Framing Sustainability in Language and Communication

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.

• ContentsList of FiguresList of ContributorsIntroductionFraming SustainabilityMaida Kosatica & Sean P. Smith1. Visual Essay: “Banal Sustainability”Sean P. SmithSECTION I: Reframing sustainability in a colonial world2. Rethinking Sustainability through Indigenous Language FuturesBernard C. Perley3. Chronotopes of Sustainability and the Coloniality of Corporate InitiativesJessica Pouchet4. Climate Crisis and Animal Exploitation: Historical Materialism and The Reformulation of Industrial DiscoursesDiego L. ForteSECTION II: The semiotics of sustainability5. The semiotics of “the unfinished”: The lost highway and other signifiers of unsustainable developmentAnders Björkvall & Arlene Archer6. Creating shared value: A Social Semiotic Analysis of ESG Discourse on Social MediaEsterina Nervino, Karen C. K. Choi & Jiaying Wang7. Signs of sustainability? The semiotic dimension of urban plantsLaura ImhoffSECTION III: Communicating sustainability in everyday life8. Responding to lifestyle discourses in climate conversationsJulia Coombs Fine9. . Sustainable Architecture Studio Discourse: When the decoupling of communication, intentions, and outcomes presents aspirations for alternative futuresSherif Goubran10. Reclaiming Sustainability for the AnthropoceneGavin LambSECTION IV: Sustainability communication in the arts11. ‘Sustainability’ in the Arts and Culture Sector: A Discourse Analytic Appreciative Inquiry Kate Power12. Climate In the Club: Conveying Sustainable Futures Through Eco Grime and Solarpunk MusicMorgan Sleeper & Jessica Love-Nichols13. Staying away from Cthulhu rather than Embracing the Cthulhucene: Human and Non-Human Relations in Netflix’s The Sea BeastEmelie Fälton & Polina IgnatovaEpilogue14. Seeing Through Sustainability and the Wasteful Rhetorics of (un)knowingCrispin ThurlowIndex