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    Salience in Ecolinguistics

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    FarazAhmed
    This document provides an overview of the concept of salience in language and social cognition. It defines salience as a story that represents an area of life as important and worthy of consideration. It notes that salience patterns in language can give prominence to certain topics. The document then provides examples from new nature writing that demonstrate linguistic patterns of salience, such as using active agents and verbs to represent animals, focusing on their individual characteristics, employing vivid sense images, and describing them in visually salient ways.

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    Salience in Ecolinguistics

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    FarazAhmed
    17 views24 pages
    This document provides an overview of the concept of salience in language and social cognition. It defines salience as a story that represents an area of life as important and worthy of consideration. It notes that salience patterns in language can give prominence to certain topics. The document then provides examples from new nature writing that demonstrate linguistic patterns of salience, such as using active agents and verbs to represent animals, focusing on their individual characteristics, employing vivid sense images, and describing them in visually salient ways.

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    Salience element in ecolinguistics

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    This document provides an overview of the concept of salience in language and social cognition. It defines salience as a story that represents an area of life as important and worthy of consideration. It notes that salience patterns in language can give prominence to certain topics. The document then provides examples from new nature writing that demonstrate linguistic patterns of salience, such as using active agents and verbs to represent animals, focusing on their individual characteristics, employing vivid sense images, and describing them in visually salient ways.

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    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    17 views24 pages

    Salience in Ecolinguistics

    Uploaded by

    FarazAhmed
    This document provides an overview of the concept of salience in language and social cognition. It defines salience as a story that represents an area of life as important and worthy of consideration. It notes that salience patterns in language can give prominence to certain topics. The document then provides examples from new nature writing that demonstrate linguistic patterns of salience, such as using active agents and verbs to represent animals, focusing on their individual characteristics, employing vivid sense images, and describing them in visually salient ways.

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    You are on page 1of 24

    The Stories

    We Live By
    A free online course
    in ecolinguistics

    by Arran Stibbe
    www.storiesweliveby.org.uk University of
    Gloucestershire
    Part 9: Salience
    Social Cognition Linguistic Manifestation
    Type Explanation What to look for
    ideology a story of how the world is and should be discourses, i.e., clusters of linguistic features
    which is shared by members of a group characteristically used by the group
    framing a story that uses a packet of knowledge trigger words which bring a frame to mind
    about an area of life (a frame) to structure
    another area of life
    metaphor a story that uses a frame to structure a trigger words which bring a specific and
    (a type of distinct and clearly different area of life distinct frame to mind
    framing)
    evaluation a story about whether an area of life is good appraisal patterns, i.e., patterns of language
    or bad which represent an area of life positively or
    negatively
    identity a story about what it means to be a forms of language which define the
    particular kind of person characteristics of certain kinds of people
    conviction a story about whether a particular facticity patterns, i.e., patterns of linguistic
    description of the world is true, uncertain or features which represent descriptions of the
    false world as true, uncertain or false
    erasure a story that an area of life is unimportant or patterns of language which fail to represent a
    unworthy of consideration particular area of life at all, or which
    background or distort it
    salience a story that an area of life is important and patterns of language which give prominence
    worthy of consideration to an area of life
     a story that an area of life is important and
    worthy of consideration

    Salience
    “We can be ethical only in relation
    to something we can see, feel,
    understand, love, or otherwise
    have faith in” (Aldo Leopold)
    EXAMPLE
    GEORGE
    CHIEF DAN
    The time will soon be here when my
    grandchild will long for the cry of a
    loon, the flash of a salmon, the whisper
    of spruce needles, or the screech of an
    eagle. (Chief Dan George)

    ANIMALS AND PLANTS ARE


    IMPORTANT IN THEMSELVES
    Stories influence how we:
    THINK TALK and ACT

    Salience Salience pattern Impact

    ANIMALS AND PLANTS ARE


    IMPORTANT IN THEMSELVES
    Salience in New Nature
    Writing
     She [a grizzly bear] raised her head above the tops of
    the fireweed and sniffed and stared…We watched
    each other. I don’t know what she thought. I revered
    her… (NW1:6).

     Whatever he was, this bird was beautiful. His new,


    fresh feathers were lavender and navy, shading to a
    fine line of black towards the tips of his winds, his
    eyes bright and watching (NW7:7).

    pronouns
     Then they [birds] lifted up, flexed, soared…They
    glided towards me – no hurry, just riding the wind,
    sliding across the eddies. They came close…They
    were sporting over the villages, lifting on gusts that
    took them sailing clean over cottages…arcing across
    the hedges…I watched one close to as it turned into
    the wind. It raised its wings…and gathered the air
    in, folded it into itself (NW5:114).

    active agents
     Then they [birds] lifted up, flexed, soared…They
    glided towards me – no hurry, just riding the wind,
    sliding across the eddies. They came close…They
    were sporting over the villages, lifting on gusts that
    took them sailing clean over cottages…arcing across
    the hedges…I watched one close to as it turned into
    the wind. It raised its wings…and gathered the air
    in, folded it into itself (NW5:114).

    active agents
     peregrines, ospreys, peewits,
    cranes, salmon, ravens, herons,
    gannets, corncrakes, minke
    whales, snow geese, bald
    eagles, Canada geese, grizzly
    bears, badgers, kites, rats,
    nightingales, magpies, beavers,
    whooper swans, otters, golden
    eagles, swifts, larks, hares,
    deer, and sparrows.

    basic level
     Deer bounded along the stubble edge as
    geese returned to their roosts from grain
    fields: smudges and specks of geese above
    the low sun. (NW2:93)

     He [a peregrine] flew in an easy loop, and


    when the sunlight glanced his undersides
    they were pale and banded like rippled
    sycamore (NW3:30)

    sense image
     He [a peregrine] flew in an
    easy loop, and when the
    sunlight glanced his
    undersides they were pale
    and banded like rippled
    sycamore (NW3:30)

    visual salience
    EXAMPLE individualisation

    A cul-de-sac is being
    drenched in bird droppings The starling I personally
    after it was invaded by a knew was Max…I think of
    flock of more than 20,000 the nature of his character,
    starlings. Like a scene from the exquisite sweetness of
    Alfred Hitchcock's thriller his evening solos as well as
    The Birds, the huge swarm the extraordinary beauty of
    turns the sky black each the bird, the gilded
    dawn and dusk as they feathers, the neatness of
    prepare to feed or roost for wing as he flew…(NW7:55).
    the night (Daily Mail).
    End of Part 9
    BASED ON

    chapter 9 of

    Stibbe, Arran (2015)


    Ecolinguistics: language,
    ecology and the stories we
    live by. London: Routledge
    CREDITS

    Produced by Arran Stibbe, with the assistance of:

    Charlotte Dover
    Alex James
    Meg Shaw
    Nicole Walker

    and other volunteers from the International Ecolinguistics Association


    and the University of Gloucestershire.

    Filming by Unit One Films, http://unit1films.co.uk


    COPYRIGHT

    These materials have been produced for


    public benefit and the producer places no
    restriction on their subsequent re-use for
    any purpose. However, copyright of images
    and quotations used in these materials
    remains with the original producers.
    IMAGES

    Head cogs Copyright: Krisdog / 123RF Stock Photo


    (www.123rf.com/profile_Krisdog)
    World Copyright: robertsrob / 123RF Stock Photo
    (www.123rf.com/profile_robertsrob)
    Society Copyright: eobrazy / 123RF Stock Photo
    (www.123rf.com/profile_eobrazy)
    Nature person Copyright: lenanet / 123RF Stock Photo
    (www.123rf.com/profile_lenanet)
    Valley, ladybird and woods Pixabay (www.pixabay.com)
    Starling Pexels (www.pexels.com)
    REFERENCES
    General
    Chief Dan George http://www.whitewolfpack.com/2015/09/feed-your-
    spirit-19-words-of-wisdom-by.html

    Leopold, A., 1979. A sand county almanac and sketches here and there.
    Oxford University Press. p.214

    Mankiw, G., 2011. Principles of Microeconomics (6th edition). Nashville:


    South-Western.
    REFERENCES
    New Nature Writing Books
    NW1 Crumley, J., 2007. Brother nature. Dunbeath: Whittles Publishing.

    NW2 Fiennes, W., 2003. The snow geese. London: Picador.

    NW3 Jamie, K., 2005. Findings. London: Sort of Books.

    NW4 Laing, O., 2011. To the river: a journey beneath the surface.
    Edinburgh: Canongate Books.
    NW5 Mabey, R., 2006. Nature cure. London: Pimlico.

    NW6 Macfarlane, R., 2009. The wild places. London: Granta Books.

    NW7 Woolfson, E., 2013. Field notes from a hidden city: an urban nature
    diary. London: Granta Books.
    OTHER IMAGES AND QUOTATIONS

    Any quotations and images not mentioned


    above are reproduced as fair dealing under
    Section 29(1), Section 30(1) and 30A of the
    UK 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents
    Act, for non-commercial purposes of
    instruction, review, criticism, parody or
    pastiche.

    Requests for removals of any materials to


    astibbe@glos.ac.uk

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