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Part of
Language in Place: Stylistic perspectives on landscape, place and environment
Edited by Daniela Francesca Virdis, Elisabetta Zurru and Ernestine Lahey
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 37] 2021
► pp. 189–208

Chapter 10
“She enjoys being stroked”, “They are affectionate, lively and interactive boys”

An ecostylistic scrutiny of animal agency and alternative discourse in Battersea Dogs & Cats Home website

ORCID logo | University of Cagliari |

This chapter analyses animal agency in a corpus of texts from the website of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, an English charity rehoming dogs and cats, more precisely from the cat rehoming gallery. The chapter firstly provides definitions of alternative discourse and of agency in the disciplines of human-animal studies and Hallidayan functional grammar. Secondly, the theoretical framework and methodology of functional grammar are applied to the corpus in order to classify all the processes performed by the cats into the six Hallidayan process types and to examine their stylistic representation. In accordance with the aims and scope of ecostylistics, the main research purpose is to demonstrate that the website constructs an environmentally-conscious alternative discourse instilling respect for the Battersea cats and paying tribute to them as independent living beings with their own experiences and priorities.

Keywords: Alternative discourse, animal agency, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, Ecostylistics, human-animal studies
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The need for alternative discourses on animals and the environment
  • 3.Agency in human-animal studies and functional grammar
  • 4.Methodological notes on the corpus
  • 5.Methodological notes on the data
  • 6.Ecostylistic analysis
    • 6.1Relational process type
    • 6.2Material process type
    • 6.3Mental process type
    • 6.4Behavioural, Verbal and Existential process types
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • References
Published online: 15 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.37.10vir
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