Stories about Climate Change in Political and Survey Discourse

Authors

  • Øyvind Gjerstad University of Bergen
  • Kjersti Fløttum University of Bergen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15845/bells.v7i0.1089

Keywords:

narrative, language, discourse, polyphony, climate change

Abstract

This article discusses the notion of narrative and its relevance in the analysis of different genres of climate change discourse. Two distinct genres are studied, the first of which is the political speech, exemplified by French President François Hollande’s prepared remarks at the climate change conference (COP21) in Paris in late 2015. The second genre has not yet received a label, but can be called “survey discourse”. This refers to answers to open-ended questions in a survey undertaken by the Norwegian Citizen Panel in 2015, where respondents answer freely in their own words the following question: “Concerning climate change, what do you think should be done?” The differences between the two genres are manifold. A political speech is carefully drafted by professionals and represents an institutional commitment by a leader, whereas survey answers are formulated by anonymous, non-specialist respondents, who are not bound by their statements in any way. Despite such differences, our findings will show that all the texts in question comprise a plot where the different characters (heroes, victims, and villains) are integrated into the unfolding ‘story’, thus reflecting the socially pervasive nature of narratives.

Author Biographies

Øyvind Gjerstad, University of Bergen

Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages

Kjersti Fløttum, University of Bergen

Professor, Department of Foreign Languages

References

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Fløttum, Kjersti, and Øyvind Gjerstad. 2013a. “Arguing for Climate Policy through the Linguistic Construction of Narratives and Voices: The Case of the South-African Green Paper ‘National Climate Change Response’.” Climatic Change 118:417–30.

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Gjerstad, Øyvind, and Kjersti Fløttum. (forthcoming). “From Refutation to Description: Negation as a Rhetorical Tool in Climate Change Discourse.” In Pragmatics of Negation, edited by Malin Roitman. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Published

2017-09-08

How to Cite

Gjerstad, Øyvind, and Kjersti Fløttum. 2017. “Stories about Climate Change in Political and Survey Discourse”. Bergen Language and Linguistics Studies 7 (September). https://doi.org/10.15845/bells.v7i0.1089.