Unveiling Environmental Consciousness in the Jambi Folktale “Putri Tangguk”: An Ecolinguistics Study

Abstract

Folktales serve not only as cultural narratives but also as linguistic media that reflect human attitudes toward the natural environment. This study aims to unveil the environmental consciousness embedded in the Jambi folktale “Putri Tangguk” through an ecolinguistic perspective. Using a descriptive qualitative design, the study applied document analysis to the narrative text and examined how lexical choices, participant roles, pronouns, figurative language, and narrative structure represent human nature relationships, drawing on Stibbe’s ecolinguistic framework and the interactive model of qualitative data analysis of Miles et al. The findings reveal two opposing ecological discourses: a destructive anthropocentric discourse, in which an imperative verb, a minimizing particle, and a material noun reduce rice to disposable pavement, and a beneficial eco-centric discourse, in which rice is personified as a conscious collective that has a ruler, feels anger, and decides to leave. Read together, the two discourses form a cautionary story about reciprocity between humans and nature. The study concludes that the folktale carries indigenous ecosophy that warns against wastefulness and calls for respectful stewardship of natural resources. The findings also offer an authentic, locally rooted text for developing critical literacy and environmental awareness in language and literature classrooms.