Phraseology and Culture in English

N
+ (N) 
land acquisition 
landowner 
landcare land 
ownership 
landclearing 
land resource indicators 
land conservation 
landscape gardener 
land cover 
land use 
land degradation 
land use plans 
land evaluation 
land use pressures 
land husbandry 
land user 
land management 
(where LAND is a component of the second element of the compound)
{V or adj} 
+ N 
maintaining land 
safeguarding land 
threatened land 
valuable land 
private land 
Another productive component is habitat which tends to be used when 
discussing animals and plants endemic to a region. Those involved in pro-
grams which aim to conserve species use compounds containing habitat to 
describe areas where such species still survive, despite incursions into their 
territory. The use of habitat rather than home or environment, (which could 
be considered synonymous in certain contexts) arises, because in most en-
vironmental language, habitat includes flora and fauna, but excludes hu-
mans. As with land, where it is talked about as a commodity controlled by 

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Lexical developments in greenspeaking
289
humans, the habitat component sets humans apart and connotes the power-
over relationship of humans to flora and fauna. 
HABITAT
+ N 
habitat area 
habitat destruction 
habitat linkage 
habitat change 
habitat evaluation 
habitat patches 
habitat conditions 
habitat fragmentation habitat 
types 
habitat corridor 
habitat interiors 
adj
+ HABITAT 
human-created habitat 
island-like habitat 
rehabilitated bush habitat 
human-modified habitat natural habitat 
space habitat 
In such compounds, habitat, like management, connotes the idea that 
humans have a special protector status in connection with other parts of the 
environment inhabited by less powerful or prestigious species. 
Cultural assumptions about the role of humans, as embedded in our lan-
guage use, become powerfully clear when the list above is paired with mul-
tiwords built around species. Where do humans fit in? What is our habitat?