From the analysis of ecological discourse to the ecological analysis of discourse

This article consists of a theoretical consideration of ecolinguistics, starting off with a working definition and then using this to look at two principal trends within the emerging discipline. The two trends considered are ‘the analysis of ecological discourse’ and the metaphorical ‘language ecology’. The conclusion is that ecolinguistics is more than just the analysis of texts which happen to be explicitly about the environment, and is more than just a metaphorical way of thinking about language contact. Instead, ecolinguistics is, primarily, the ‘ecological analysis of discourse’.