This collection brings together established and emerging scholars for a critical framing of sustainability through the lens of language and communication, social semiotics, and media studies. The volume underscores the importance of re-envisioning sustainability around not only climate change and biodiversity loss but in broader systems of ecological, social, and economic imbalances on a global scale.
The book begins with a visual essay which provides a semiotic foundation for understandings of sustainability across disciplinary approaches in the chapters that follow. Subsequent chapters are organized around four thematic parts: reframing sustainability in a colonial world; the semiotics of sustainability; communicating sustainability in everyday life; and sustainability communication in the arts. A closing commentary by Crispin Thurlow offers critical reflections on sustainability within language and communication research and beyond.
This book will be of interest to scholars addressing sustainability across diverse disciplines, including language and communication, social semiotics, linguistic anthropology, environmental communication, media studies, and development studies.
Edited by:
Maida Kosatica,
Sean P. Smith
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Weight: 700g
ISBN: 9781032719160
ISBN 10: 1032719168
Series: Routledge Research in Language and Communication
Pages: 276
Publication Date: 30 March 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Contents List of Figures List of Contributors Introduction Framing Sustainability Maida Kosatica & Sean P. Smith 1. Visual Essay: “Banal Sustainability” Sean P. Smith SECTION I: Reframing sustainability in a colonial world 2. Rethinking Sustainability through Indigenous Language Futures Bernard C. Perley 3. Chronotopes of Sustainability and the Coloniality of Corporate Initiatives Jessica Pouchet 4. Climate Crisis and Animal Exploitation: Historical Materialism and The Reformulation of Industrial Discourses Diego L. Forte SECTION II: The semiotics of sustainability 5. The semiotics of “the unfinished”: The lost highway and other signifiers of unsustainable development Anders Björkvall & Arlene Archer 6. Creating shared value: A Social Semiotic Analysis of ESG Discourse on Social Media Esterina Nervino, Karen C. K. Choi & Jiaying Wang 7. More than a Green Embellishment? A Social-Semiotic Approach to Urban Plants Laura Imhoff SECTION III: Communicating sustainability in everyday life 8. Sustainable Architecture Studio Discourse: When the Decoupling of Communication, Intentions, and Outcomes Presents Aspirations for Alternative Futures Julia Coombs Fine 9. Sustainable Architecture Studio Discourse: When the decoupling of communication, intentions, and outcomes presents aspirations for alternative futures Sherif Goubran 10. Reclaiming Sustainability for the Anthropocene Gavin Lamb SECTION IV: Sustainability communication in the arts 11. ‘Sustainability’ in the Arts and Culture Sector: A Discourse Analytic Appreciative Inquiry Kate Power 12. Climate In the Club: Conveying Sustainable Futures Through Eco Grime and Solarpunk Music Morgan Sleeper & Jessica Love-Nichols 13. Staying away from Cthulhu rather than Embracing the Cthulhucene: Human and Non-Human Relations in Netflix’s The Sea Beast Emelie Fälton & Polina Ignatova Epilogue 14. Seeing Through Sustainability and the Wasteful Rhetorics of (un)knowing Crispin Thurlow Index
Maida Kosatica is Professor of Urban Semiotics and Semantics in the Department of Anglophone Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Her research interests include semiotic landscapes, multimodal critical discourse analysis, environmental communication and displacement, and discourses on ecosystem services. Sean P. Smith is Assistant Professor in the Department of Culture Studies at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. His research examines how discourse and (social) media shape development and practice within the contexts of the environment and tourism, informed by field research in Myanmar (Burma) and the Arabian Gulf.
