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The semantics of ecological collapse

A study on Danish fjords

 | Roskilde University
Published online: 27 March 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00079.lev
Abstract
This paper explores various linguacultural responses to ecological collapse — in an era of global environmental upheaval and distress. With a focus on semantics, the key question of the paper revolves around how words and constructions are created and altered by speakers in order to account for what they experience, and how they collectively make sense of the collapse they see. The paper draws inspiration from research in the Blue Humanities (Mentz, S. (2024). An Introduction to the Blue Humanities. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and is anchored in the framework of environmental semantics (Bromhead, H., & Levisen, C. (2022). Environmental semantics. Scandinavian Studies in Language, 13(1), 78–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and a paraphrase-based approach to linguacultural analysis (Goddard, C. (2018). Ten lectures on Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Exploring language, thought and culture using simple, translatable words. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Goddard, C., & Wierzbicka, A. (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages and cultures. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Goddard, C., & Ye, Z. (Eds.) (2016). “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The paper’s primary case study examines the language and discourse surrounding the recent ecological collapse of Danish fjords. After decades of oxygen depletion caused by intensive farming and nitrogen emissions, nearly all Danish fjords are now endangered, with several officially declared ‘dead.’ A notable discursive event in this context was the widely publicized Funeral of Vejle Fjord, alongside the selection of fedtemøg, literally ‘fat-shit,’ as the 2024 Word of the Year, referring to the slimy, foul-smelling mass of rotting algae accumulating along the coasts. Analytically, the study focuses on (i) the semantics of emerging folk concepts, (ii) the semantics of new language rituals, and (iii) the semantics of discourse logics that have emerged in response to experiences of environmental degradation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Environmental semantics and the Blue Humanities
  • 3.The language and metalanguage of changing ecologies
  • 4.The death and decay of Danish fjords
    • 4.1Fedtemøg ‘fat-shit’: Conceptualizing decay in a time of marine collapse
    • 4.2Tak for alt! ‘thanks for everything!’: Gratitude as climate activism
    • 4.3Naturen taler ‘nature speaks’: Varieties of animism in the age of the Anthropocene
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
  • Other materials
References (53)
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Other materials
Avisen Danmark. 2024, June 19th. Mere fedtemøg i år [More fat-shit this year]. [URL]
Det sker i Greve [This happens in Greve]. 2022, May 6th [URL]
Turistmonitor. 2024, August 20th. Fedtemøg og iltsvind koster kysttourismen dyrt [Fatshit and oxygen depletion are costing coastal tourism dearly] [URL]
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