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The current British monarch King Charles III is a staunch supporter of climate change mitigation (O’Neill et al. 2013, 413). Whereas he has delivered numerous speeches on climate change both domestically and internationally, currently, however, there are no studies that investigate his speeches on the issue of climate change through a linguistic lens in general and through a cognitive-linguistic prism in particular. Furthermore, there seems to be no published research on such a ubiquitous cognitive-linguistic device as metonymy (Hart 2011) in his speeches on climate change. In order to address the gap in scholarship, the article presents a study that aims to identify the types of metonymy in a corpus of speeches on climate change delivered by King Charles III. The corpus was analysed qualitatively by means of applying a cognitive-linguistic approach to metonymy developed by Radden and Kövecses (1999). The results of the corpus analysis revealed the presence of the following types of metonymy, namely (i) place for a climate change-related event, (ii) place for a climate change-related activity, (iii) place for the government involved in a climate change-related activity, (iv) the generic company name for an actor involved in a climate change-related activity, (v) the specific company name for an actor involved in a climate change-related activity, (vi) the defining property of the category “climate change actor” for the whole category, and (vii) the defining property of the category “climate change goals” for the whole category. The findings are further discussed and illustrated in the article.

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Drawing upon motifs of death, mass extinction, and predictions of chaos and collapse, the UK-based Extinction Rebellion (XR) demarcates itself as a different kind of environmental movement precisely because it "tells the truth" (in XR's own words) about the climate crisis during a time of supposed false hope, denial, and delusion. In this paper, I analyze – through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) – how XR's postnatural visions shape (and limit) the movement's demands and proposals for change. My analysis reveals how XR's calls for action are guided by a sense of loss and mourning for a future after nature's end that are embedded with nostalgic undercurrents of a very particular mode of green nationalism. The potential exclusions and limitations of XR's green nationalism are explored in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the age of global environmental crisis, information about climate change is disseminated through a wide range of channels in a variety of textual genres, from scientific publications and normative texts to news, or blogs. Climate-related discourses available on social media offer valuable examples of remediation of technicalscientific information addressed to large groups of non-experts. In line with the popularisation of scientific knowledge (Gotti 2014), the present study investigates the linguistic remediation of specialised concepts from the sixth IPCC report on climate change (released by the UN last February 28th, 2022) in a corpus of about 4200 tweets by international environmental organisations, institutions, and other public figures. The dataset, retrieved via web scraping tools, is analysed using qualitative analysis software (NVivo) to observe thematic and linguistic features of remediated discourse - in particular, about the four key terms and notions risk, vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience. While computer-mediated discourse analysis (Herring 2004) and ecolinguistics (Stibbe 2015) provide the theoretical framework for this study, risk communication (Russo 2018, Bevitori and Johnson 2022) and appraisal theory (Martin and White 2005) enable considerations of expressive language and effective communication, authors' critical positioning, circulation of scientific information, and possible positive impact of remediated discourses on people's environmental attitudes and behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has seen increased anthropological attention to understandings of climate change not only as a biophysical phenomenon but also as a discourse that is traveling from international policy making platforms to the rest of the planet. The analysis of the uptake of climate change discourse falls under the emergent subfield of climate change reception studies. A few anthropological investigations identify themselves explicitly as reception studies; others only mention the term with little explanation. Our review discusses a fuller range of anthropological studies and ethnographies from related disciplines that treat climate change as a discursive reality, which is not independent from how it is intimated through close observations of the environment. The following themes emerged: language and expertise; place and vulnerability; modernity, morality, and temporality; alterity and refusal. The review suggests that the interaction of observation and reception is still not well understood, and that there is scope for more systematic methodological and theoretical synthesis, taking lessons into account from geographies of reading and empirical hermeneutics. By exploring the hermeneutical problem of upholding scientific integrity while being open to other ways of knowing, climate change reception studies' emancipatory potential lie in opening up knowledge spaces for multi‐directional and democratic approaches to living (with) climate change. In closing, we propose an interdisciplinary research agenda highlighting the potential generativity of translation as an idiom for theory and praxis relating to how people come to know climate (change)—through both perceptual engagement with the natural world and interpretations of discursive manifestations. This article is categorized under:Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationalist approaches to environmental problems such as climate change apply an information deficit model, assuming that if people understand what needs to be done they will act rationally. However, applying a knowledge deficit hypothesis often fails to recognize unconscious motivations revealed by social psychology, cognitive science, and behavioral economics. Applying ecosystems science, data collection, economic incentives, and public education are necessary for solving problems such as climate change, but they are not sufficient. Climate change discourse makes us aware of our mortality and prompts consumerism as a social psychological defensive strategy, which is counterproductive to pro-environmental behavior. Studies in terror management theory, applied to the study of ritual and ecological conscience formation, suggest that ritual expressions of giving thanks can have significant social psychological effects in relation to overconsumption driving climate change. Primary data gathering informing this work included participant observation and interviews with contemporary Heathens in Canada from 2018–2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper applies argumentative discourse analysis to a corpus of official statements made by key players (USA, EU, China, India, etc.) at the opening of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference. The chief goal is to reveal the underlying structure of practical arguments and values legitimising the global climate change policy-making. The paper investigates which of the elements of practical arguments were common and which were contested by various players. One important conclusion is that a complex, multilateral deal such as the 2015 Paris Agreement is based on a fragile consensus. This consensus can be precisely described in terms of the key premises of practical arguments that various players share (mostly: description of current circumstances and future goals) and the premises they still discuss but prefer not to prioritise (value hierarchies or precise measures). It thus provides an insight into how a fragile consensus over goals may lead to a multilateral agreement through argumentative processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of environmental risk often leads to conflict and legal disputes. Legal verdicts and actions are in turn mediated by news media, which call lay people to think about them either as active participants or interested observers. During the last decade, new media have intensified their role as a channel for the communication of legal discourse regarding environmental risk and conflict. The spreading of news across 'genre chains', is central to the present study on the evaluation of mining legal disputes and climate change risks in new media. The article provides an analysis of the recontextualisation and appraisal of legal discourse in a media genre chain regarding the Stop Adani legal action campaign network against the instalment of a coal megamine in central Queensland. The analysis was carried out by analysing a corpus (2014-2018), specifically compiled to represent different interrelated discourse genres. The data is analyzed according to an approach which draws upon findings in Critical Discourse Analysis, Appraisal Linguistics, and Corpus Linguistics. Accordingly, it situates quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis within a wider analytical framework which includes extra-linguistic social variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of environmental risk often leads to conflict and legal disputes. Legal verdicts and actions are in turn mediated by news media, which call lay people to think about them either as active participants or interested observers. During the last decade, new media have intensified their role as a channel for the communication of legal discourse regarding environmental risk and conflict. The spreading of news across 'genre chains', is central to the present study on the evaluation of mining legal disputes and climate change risks in new media. The article provides an analysis of the recontextualisation and appraisal of legal discourse in a media genre chain regarding the Stop Adani legal action campaign network against the instalment of a coal megamine in central Queensland. The analysis was carried out by analysing a corpus (2014-2018), specifically compiled to represent different interrelated discourse genres. The data is analyzed according to an approach which draws upon findings in Critical Discourse Analysis, Appraisal Linguistics, and Corpus Linguistics. Accordingly, it situates quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis within a wider analytical framework which includes extra-linguistic social variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the adoption of discourses on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) across different national contexts. It draws on institutional theories to develop and test a number of hypotheses on the role of shared beliefs and politico-economic institutions in determining the discursive choices of policy actors. The results show that win–win ecological modernization discourse, embraced by powerful government agencies and international actors, dominates national REDD+ policy arenas. This discourse is challenged primarily by a minority reformist civic environmentalist discourse put forward primarily by domestic NGOs. We find evidence that countries with a less democratic political system and large-scale primary sector investments facilitate the adoption of reconciliatory ecological modernization discourse, which may not directly challenge the drivers of deforestation. Policy actors who believe in and are engaged in market-based approaches to REDD+ are much more likely to adopt ecological modernization discourses, compared to policy actors who work on community development and livelihoods issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article depicts the connections between the global climate change discourse and local perceptions in the Global South using the example of village communities of the Peruvian Andes. We argue that it is necessary to understand how the global climate change discourse is transmitted, processed and adapted under specific local and socio-cultural cir - cumstances. Our argument is based on the assumption that not only physical climate change processes influence ecosys - tems, economies and societies, but the discourse alone impacts livelihoods and daily routines worldwide. In this context, we discuss how the international climate change discourse is embedded in local discourses, thus defines how humans interact with existing assumptions and behaviours. Further, the discourse acts within existing global structures and runs the risk of sustaining or even reinforcing inequalities, thus excluding those who are considered to be the most vulnerable. Therefore, local knowledge must be recognised and seen as an equal aspect of (inter)national knowledge communication, creating a new balance in an equal and integrating way. This implies the need to consider national or local discourses, existing power structures and prevailing worldviews in which perceptions of time, environment, and climate are embedded. Insights from a case study in the Peruvian Andes illustrate our argumentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the texts of 1.3 million blog posts and the structure of the links between the blogs in which these posts appeared, this study presents an analysis of the discourse on climate change in the English-language blogosphere. Our approach combines community detection with probabilistic topic modeling to show how topics related to climate change are discussed across various parts of the blogosphere. We find that there is one community of predominantly climate skeptical blogs but several accepter communities. The topic analysis reveals a series of issues that are characteristic of the climate change discourse in the blogosphere. Two topics, one related to climate change science and one related to climate change politics, are particularly important for characterizing the discourse. We also find that the distribution of topics over the communities cuts across the divide between skeptics and non-skeptics (accepters) and that there are differences in the patterns of interactions between the skeptics and different groups of accepters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study explores the discursive dynamics behind the controversy to build the US$17.8 billion 4800MW Medupi coal-fired power plant in South Africa, the seventh largest in the world. It begins by viewing climate change and energy security not as objective fact driven concepts, but constantly negotiated discourses. Based on a sampling of project documents, reports, testimony, and popular articles, the study then maps the discursive justifications behind the project as well as those against it. More specifically, it isolates themes of economic development, environmental sustainability, and energy security that converge into a discursive ensemble of inevitability supporting complete electrification for all of South Africa. The study also documents themes at the heart of the campaign against Medupi: maldevelopment and secrecy, local and global environmental degradation, and energy poverty which coalesce into a grand narrative of democracy. Tracing the intricacies of the Medupi controversy provides rich insight into energy policy and planning in South Africa. It also emphasizes how struggles to expand access to energy services can exacerbate degradation of the environment, and shows how climate and environmental discourses can become institutionalized. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]