Green Economy and Green Grammar: an ecolinguistic analysis of the power of language in the discourse on sustainable development.

Starting from the assumption that Western languages have an anthropocentric matrix, it is necessary to lay the foundations for a different grammar, a green grammar connected to a green thought. The purpose of a green grammar for Goatly is to focus on the paramount role of maintaining natural balances and influence the behaviour of social institutions that negatively affect the environment through the construction of environmental discourses still perpetuating the anthropocentric perspective. But, actually, the real problem of language and ecology in this regard is not just the human-centeredness expressed by transitivity system in SAE languages but, as Mary Schleppegrell replied to Goatly in her essay, the indefiniteness of that general subject “people” who are often accused to be responsible for environmental damages.
But presenting these problems as caused by the behaviour of generic and indeterminate people, and suggesting that individuals must act to save the environment, ignores the fact that these problems rarely involve individual actors making decision that destroy the environment. Instead, they are typically problems that involve human institutions: above all, institutions that have arisen through historical processes accompanying industrialization and globalization. The problem of language and ecology in this regard is not the human-centeredness of transitivity clauses, but the paucity of information value of the word people. (Schleppegrell 2001:228).
While Goatly called for an “alternative Critical Discourse Analysis” which, for instance, through the use of nominalization suppresses social agency, downplaying human power upon natural phenomena, Schleppegrell hoped for a green grammar that, rather than using non-specific human agents, clearly defines those institutions and individuals, who, pursuing economic and commercial reasons, are actively involved in environmental destruction.
The “commercial” use of the environment through language use is particularly evident, for instance, in the exploitative connotations of some terms strictly connected to the environmental issues, such as “development” and “resource”. People who promote the protection of natural environment too, use the language of exploitation, employing the powerful force of language to shape people’s and society’s opinions, attitudes and, ultimately, behaviour.
It is possible to identify at least three main linguistic devices contributing to the commercial use of the environment. The first is the use of seemingly neutral words that have connotations apparently opposed to exploitation, whereas the reality they represent is very different. The second is the common device of “euphemism” through which unpleasant things are called by pleasant names and the third is the less common, but equally effective device, of calling natural things by pejorative terms.
As previously stated, apparently neutral terms such as “development” or “resource” are very often loaded with an exploitative connotation of the natural environment.
When in 1987 the UN General Assembly published the Brundtland Report, otherwise known as Our Common Future, it was recognized that environmental problems were global in nature and so it was determined that all nations should establish policies for sustainable development.