PhD Final Oral Defense
by Kevin Rickman
Friday, May 1, 2026
12 Noon – 2pm HST
In Person: Sakamaki Hall D-302
Title of Dissertation: Language’s Relationship with Environmental Ontology, Linguistics, and Ethics: Ecosemiotics as Critical Lens for Environmental Discourse
The general aim of this dissertation is to explore the relationship between linguistics, ontology, and philosophy of language within the realm of environmental discourse. The thesis is to highlight how ecosemiotics can be employed as a critical lens to evaluate the accuracy and efficacy of our language use regarding he environment thereby strengthening environmental literature generally. By making our language more accurately represent the environment and by more deeply understanding the functions of the environment through a comparative philosophical approach, I argue we can bring ontology, language, and ethics more closely in line with each other to improve environmental ethics efforts.
PhD Committee:
- Steve Odin, Chair (Philosophy Dept., UHM)
- Dongping Zheng (Second Language Studies Dept., UHM)
- Franklin Perkins (Philosophy Dept., UHM)
- George Tsai (Philosophy Dept., UHM)
- Thomas Jackson (Philosophy Dept., UHM)