Ecolinguistics : State of the art 1998

Ecolinguistics is an interdisciplinary and interactive field of study in which the natural sciences (most specifically biological ecology) and the humanities (philology and philosophy) interrelate. Generally, ecolinguistics starts from a holistic view of the world based on the ideas of such thinkers as Gregory Bateson, David Bohm, Fritjof Capra, Ilya Prigogine, Rupert Sheldrake and Frederic Vester. Since interrelation, networking, dialectics and diversity are key concepts of the discipline, uniformness is not regarded as a desirable aim in ecolinguistic theory and methodology. The paper discusses the different approaches, summarizes results and shows perspectives for future research in the field