The search for new stories to live by: A summary of ten ecolinguistics lectures delivered by Arran Stibbe

Abstract

This article is a summary of Professor Arran Stibbe’s ten online lectures on ecolinguistics at Beijing Foreign Studies University. The lecture series begins by asking: Why, from an ecolinguistic perspective, do we need new stories to live by? With theoretical insights and practical analyses of a wide range of discourses, it then illustrates how eight types of stories, including ideology, evaluation, erasure, salience, identity, narrative, framing, and metaphor can work cognitively to influence the way people construe reality, in the hope of encouraging people to use language that can inspire them to protect the planet instead of destroying it.

Keywords

• discourse analysis
• ecolinguistics
• ecosophy
• stories-to-live-by