The SecondLecture Series on Ecolinguistics were held on August 20 to 22 in Room 5A402 inthe School of Foreign Studies (SFS) of South China Agricultural University(SCAU). More than 90 teachers and graduate students from Sun Yat-senUniversity, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Northeast AgriculturalUniversity, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, South ChinaAgricultural University etc. attended the lecture series. 

Secretary Wu Shantian of SFS chaired the opening ceremony andProfessor Huang Guowen, Dean of SFS, delivered the openingspeech. Director Feng Lixin from International Office of SCAU was alsoinvited.

The key-note speakers included Professor Sune Vork Steffensenfrom University of Southern Denmark (also Editor-in-chief of LanguageSciences), Professor Fan Junjun from Jinan University, Professor He Weifrom Beijing Foreign Studies University and Professor Huang Guowen from SCAU.The theme of the lecture series was “Different Approaches to Ecolinguistics”.

Professor Huang Guowen gave a speech on the origin,objectives and approaches of ecolinguistics. He proposed that ecolinguisticdiscourse analysis in China should be “Harmonious Discourse Analysis” andpointed out the prospect of ecolinguistic study as well as the expectedcontributions of foreign language researchers.

Professor Steffensen delivered aseries of lectures on “A critical review of ecolinguistics”, “The cognitiveecology of language” and “Interactivity, language and the extended ecology”. Heanalyzed the ecolinguistic theories of different schools with an attempt tobuild a holistic theoretical framework for ecolinguistics.

Professor He Wei’s speech was entitled “Ecological sense ofplace---harmonious living”, in which she introduced the history of Western andChinese philosophies and derived the essence of Chinese ecological philosophy“He (Harmony)”. She also illustrated the application of functional grammar inecolinguistic discourse analysis with examples.

Professor Fan Junjun talked about several issues inecolinguistic study. He proposed that ecolinguistics in China has become anestablished discipline with its clear research subjects, rich contents, maturetheories and research methodology, quantity of researcher body andrepresentative publications. He also made an in-depth analysis of the nature,terminology, research scope and methods etc. of ecolinguistics.

The lecture series were highly interactive with the speakersand the audience exchanging ideas from time to time during the whole course.The insightful and thought-provoking speeches have inspired the audience andhelped them build a solid foundation for future research on ecolinguistics.

Lecture Series on Ecolinguistics were initiated by ProfessorHuang Guowen, with the aim of cultivating young scholars of ecolinguistics andpromoting the influence and the study of ecolinguistics. The Series will be asignature project of SCAU and contribute to the development of ecolinguisticsdiscipline in the University.

(Report byQin Jianhua  Pictures by Cen Haoxian)