetry and Anne of Green Gables through to Condé Nast Traveller hotel descriptions. Exploring the cultural effects of the eco-turn, the collection engages the reader in the problem of the present-day Anthropocene, manifested as Ego-Eco tensions at the level of communicating self-needs and the needs of the Other. Divided into two parts, it considers first the human-angled semiotic interplay contained within the universe of people, before examining the problem of semiotic engagement of texts as extraneous to the human, highlighting crucial aspects of nature, culture, and beyond.