The First Lecture Series on Ecolinguisticswere successfully held in Room 5A402 of the School of Foreign Studies in SouthChina Agricultural University on June 13. 

The theme of the lecture series was “Zooming in on Confucianism and Ecological Harmony”. The speakers included ProfessorZheng Dongping from University of Hawaii, Doctor Andrew Lambertfrom the City University of New York and Professor Huang Guowen from SouthChina Agricultural University.

Secretary Wu Shantian of the Schoolpresided over the opening ceremony. Vice President of the University XianChunlong attended the opening ceremony on behalf of the University and delivereda welcoming speech.

Professor Huang Guowen gave a key-notespeech entitled “Harmonious Discourse Analysis”, in which he first introducedhow he started research on ecolinguistics and then pointed out the socialresponsibilities of language researchers. He indicated that language not onlyreflected but also constructed facts and established human relations.

Doctor Andrew Lambert gave a speech on “RethinkingTianrenheyi: Approaching Confucian Harmony through Le and Social Events”. Heanalyzed the connotation of Tianrenheyi and compared Plato’s and Socrates’thoughts and Yin Yang & Five Elements in Chinese culture.

Doctor Zheng Dongping gave a speech on “AnEcological-Confucian Becoming, Friending and (Trans)Languaging: Design andMethods”.

The School originally planned to enroll 40 learners but it turned out that as many as 150 teachers and students from South China Agricultural University, Sun Yat-sen University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, University of Technology, Sydney, Xiamen University, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Central China Agricultural University etc. registered and attended the lecture series.

The lecture series lasted for a whole dayand have familiarized the learners with the objectives,contents and research methodology of ecolinguistics.

The second lecture series on ecolinguisitcswill be held this August.

(Reportby Qin Jianhua  Pictures by Cen Haoxian)