The Second Lecture Series on Ecolinguisticswere held on August 20 to 22 in Room 5A402 in the School of Foreign Studies(SFS) of South China Agricultural University (SCAU). More than 90 teachers andgraduate students from Sun Yat-sen University, Beijing Foreign StudiesUniversity, NortheastAgricultural University, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, South China Agricultural University etc. attended the lectureseries. 

Secretary Wu Shantian of SFS chaired theopening ceremony and Professor Huang Guowen, Dean of SFS, delivered the openingspeech. Director Feng Lixin from International Office of SCAU was also invited.

Thekey-note speakers included Professor Sune Vork Steffensen from University ofSouthern Denmark (also Editor-in-chiefof Language Sciences), ProfessorFan Junjun from Jinan University, Professor He Wei from Beijing Foreign StudiesUniversity and Professor Huang Guowen from SCAU. The theme of thelecture 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 a series of lectures on “A critical reviewof ecolinguistics”, “The cognitiveecology of language” and “Interactivity,language and the extended ecology”. He analyzed the ecolinguistic theories ofdifferent schools with an attempt to build a holistic theoretical framework forecolinguistics.

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

Professor Fan Junjun talked about severalissues in ecolinguistic study. He proposed that ecolinguistics in China hasbecome an established discipline with its clear research subjects, rich contents, mature theories and research methodology, quantity of researcher body and representativepublications. He also made an in-depth analysis of the nature, terminology,research scope and methods etc. of ecolinguistics.

Thelecture series were highly interactive with the speakers and the audienceexchanging ideas from time to time during the whole course. The insightful andthought-provoking speeches have inspired the audience and helped them build asolid foundation for future research on ecolinguistics.

Lecture Series on Ecolinguistics were initiatedby Professor Huang Guowen, with the aim of cultivating young scholars ofecolinguistics and promoting the influence and the study of ecolinguistics. TheSeries will be a signature project of SCAU and contribute to the development ofecolinguistics discipline in the University.

(Report by Qin Jianhua Pictures by Cen Haoxian)