This chapter examines the structure of words. It is shown that the same principles of chunking apply at the sub-word level as well. It is also shown that reflexives expressed at the level of morphology are subject to the same rules as syntactic reflexives. The discussion of Russian verb prefixes further supports the claim that the pattern of possible and impossible interpretations depends on constituency (chunking).

This chapter explores the key aims and methods of environmental education, emphasising its significance in fostering environmental competence. It begins with an overview of the origins of environmental education, highlighting the Tbilisi Declaration and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s emphasis on public education. The chapter examines various approaches, including place-based learning, gamification and citizen science, illustrating their effectiveness in engaging learners. It also discusses the role of visual storytelling, particularly through picture books, in making complex environmental issues accessible to young children. The chapter highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the integration of Indigenous cultural practices in environmental education, particularly in the Global South. By combining formal and informal methods, the chapter argues for a holistic approach to environmental education that inspires active participation in environmental protection and fosters a deeper understanding of environmental challenges.

This chapter discusses the role of environmental journalism in shaping public understanding and response to ecological issues. It explores the evolution of environmental journalism from traditional print to digital platforms, highlighting key milestones and events such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the Flint Water Crisis. The chapter examines the challenges faced by environmental journalists in the Global South, including political pressures and safety concerns, such as the Bhopal disaster, but also attempts to remedy this through policy, as exemplified by the Windhoek Declaration. It also discusses the impact of visual imagery and data journalism in conveying environmental stories. The chapter also addresses the increasing and persistent threats to press freedom and the safety of journalists in both the physical and digital world. It emphasises the importance of robust, independent environmental journalism in fostering informed public discourse and driving socioecological change.

This chapter explores the shift from viewing languages as fixed, bounded systems to understanding languaging as a fluid, creative, and relational process of meaning-making. It presents languaging as an embodied and affective act that embodies both agency and vulnerability. The concept of “playful voices” captures the ways language users draw on their diverse linguistic repertoires to navigate, challenge, and reimagine power structures that privilege certain ways of speaking. Yet, these playful acts unfold on “precarious grounds,” where speakers’ linguistic creativity is frequently surveilled, corrected, and devalued. The chapter positions languaging as a space of both empowerment and risk – a means through which individuals negotiate identity, belonging, and resistance within unequal social orders. Ultimately, it argues that moving from languages to languaging transforms our understanding of communication, highlighting it as a living, dynamic practice shaped by both playfulness and precarity.

In Chapter 7 we focus on the shift from direct, explicit insults to the more indirect and implicit ones. We argue that explicitness exists on a continuum, making it difficult to draw a clear boundary between where implicitness ends and explicitness begins. We categorise our data into more explicit and less explicit language. Less explicit language includes offensive meanings which are expressed through hinting, insinuating, implying and suggesting. We compare our corpus of explicit language with a less explicit one to explore the differences between the two. Our analysis reveals that themes such as gender, racial and age biases are commonly used in the less explicit corpus. These biases are perpetuated through seemingly polite language, rhetorical questions and comments that indirectly and subtly attack the target’s identity. We examine how implicatures arise from specific word choices. We also discuss weak and strong implicatures, and how they can be used in a way that leaves room for potential deniability. Along the way, we also focus on what we call unmarked offensive implicatures.

This chapter introduces the field of econarratology, situating it at the intersection of ecocriticism and narratology to examine how stories shape environmental understanding. It defines econarratology as the analysis of material environments and their narrative representations, emphasising the cultural, ethical and political implications of storytelling. The chapter explores emerging econarratives that challenge anthropocentric traditions and promote ecological awareness through linguistic strategies, which reframe nature as an active agent, undermining dualistic human-versus-nature (subject-object) paradigms. A critical examination of narratives propagated by the meat industry illustrates how traditional storytelling sustains environmental injustice, gender hierarchies and colonial ideologies. Through examples ranging from literature and music to documentaries, the chapter demonstrates how econarratives can foster ethical reflection, mobilise resistance and catalyse social change. Highlighting interdisciplinary approaches, it calls for inclusive, sentience-aware narratives that recognise the agency of non-human beings. Ultimately, the chapter advocates for transformative storytelling as a powerful tool to counter environmental degradation, dismantle oppressive ideologies and inspire sustainable futures.

This chapter critically examines the discipline of environmental economics, assessing its potential to reduce ecological degradation through realistic cost calculations and interdisciplinary collaboration. It begins by defining key aims, including the internalisation of environmental externalities, and evaluates policy instruments like carbon taxation and emissions trading systems (ETS). The chapter then critiques widespread greenwashing and carewashing, revealing how corporate and governmental strategies mislead consumers while perpetuating harmful practices. Further, it explores limits of mainstream economic paradigms, particularly GDP-centric models and growth-oriented sustainability discourse, and highlights resulting climate injustices across the Global North/South divide. It argues that effective reform requires more than market rationality – demanding behavioural insights, natural science integration and humanities-informed understandings of ecological ethics and intergenerational equity. Examples from Rwanda, South Africa, Cape Town and northern Tanzania demonstrate the feasibility of such cross-sectoral approaches. The chapter ultimately positions environmental economics as necessary but insufficient without satisfactory structural and cultural transformations based on interdisciplinary work.

This chapter compares the commonly assumed view of language as a linear sequence of words (or sounds) to the “flat earth theory”.

This chapter examines the notion of racialised languaging, which emphasises that languaging practices are never assessed independently of the bodies, identities, and social positions of their speakers. It demonstrates how language is evaluated not only in terms of what is said but also through the racialised perceptions of who is speaking and how society chooses to listen. The chapter argues that accents, dialects, and speech patterns associated with racialised communities are often constructed as inferior, humorous, deficient, or even criminal, while similar features in white speakers are normalized or excused. By centring languaging as a site of racial meaning-making, the chapter exposes the ways in which communication is entangled with race, racism, and embodied identities. Racialised languaging is further situated within the broader colonial matrix of power, where Western linguistic norms and white racial identities are privileged over non-Western languages and non-White speakers.

This chapter discusses social movements and their campaigns for climate justice. Focusing on the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, it explores how social movements address both local and global challenges of environmental injustice. The chapter defines environmental justice as the struggle for a safe and healthy environment, free from pollution, and emphasises its moral and justice dimensions. It highlights the significant role of grassroots activism and the diverse strategies employed by various environmental campaigns. The chapter also examines the intersection of environmental justice with human rights and the importance of inclusive, participatory approaches. Through case studies and examples, it illustrates the power of collective action in driving change and the need for continuous adaptation in response to evolving social, political and cultural landscapes. The chapter underscores the importance of resilience and flexibility in the pursuit of a more equitable and sustainable future.

This chapter examines sign languages and shows that they are characterized by the same non-linear principles as spoken/oral languages. It is shown that reflexives in sign languages work analogously to reflexives in spoken/oral languages, and in a way that is more complex that is strictly required by the gestural nature of sign languages.

This chapter examines the theory that language, organized along non-linear principles, is something we humans are predisposed to. Studies of child language are discussed. It is shown that we do not learn our first language simply imitating adult speech.