Skip to main content
Palgrave Macmillan

Discourses of Cycling, Road Users and Sustainability

An Ecolinguistic Investigation

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

  • Investigates narratives of conflict in four case study examples of cycling promotion texts
  • Proposes a new, more positive, way of framing and envisaging cycling and cyclists
  • Highlights how studies from other fields often focus on language-related issues in their analyses

Part of the book series: Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse (PSDS)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

eBook USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (8 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

This book employs a Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) framework to examine cycling mobility, marking a new turn in ecolinguistic discourse analysis. The author focuses specifically on environment-related arguments concerning the promotion of higher levels of cycling, mainly as a means of transport, and investigates the “US vs. “THEM” narratives present in many discourses about road users. Analysing newspaper articles, institutional documents and spoken interviews, the author searches for a positive new discourse that would inspire and encourage cycling as a habitual means of transport, rather than simply exposing ecologically destructive discourse. The book will be of interest to scholars of discourse and ecolinguistics, as well as contributing to the lively debate about how to increase cycling in fields such as sustainability, sociology, transport planning and management.


        

Reviews

“The books helps us to wield the power of language in order to unlock the potential of the humble bicycle for true transformative change of our mobility system. ... If you work in cycling activism or policy making, the book offers a valuable source of reflection on how you do and can use language. For scholars that study cycling, Caimotto offers valuable tools to study the influence of narratives and discourses in resisting change towards more cycling-oriented policies.” (Urban Cycling Institute, urbancyclinginstitute.com, November 16, 2020) "Read this book if you’d like to know why cycling is not promoted enough, in spite of all the evidence we already have on how beneficial it is. It’s about the language." --Esther Anaya Boig, Imperial College London, UK

"As a transport mode, cycling has many benefits and yet is in many countries bedevilled by stigma and stereotyping. This makes it a fruitful topic for critical discourse analysis, as in this fascinating discussion of documents ranging from European policy papers to newspaper articles on a road traffic collision." --Rachel Aldred, University of Westminster, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  • Culture, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    M. Cristina Caimotto

About the author

M. Cristina Caimotto is Assistant Professor of English Linguistics and Translation at the University of Turin, Italy. Her research interests include political discourse and environmental discourse, with a focus on ideology. She is also a cycling advocate. 

       

      


Bibliographic Information

Publish with us