Ecolinguistics and Positive Discourse Analysis: Convergent Pathways

Abstract

This paper explores connections between Ecolinguistics and Positive Discourse Analysis, focusing on an eco-friendly farm in Norfolk which features in a long-running BBC programme, ‘the Countryside Hour’. Both ecolinguistics and positive discourse analysis, as relatively new disciplines, stand in some need of definition, especially regarding their relationship with the more consolidated paradigm of CDA which, of course, is itself not characterised by general agreement on methodological matters (Flowerdew 2008, Stibbe 2017). This study applies some of the notions found in the practical toolkit of CDA such as framing, presupposition, metaphor analysis, pragmatics and relevance theory and explores their functioning as heuristic methods in data that is regarded as ecologically ‘positive’. Unlike traditional critical studies of harmful environmental practices which expose deviant discursive practices, the starting point is discourse that concords with current mediated notions of environmental sustainability. The aim is not simply to give such contexts, and such discourse, publicity, and nor is it to seek solace in ‘discourse that inspires, encourages, heartens, discourse we like, that cheers us along’ (Martin 1999, pp. 51–52). Rather, it is to shed light on underlying processes at the level of ideologies (in the sense of Fairclough 2003: 9); to make manifest thoughts, feelings and discourses which are felt to be ‘positive’, in a mirror image of what occurs in CDA studies.