Ecology is an expansive word. There is an ecology of just about everything. That is to be expected because ecology has to do with the relationships between things. The word itself is derived from the Greek oikos, meaning a house or home. In itself a house is a thing of wood or brick, with windows, doors and perhaps chimneys. A house becomes a home through the relationships that give it individuality. Of these the photos on the walls, the toys in the corridor, the books on the shelves and the cat fur on the rug are signs. Home is an ecological word.
To speak of the ecology of words can be illuminating because it evokes the wide range of relationships that words embody. It also invites us to ask broad questions about the healthy and unhealthy use of words in a society.
Words are most often judged by their relationship to truth and falsehood. Good words tell it as it is; lies deny what is real; weasel words draw attention away from it. The relationship between words and reality, of course, intersects with relationships between people. A society in which lies and evasions of truth dominate is by definition a sick and polluted society.
Words are also related to persuasion. If used attractively, words can confirm or change our view of reality. If used unattractively, they can prejudice people against truth.
The political and church world, in which words are used mostly for exhortation, evocation and other forms of persuasion, offer good and bad examples of the use of words. The sermons of St Augustine and of Lancelot Andrewes and the speeches of Cicero, for example, are persuasive because their words are beautifully matched to the reality they evoke. You will be able to supply enough of your own examples of sermons and speeches that are delivered without conviction, hose the listener with superfluous information, rely on stale language and images and try to intimidate rather than attract assent.
In the public world words are often carefully deployed to persuade people to ascribe to brutal and destructive untruths. When referring to people who have sought protection from persecution, for example, politicians were able to prejudice the public against them. They made them accept the need to treat them brutally by associating them with criminality, cheating, infection, invasion, terrorism and threat. Similarly, in order to evade the responsibility of the State to people who are disadvantaged, they represent people who are unemployed and disadvantaged are portrayed as dole bludgers, loafers, leaners and undeserving.
'Words are not related only to rational truth and to persuasion but to the truths of the heart.'
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The same crude and effective rhetorical skills can be seen in the framing of climate change. It is no accident that the people who damage the natural environment for personal profit and exploit the economic environment in order to protect their own wealth and further to impoverish people who are disadvantaged, should also ravage the ecology of words for their own ends. The exploitation of the natural and social worlds and the pollution of words run together.
Words are not related only to rational truth and to persuasion but to the truths of the heart. They carry associations with the world of the past, with similar sounds in the natural world, with music and with communities which use them. Poetry, which at its best is a filter and purifier of language, explores these relationships.
When comparing the way in which people use words we can easily miss the value of their musical ecology of words. The language of Central American subsistence farmers, for example, was often described as impoverished because it seemed to consist of a huge number of swear words liberally used and few abstract nouns. It is musical, however, rich in affective variety, has many discriminating words to describe the natural world and a wealth of diminutive and other forms to express one’s perception of them. It is paradoxically rich in nonverbal communication. To return from poor rural communities to city conversation is to experience linguistic impoverishment, as well as enrichment.
Ecology is a relatively new word that has encouraged attention to the myriad of relationships that compose the natural world, an awareness of their fragility in the face of pollution and exploitation, and so to respect for them. If reflection on the ecology of words were to encourage broader attention to the variety of relationships that are embodied in words, to the fragility of language and civility in the face of manipulation and imposition, and to a treasuring of good words, it would be a happy coining.
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