Lexical Items in Batak TobaLanguage Representing Fauna, Flora, and Social Environment: Ecolinguistics Study

Abstract

Ecolinguistic studies which were initially named as studies of language ecology, are new paradigms relating to the ecological and linguistic relationships initiated by Einar Haugen in 1970. This study compares language studies with ecology which can be defined as a study of the interaction between languages and their environment or the environment in which the language is used. The relationship between human and nature (ecology) produces a variety of languages (linguistics). Halliday (2001) explained that language and environment are two things that influence each other. Change in language, both in the lexicon orgrammar, cannot be released from changes in the natural and social environment.On the one hand, environmental changes have an impact on change in language, and on the other hand, the community behavior towards their environment influenced by the language they use. Thus, the dynamics of the existence of the lexicon are affected by changes in the environment of a place the language used.