Eco-Linguistics for Sustainability Education: Raising Environmental Awareness through Language Teaching

Abstract

The accelerating climate crisis has placed sustainability discourse at the forefront of global education, 
demanding integrative approaches that connect language, culture, and environmental ethics. This study explores 
the role of eco-linguistics in advancing sustainability education, emphasizing how language constructs, mediates, 
and transforms ecological understanding. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1997; Frow, 
1985), the research analyzes authentic sustainability texts—including the IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report, the Paris 
Agreement, and UNDP renewable energy policy documents—to uncover how environmental narratives are 
linguistically and ideologically framed across three domains: climate policy, environmental governance, and 
renewable energy. The findings reveal that sustainability discourse employs lexical choices (e.g., resilience, 
transition, justice), metaphors (climate emergency, energy transition), and modal expressions (shall, must, should) 
to position ecological responsibility as both moral and scientific obligation. These linguistic patterns encode 
ideological values of cooperation, equity, and urgency, reflecting how institutional power and scientific authority 
shape public perceptions of environmental issues. Pedagogically, integrating these texts into English Language 
Teaching (ELT) enhances students’ academic literacy, critical thinking, and ecological awareness by encouraging 
them to analyze, interpret, and reconstruct sustainability narratives. The study proposes Eco-Linguistics for 
Sustainability Education (ELSE) as an interdisciplinary framework that unites language learning, critical discourse 
awareness, and environmental ethics. By embedding sustainability-oriented discourse into language classrooms, 
educators can transform linguistic instruction into a form of environmental action—empowering students to 
become linguistically competent, critically aware, and ecologically responsible global citizens.