- Ernst Haeckel (1870): offered the first definition of ecology
- Burke: “Arguably, Kenneth Burke is the first in rhetorical studies to raise the idea of ecological literacy when he suggests in Attitudes Toward History that ecology is one science to which we will need to pay more attention in the future” (67). “Since Burke, the field of composition-rhetoric has developed a bit of a duality in the way it engages with ecological thought. Some scholars adopt ecological concepts in very broad ways, often wholly metaphorical. Others hold more closely to the actual goals and concerns of the discipline of ecology, i.e., the preservation, protection, and health of our physical environment” (68).
- Dobrin and Weisser: “humans inhabit two spheres: the biosphere, which is the physical environment and skin that sustains all life on the planet; and the semiosphere, which consists of discourse and our symbolic action that shapes our existence and allows us to make sense of our world…For Dobrin and Weisser, the relationship between these two spheres (environment and discourse) is reciprocal and dialogic…Dobrin and Weisser’s formulation of ecocomposition, then, connects acts of textual composition with the myriad of environments human agents inhabit” (69).
- Roorda: gives us a view of ecological literacy. “Roorda studies key narratives of retreat, but moves beyond representations of nature or ecocritical analysis. Roorda asks questions concerning the ethical implications of these texts, what purpose they serve, how writers form identities around places, and how places are socially constructed” (69-70).
The author draws the following analogy ==> composition studies : literacy :: ecocomposition : ecological literacy.
He also argues, “If humans use language to construct cultures and societies, to create and affect places, to navigate the world around them, and to affect this materiality and all the dimensions of the non-human world, then ecological literacy is essential…To have an ecologically literate populace is to have a populace that understands the way language is networked across dimensions of human activity, and also the way these networks of language affect the ecological communities to which we belong…We must remember we only know the natural world through language, and all places are part natural. Human beings can no more step outside their ecological communities than they can their structures of language” (71)
Key Term
- ecological literacy: “understanding material and discursive relationships, and how these relationships are created, maintained, modified, solidified, and radically changed by acts of language” (66)