NATURE AND CULTURE: AN ECOLINGUISTICS’ ANALYSIS OF IS A RIVER ALIVE BY ROBERT MACFARLANE

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between nature and culture through an ecolinguistics analysis of Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive? The research examines how language shapes human perceptions of rivers and the natural world. Using Arran Stibbe’s ecolinguistics model, the study investigates metaphors, framing, narrative strategies, and identity constructions to reveal how discourse can either support environmental destruction or promote ecological harmony. Macfarlane challenges the dominant anthropocentric view that treats rivers as mere resources and instead presents them as living beings with memory, agency, and legal personhood. His use of metaphors such as “the river speaks” and “the river remembers” transforms rivers from objects into subjects, encouraging readers to rethink the human–nature relationship. The book also highlights Indigenous worldviews, especially the Māori understanding of the Whanganui River as an ancestor, showing how legal and cultural systems can recognize rivers as persons with rights. This challenges Western dualisms such as nature/culture and subject/object. The study finds that Macfarlane’s narrative framing and poetic discourse create ecological awareness by replacing destructive stories with beneficial “stories we live by.” His work demonstrates that language is not neutral but a powerful ecological tool that can reshape environmental ethics and inspire sustainable thinking. Thus, Is a River Alive? serves as an important text for understanding the interdependence of language, ecology, and cultural imagination.