‘Critical approaches to sustainability’ Panel Proposal to be presented at the CADAAD 2016, University of Catania, 5-7 September 2016. Panel Organisers:
Barbara Loester, University of Winchester
Douglas Ponton, University of Catania
Franco Zappettini, Royal Holloway, University of London
‘Sustainability’ is a buzz word in current corporate parlance, also found in the languages of government departments and advertising agencies, serving a variety of functions across a wide variety of media sources. When used in its environmental sense, the term refers to an important aspect of ‘clean’ energies; to the fact that these energy sources, over the long term, represent real opportunities for humankind to meet its energy requirements without compromising the future of the planet, as may be the case with either fossil fuels or nuclear power.
In conjunction with an increased interest in ecological sustainability, public discourses of ‘social sustainability’ have also emerged which have raised important questions about the need to make our societies more equitable. Amid this scenario, we have seen that terms from the discourse of ecology, such as ‘carbon footprint’, ‘eco-friendly’, ‘renewable’, etc. and from the discourses of ‘social sustainability’ ( such as ‘responsible production/consumption’) have been recontextualised in the discursive practice of ‘greenwashing’, performed by companies and governments that wish to portray their activities in an environmentally friendly light (Zappettini and Unerman, 2015). Thus, the term ‘sustainable development’ risks becoming a glittering generality, one that can be used to evoke a positive response in material not necessarily related to the environmental context. In the business world especially, it can be a synonym of ‘long-term’, referring to decisions that, for example, plough profits back into the firm in the form of investment.
Critical attention to eco/linguistic issues has steadily grown since the 1990s. In a study that was to be important in the expanding field of ecolinguistics, M.A.K. Halliday (2001) argued for critical engagement of linguists with the environmental problems of the world: global warming, climate change, population growth, and so on. The intention of this panel is to rise to Halliday’s challenge by putting the word ‘sustainability’, as he termed it ‘in the dock’ (2001: 197).
We invite papers from a broad range of academic disciplines to reflect critically on the notion of sustainability, across an equally broad spectrum of social contexts, whether from the fields of business, politics or human culture in its most general sense, as long as papers make a contribution to the field of Critical Discourse Studies.
Prospective contributors should send an abstract of up to 350 words excluding references as MS Word attachment to: sustainability-panel-cadaad-2016@googlegroups.com before 30 November 2015. Further information on the panel can be requested at the same email address.
References
Halliday M.A.K. 2001 New ways of meaning: the challenge to applied linguistics. In Fill, Alwin and Muhlhausler, Peter (eds) The Ecolinguistics Reader: Language, Ecology and Environment. London and New York, Continuum. 191-193
Zappettini F., Unerman J. (2015) ‘Mixing’ and ‘Bending’: The Recontextualisation of Discourses of Sustainability in Integrated Reporting. Paper presented at the 26th CSEAR UK Conference 25-27 August 2015, Royal Holloway, University of London.
Douglas Ponton, University of Catania
Franco Zappettini, Royal Holloway, University of London