The Concept of Sustainability in the Context of the English-speaking

Educational Discourse

Tetyana Kozlova

English Philology Department, Zaporizhzhia National University, 66, Zukovsky Street, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine

Keywords: Sustainability, Educational Discourse, Concept, Conceptual Metaphor.

Abstract: The study touches upon the issues of a sustainable education targeted at the balance between nature and

civilization as well as society and its individuals. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that sustainability

has become one of the key concepts in transdisciplinary academic discourse carried out in English, and to

examine the language with the help of which the concept of sustainability is approached in recent publications

on education. It is hypothesized that today’s reorientation to sustainable education has necessitated the

meeting point of educational and ecological discourses to tackle modern umbrella concepts and issues of

sustainable development, its challenges, opportunities, and strategies. The findings about communicative

means, tools and strategies preferred for verbalization of the sustainable education concept reveal

transformations in modern education processes, its participants, design, conditions, and outcomes. The

analysis of academic discourse on sustainable education sheds light on the rhetorical repertoire of

sustainability, relevance of future strategies in education implemented to converge ecological and professional

competence, social awareness and individuals’ experience.

1 INTRODUCTION

The planet-scale changes taking place in the twenty-

first century have made the humanity raise for

challenge in various aspects of life. Climate change

and natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic,

economic and political unrest, environmental

problems are the issues to battle today. Solving these

and other contemporary problems calls for radical

steps directed at sustainability of life on Earth.

However, contemporary society does not simply have

to deal with damages and governance, it has to design

and integrate a number of complex activities in order

to provide a sustainable social development targeted

at the balance between nature and civilization as well

as the whole society and its individuals. This can be

realized by managing the key issues of the modern

world: transformation, digitalisation and

sustainability (Szelągowska and Pluta-Zaremba,

2021).

The capacity to endure is an ongoing discussion

through environmental, technical, economic,

political, educational, cultural, and health domains of

the post-modern society. Various disciplinary

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5879-6054

theories and practices follow ecological models in

search for continuous living. Operating within an

ecological perspective, they produce a constellation

of paradigms in response to contemporary problems.

That requires the use of a distinctive language for

special purposes in parallel to the environmental

parlance favoured for its

actuality and clarity. The

environmental language has become pervasive in

today’s discourse due to its ability to integrate

specialized knowledge and make it transparent for the

audience (Norton, 2002).

The topicality of this research is determined by a

set of factors influencing sustainable development.

Firstly, sustainable development is connected to

ecological balance and social well-being (Massotte

and Corsi, 2015). Secondly, sustainability has

become synonymous to the integrity of

environmental and social aspects of life (Voigt, 2008,

p. 36), including education (Corcoran & Wals, 2004)

and communication (Weder et al., 2021). Thirdly,

sustainability is significant in education for its

effectiveness and value in realizing particular

initiatives in responding to nowadays requirements

(Easter et al., 2021), combining creativity and

Kozlova, T.

The Concept of Sustainability in the Context of the English-speaking Educational Discourse.

DOI: 10.5220/0011366200003350

In Proceedings of the 5th International Scientiﬁc Congress Society of Ambient Intelligence (ISC SAI 2022) - Sustainable Development and Global Climate Change, pages 507-515

ISBN: 978-989-758-600-2

507

efficiency in implementing new ideas, introducing

progressive methods and practices into various

disciplines or institutional activities (Cullingford and

Blewitt, 2013), providing transition in education

towards continuous use of the external source of

knowledge and its implementation in educational

courses (Corazza, 2020).

The purpose of this paper is manifold. Firstly, it

intends to demonstrate that sustainability is one of the

key concepts in transdisciplinary academic discourse

carried out in English, the global lingua franca.

Secondly, the study examines how the concept of

sustainability is approached in education and how it

is reflected in recent relevant publications in English.

The findings about communicative means, tools

and strategies preferred for verbalization of the

sustainable education concept will reveal

transformation processes in modern education, its

participants, design, conditions, and outcomes. The

analysis of academic discourse on sustainable

education will shed light on the rhetorical repertoire

of sustainability, relevance of future strategies in

education implemented to converge professional

competence, social awareness and individuals’

experience.

In retrospect, the studies with a focus on

educational discourse were carried out to discover

and explain persuasive strategies in education

(Edwards et al., 2004); advantages and disadvantages

of embedding of a disciplinary discourse, such as a

political one, in education for democracy and other

courses (Schriewer, 2009); the challenges of inter-

disciplinary dialogue in academic discourse,

specialization codes, interpretation of dominant

values, and building a pedagogic metalanguage

(Martin, 2020). Another perspective considered

selected aspects and functioning of education as a

complex, multi-faceted system comprising various

disciplines (Surina, 2014) or highlighted various

cultural practices and effects of their implementation

in education (Luke, 2019). However, most recent

studies are trying to look into neoliberal articulation

of EU governance and its influence on new modes of

regulating educational policies and translating ideas

at national levels (Sardoč, 2021).

The new agenda in educational studies is to

address the metalanguage of the incentive paradigm

shift and to elucidate the ecomodelling in the theory

of education and other academic fields.

It is hypothesized that today’s reorientation to

sustainable education calls for the convergence of

educational and ecological discourse to tackle

modern umbrella concepts and issues of sustainable

development, its challenges, opportunities, and

strategies.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 deals

with the methodology principles, description of

material and research procedure. Section 3

demonstrates the actuality and interdisciplinary

character of the ecological perspective in

contemporary scientific studies. It also discusses the

importance of the concept of sustainability to various

academic discourses including educational one,

describes how the concept of sustainable education is

framed and manifests itself.

2 METHODOLOGY AND

RESEARCH PROCEDURE

The methodology of this research is based on several

principles. The first one is the philosophical principle

of alienation between the world, that is the object of

cognition, and the human, that is the subject of

cognition. Although science is a dynamic system of

organized knowledge, it has always proceeded from

the unbroken principle of establishing connections

between the world or what is known about it, and

those who discover knowledge. Since antiquity it has

been recognized that the human knower is inseparable

from the complex environment that is being cognized,

and in which cognizers are important constituents

(Salmon, 2005).

The recognition of the complexity of alienation

between the subject and object of knowledge has

brought to the shift in postmodern science towards

interdisciplinarity and involvement of an ecological

perspective, rethinking ecology autonomy,

appreciating values of nature, hence, revising the

environment we live in and try to save in order to

sustain. Thus, the second principle of this research is

the ecological principle of sustainability.

The third principle is the expressibility principle.

It deals with the antinomy between the necessity to

transmit the encoded knowledge and the possibility to

express it adequately. On the one hand, there is

nothing in our thought that cannot be verbalized

(Kannetzky, 2002; Searl, 2007). On the other hand,

language is to some extent is limited in its means of

expression. That is why we largely rely upon

metaphors to explain some basic ideas (Burbules,

2017; Kazepides, 2010). Assumed that metaphors are

significant for scientific reasoning (Jensen, 2006) in

general, we suggest that this cognitive tool can be

successfully employed in educational discourse.

The fourth principle is the principle of the

conceptual dominants, that is various spheres of

communication attracting particular concepts, on

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which communication is focused. In today’s

educational discourse, these are represented by such

traditional concepts as “Education”, “Teacher”,

“Learner”, “Knowledge”, etc., as well as by newly

introduced concepts of “Intercultural learning”

(Kearney, 2015), “Dialogical education” (Bronwyn,

Corsan, 2013), “Special education” and

“Interdisciplinary team” (Manor-Binyamini, 2014),

“Inclusivity” (Rensburg and O'Neill, 2020) to name

but a few. In the last decade special significance is

given to the concept of “Sustainability” (“Sustainable

development”, “Sustainable Education” (Sustainable,

2019)). In spite of the novelty of this concept and

active polemic on that education and learning should

take more account on sustainability, the literature has

not discussed the language with the help of which the

concept of sustainability is approached. To do it, we

designed our research procedure in several stages.

First, the method of sampling was applied to

select extracts containing the lexeme sustainability

and/or its derivatives in the texts relating to

educational discourse. The material included 250

textual fragments obtained from monographs,

scientific articles, manuals and other works relating

to the issues of sustainable education and published

in the last decade.

Second, the contextual analysis was applied to

distinguish the occurrences of the lexeme

sustainability and its derivatives in order to find out

their semantic features and functions shaped by the

immediate environment.

Third, the collected data were systematized

according to the type of information they contained

about the frame structure of the concept “Sustainable

education”. The term frame is understood as a

schematized knowledge, or a knowledge structure

including elements from various cognitive domains

associated with the linguistic unit/s (Dirven, Frank,

and Ilie, 2001, p. 1). In this study, these are the words

sustainability and sustainable combined with

education or educational.

Fourth, structural and distributive analyses were

applied to linguistic means that verbalize the concept

of sustainable education in contemporary English-

speaking discourse. This stage of the research enabled

us to reveal the language means preferred to describe

the current situation in education, its reanalysis and

values.

The metaphoric representations of the concept

“Sustainable education” shed light on the indirect

means of sustainability interpretation, its encoding in

education discourse. Understanding cognitive

metaphors of “Sustainable education” will help to

explore how firmly this concept is established as a

central topic within educational sphere and how

mental-imagery shapes the activation of the concept.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Ecological Approach as the Lead in

Postmodern Science

The fact that ecological approach to various issues

has become one of the leads in postmodern science is

evidenced by the pervasiveness of ecometaphors

employed in many spheres of academic

communication. Let us provide just a few examples.

Business discourse favours, for example, business

ecology, ecology of commerce, or alien species

invasion. The field of technology is frequented by

environmental information. Political studies make

use of green ideology while philosophers speak in

terms of ecological thought. Ecometaphors have

penetrated fashion (clothing recycling), social studies

(ecofeminism), linguistics (language vitality), and

education (ecosystem “curriculum” (Weaver-

Hightower, 2008)). It should be mentioned that

ecometaphor is not a simple decorative infringement

that interferes languages for special purposes in order

to strengthen the argumentative and persuasive

effects of scholarly debates. Ecometaphor is so

noticeable in different academic spheres because it is

used as a powerful cognitive tool in approaching

today’s acute issues.

Ecological metaphor signifies the end of the era of

the human dominance and the conquest of nature. It

marks a change towards creating an ecologically

friendly world, its modernization for better social

sustainability and global ecology improvement. The

creation and dealing with that new reality from an

ecological perspective means developing a dialogue

between science and environment, synthesis of

nature, society and its individuals through

creationism, developing new humanistic attitudes,

strengthening of goodness and sustainable lifestyle.

3.2 The Interdisciplinary Character of

the Sustainability Concept

An ecological focus raises a question of sustainability

in institutionalized discourses. It is widely recognized

that the notion of sustainability allows variant

interpretations. Across disciplines, sustainability has

become an umbrella term to refer to development,

growth (economical, technological, intellectual,

experiential, etc.), or continuous well-being

(Caldwell, 1998): “Our future does not depend on the

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509

preservation of original nature, but on the

preservation of anthropogenic ecosystems … and

productive environment. … constant constructive

interventions, [making] the environment a productive

resource …[that] will enable us to continue on the

road of economic growth and to ensure the constant

increase of welfare” (Renn, 2012).

The concept of sustainability is well integrated in

management education (Amaeshi, 2019), teaching

about earth and environment (Gosselin, 2018), food

and agriculture fields (Christen, 2010),

communication (Godemann and Michelsen, 2011),

medicine (Acton, 2013), discussing educational

structures and practices (Martin, 2010). Irrespectively

of the field, the term sustainability is applied to tackle

the matters of maximum utility from minimum of

resources, interactions of variables, cost-

effectiveness, or long-term effectiveness of measures,

projects or approaches.

According to the experts, “… it is crucial that

education for sustainability leads in a deeply engaged

interdisciplinarity, which explicates the skills and

practices enabling academics and graduates to work

meaningfully with colleagues both within and from

other intellectual fields. … Education for

sustainability is undeniably an interdisciplinary field,

characterized by many different epistemologies and

preferred methods and pedagogies. Equally it has

characteristics which may increasingly be described

as disciplinary, in terms of how elements function and

what they reveal” (Davies, Devlin and Tight, 2010,

p. 227).

3.3 The Concept of Sustainable

Education

In educational discourse the concept of sustainability

is manifested as a manifold notion expressed with the

help of word combinations: sustainable education,

education for sustainable development, sustainability

education plan, sustainable education model,

education for sustainable lifestyle, learning for

sustainability. The absence of the one-word naming

proves the complexity of notion and the necessity of

longer, hence more elaborate, structures to refer to the

concept. The naming is built according to a wide

range of patterns: combinations of the adjective

sustainable with nouns directly or indirectly referring

to the concept (sustainable education, sustainable

learning, sustainable teaching, sustainable training);

combinations of nouns with nouns (sustainability

education plan); prepositional of-phrases

(sustainability of education); prepositional for-

phrases (learning for sustainability, education for

sustainable lifestyle). Such a variety of structures

reflects the manifold nature of the conceptualized

idea.

The name of the concept consisting of the

adjective sustainable combined with the noun

education expresses the qualifying conceptual

feature. By establishing subordinative relations

between the initial adjectival component and the head

noun-member of the language structure, speakers

condense the information about the type of

“education which is leading to continuous well-

being” or “education for continuous well-being”. This

type of structure is extremely common in academic

prose on education. Although it is difficult to predict

the possible re-phrasing, it is always certain that the

structure expresses the idea of education leading to

the achievement of some goal. Thus, sustainability is

conceptualized as a goal encouraging changes to meet

increasing environmental changes.

The names composed of noun + noun sequences

also represent information densely and rely on the

implicit meaning expressed by the premodifying

nound and the head. Such is sustainability education

which can be extended to sustainability education

plan, etc. by adding head components and shifting the

conceptual focus. Nevertheless, the semantic

relations between the modifying noun sustainability

and the noun education remains transparent for

decoding. In fact, such noun + noun sequence is used

to express “purpose” (noun 2 education is for the

purpose of noun 1 sustainability). For instance: “in

their study for sustainability education, Wals and

Jickling …, suggest [that] because decisions about

sustainability ultimately rest on different interests

and values the concept needs to be openly challenged,

negotiated and discussed rather than [avoided by]

masking its complexity under a seemingly ‘shallow

consensus’” (Rogers, 2016, p. 221).

The prepositional of-phrases (sustainability of

education) and prepositional for-phrases (education

for sustainability) can be described as the naming

with post-modifiers. These types are widely used in

academic literature concerning the topic under

discussion. Obviously, it is so, because such

structures are generally more common in academic

prose than corresponding relative clauses. Not only

do they allow a very dense packaging of the

conceptualized idea. They also represent the

identification feature of the concept, make it

recognizable for interlocutors. For instance:

“… education for sustainability needs to do more

than focus on the cognitive domain of learning and

the development of skills or the psychomotor realm –

to engage with in particular effective realm” (ibid.).

As is clear from the given context, they are

sustainable values, belief, attitudes and behaviours

that matter. Thus, the aim of sustainable education is

to engage and enable learners to enact tools and

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principles for the prospective societal transformation

(ibid).

More extended structures manifest other

constituents of the concept “Sustainability” as it is

framed in educational discourse. For example, the

phrase education for sustainable development entails

subjects (in other terms, actors or participants) of the

situation: “Does this form of education for

sustainable development ensure a sufficiently radical

reappraisal of the function and purpose of schools to

help people build a personal and social capability so

that, as lifelong learners, they are able to manage the

tensions that arise between their own needs, those of

others and critically, the needs of the planet?”

(Clarke, 2013). This and other contexts, which were

selected and analysed in this study, show that the

participants involved into the process of sustainability

education are to realize their good intentions, respond

to conceptual and pedagogical shifts with the purpose

of responsible treatment of resources and

advancement of sustainable development.

Despite the fact that various structures are applied

synonymously, they should be distinguished for their

semantic features. The concept encoding has an

iconic nature in the sense that a more compact

structure carries more informational scope and less

content. In contrast, a more extended structure, is

opted for less informational scope but more content.

For instance, the term sustainable education implies

the whole paradigm change involving ecological and

humanistic values. To the contrary, the term

education for sustainable development occupies a

tiny niche leaving the whole paradigm unchanged

(Páll, 2021).

To sum, the frame of sustainability in educational

discourse is maintained by the intentional concept

including the following constituents: sustainability

(purpose/intention); learners, educators (agents);

challenge, negotiation, discussion, integration

(actions and behaviours to exercise for achieving the

goal of continuous well-being); creativity, capability,

interest and value (skills and tools employed to

achieve the goal of continuous well-being).

As to the evaluative aspect of the sustainability

concept, it should be noted that it is highly

appreciated in educational discourse and is placed

among the discursive values: “practices we see

fundamental to effective sustainability education”

(Hunter, April and Hill, 2018); “We suggest this

[education for sustainability] offers fertile

opportunity for students to cultivate the skills,

dispositions, and motivation to make change happen”

(ibid.).

The evaluative component reveals how

interlocutors make judgements about the concept, to

what degree they like or dislike it, how their

judgements agree with their expectations and self-

esteem. The results of the contextual analysis showed

that both adjacent and distanced language units can

be used as the evaluation indicators. The proof can be

found in the following quote: “… the role of

interdisciplinary knowledge in education for

sustainability cannot be overstated; sustainable

futures can only be enabled by a concerted

engagement across all disciplines, both in terms of

response to and amelioration of current challenges.

Thus, we will educate for a world in which we are

preventative and viable in our social, economic, and

ecological arrangement” (Davies, Devlin and Tight,

2010).

Firstly, the names of the concept, such as

sustainable futures and education for sustainability,

occur together resulting in nominative condensation.

This tool appears to be efficient in enhancing a

positive charge of the concept.

Secondly, the names of the concept occur in

speech together with the positively charged

vocabulary. Such indicators, which can be regarded

as contextual evaluative cues, break into two

subgroups. The first subgroup of cues, which are

contextually close to the expressions referring to the

concept, include words with inherent positive

connotations. These cues contain positive semantic

elements in their meanings and thus evoke good and

approving associations, demonstrating that

interlocutors experience good feelings about the idea

of sustainability: (not) to overstate “(not) to describe

or interpret something in a way that turns to be more

important and serious that it really is”, concerted

“planned, arranged and performed together for a

shared purpose; a kind of an effort that is determined

and very serious”, amelioration “making bad or

unpleasant situation better”, viable “able to work as

intended or to succeed”.

The second subgroup of cues, which are

contextually close to the names of the concept,

include words with adherent positive connotations.

These cues do not explicate positive associations,

they rather imply them. It happens due to the fact that

words with adherent positive colouring acquire it

through the context. In other words, they are neutral

lexical units which may become positively charged in

speech depending on the communicative situation

and linguistic environments in which they are used:

preventative “intended to stop something before it

happens” > “intended to stop something harmful

before it happens”, engagement “the fact of being

The Concept of Sustainability in the Context of the English-speaking Educational Discourse

511

involved” > “the fact of being interested”, challenge

“a situation that needs a great mental or physical

effort in order to be done successfully” > “enjoyable

difficulty”, response “an answer; something said or

done as a reaction” > “something said or done as a

positive reaction to positive stimuli”.

In the evaluative terms of a new ecological

paradigm, sustainability is described as “A worldview

representing positive attitudes toward the

environment” (Karrow and DiGiuseppe, 2020).

Sustainability of education is in the same rank as

the key human values of postmodernity: “sustainable

happiness… contributes to individual, community, or

global well-being…and the environment” (ibid.),

“sustainable development … as an ethic of solidarity,

equality, and mutual respect among people,

countries, cultures, and generations … in harmony”

(ibid.).

3.4 Metaphoric Representation of

Sustainability in Education

Discourse

It is important to discuss conceptual metaphors that

manifest the concept of sustainability in educational

discourse, because they serve as a bridge to

understanding educational context that is shaped by

particular social environment in which they evolve.

In addition to that, conceptual metaphors are

expressed by means of language units employed both

in their direct and indirect meanings, hence provide

information on the rhetorical value of the discourse

engaging the concept.

Unexpectedly, conceptual metaphors engaged in

educational discourse to represent the concept of

sustainability are very few. We suggest that it might

be attributed to the complexity of the environmental

nature of the concept, that is its alienation with so

many things that raise the concept to the level of

abstraction (the conditions that humans exist, live and

work in, as well as influence to improve them and act

more effectively).

According to the results of our research, the key

conceptual metaphor employed to manifest the

concept is the metaphor of the container. It is a kind

of ontological metaphor based on spatial relations of

“having the inside and the outside of something”. The

container metaphor is recognised by cognitive

linguists as one of the most significant and deeply

engraved metaphors (Alejo, 2010).

The metaphorical thought of speakers is

embodied in expressions realizing orientational

relations (“educational dimensions of human nature”

(Kazepides, 2010)):

on – under, where sustainability is represented as

a cover of something or the basis for something

(“practices of sustainability and sustainable

development on various academic disciplines,

institutional practices, fields of study and methods of

enquiry” (Cullingford and Blewitt, 2013); “how the

concept of change underpins quality … education by

acknowledging the commonplace perceptions of the

arts in society … This leads us to rationale for why an

integration of sustainability and … education makes

good educational sense” (Hunter, April and Hill,

2018);

in – out, where sustainability is represented as a

source of something (“integrated in … sustainability”

(Weder, Krainer and Karmasin, 2021);

“sustainability learning outcomes” (Armon,

Scoffham and Armon, 2020); “A future that is big

enough for all of us – animals in sustainability

education” (ibid));

from – to, where sustainability is represented as

destination (“learning from traditional wisdom”,

“sustainability education from an indigenous

knowledge”) (ibid); “…acquiring knowledge about

sustainability – measuring and evaluating the

performance to and away from sustainability”

(Rogers, 2013, p. 222)).

Another metaphor, used to express the concept of

sustainability in education, is linked to the ideas of the

container and space. It builds on the orientational

image-schema and adds to it. The following example

is a vivid evidence to the representation of

sustainability as the opening whole: “a focus on a

form of ecological consciousness that unites cognitive

affective, imaginative, and spiritual perspectives.

While the term “comprehensive sustainability

education” is used … to denote a relational, holistic,

participatory, and systemic approach, other terms

have evolved to describe related educational

practices” (Armon, Scoffham and Armon, 2020);

“educators co-engage farmers in learning” (ibid.).

At the same time educational discourse

communicates on sustainability as a turning point, a

border line, or a transition, conveying the idea of a

positive change that leads to the creation of a new

personality (“sustainability education: transition or

transformation” (ibid.)).

This idea is supported by the image of a bridge

allowing people an easier change from one state or

situation to another: “…‘bridge at the edge of the

world’ … that will save humanity… What part will

schools play in helping people… take the path

towards this bridge?” (Armon, Scoffham and Armon,

2020), “integrative approaches to sustainable

development”, “making the links” (Filho et al., 2015),

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“focus on sustainability but within cross-cultural,

national, and geographical borders … underpinnings

of diverse opinions” (ibid., p. 9).

Sustainability in education is actualized as a

continuity, a link, or a connecting part. This image

prevails in the contexts discussing the relevance of

interdisciplinarity, integration, inclusivity and

engagement in learning: “to capture students’ views

and attitudes towards sustainability issues”,

“allowing experiential integration of knowledge”, “...

learning for sustainability… students’ ability to

engage in the classroom” (ibid., p. 8).

In similar fashion, sustainability in education is

discussed in terms of communication, revealing the

necessity of interactivity and a dialogue between the

agents: “sustainable development, and intercultural

dialogue through education, science, culture”

(Karrow and DiGiuseppe, 2020), “promote dialogue

among cultures and peoples” (ibid., p. 324). We

cannot do more, but agree that “nothing will improve

our schools and our society more than rich and

genuine dialogue” (Kazepides, 2010). The metaphor

of connection is realized with the help of

metalanguage: dialogue “talk between groups,

societies, etc.”, to address “to give attention or deal

with somebody or something; to speak or write to

someone”, voice “the sound that are made when

people speak”, etc.

For instance, “in forward-thinking dialogue about

how teachers might best address issues of

sustainability in their teaching” (Hunter, April and

Hill, 2018); “starting with new voices and diverse

insights: better futures begin now” (ibid., p. 80); “but

hear the river speaking of a different way of

knowledging / being. This vision for sustainability

education is riverspeaking…” (Corcoran, Weakland

and Wals, 2017).

With the help of conceptual metaphors, our

thinking and communication becomes more efficient

as we can easier distinguish things from one another,

describe our new experience by referring to

something that we know well.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The findings supported the hypothesis that the

concept of sustainability has developed as a cognitive

response of speakers to profound changes in the

postmodern era. The challenging circumstances, risks

posed by global disasters to human existence,

necessitated a revision of our environment and how

we deal with it.

For this reason, we are witnessing integration of

sciences, theory and practice, needs of nature and

civilization, the whole society and its members. In the

challenge calling for change, environmental

discourse is merging with education to produce an

ecometaphor which helps to communicate across

various sciences and fields.

The findings about communicative means, tools

and strategies preferred for verbalization of the

sustainable education revealed transformations in

modern education towards interdisciplinary

approach, cooperation of individuals, creativity,

critical thinking and exchange of knowledge. Doing

so, we provide the higher standards of continuous

existence, maximize environmental and humanistic

values, approaching the new standards of continuous

well-being.

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