Language matters for biodiversity

Language is central to the way people learn about the natural world. A salient concern of the biodiversity conservation arena has been to understand how language can be employed by scientists to communicate knowledge to non-expert audiences and build ecological literacy. The use of analogy and narrative by scientists are prominent techniques. This paper considers how these two modes of language-based reasoning extend into ordinary conversational language use by the public, specifically when articulating everyday understandings and experiences of biodiversity. Drawing on a process of public engagement in a UK woodland environment, a typological framework based on principles of analogical and narrative reasoning is developed to characterize the precise character of processes of everyday biodiversity sense-making. The implications of the framework are discussed in the context of future biodiversity research, particularly its participatory and educational dimensions.