Words and weeds: Some notes on language and landscape

Authors

  • George Seddon

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34900/lr.v2i0.17

Abstract

The language of landscape is inescapably anthropocentric: inescapable because the very concept of landscape is anthropocentric, a way of positioning ourselves in relation to the external environment. Indeed we are constantly translating that environment into landscape to make it humanly habitable. The point of this paper is not, therefore, to urge us to avoid such language, but rather that we be more highly conscious of it. To this end, I begin with some obvious examples of explicit anthropocentrism, progressing to more subtle, implicit ones, move on to a discussion of attitudes to order and disorder, concluding with a survey of some of the verbal tactics we employ in coping with strange environments. One that is prominent in Australia and New Zealand is the range of naming strategies we use for places and things.

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Published

01-10-1995

How to Cite

Seddon, G. (1995). Words and weeds: Some notes on language and landscape. Landscape Review, 2, 3–15. https://doi.org/10.34900/lr.v2i0.17

Issue

Vol 2, No 0 (1995)

Section

Reflection

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