Environmental issues in the Anthropocene: ecolinguistic perspectives across media and genres
Published in Text & Talk
Epilogue
Published in Text & Talk
This Epilogue represents some thoughts and reactions to this collection of articles. It falls into four sections. (1) A discussion of the term Anthropocene in relation to degrees of anthropocentrism. (2) A comparison of the varied approaches, positive or not, to ecological discourse analysis. (3) Observations on the challenges posed by a dominant c...
Identity construction and its collocation networks: a cross-register analysis of the finance domain
Published in Text & Talk
This study investigates the use of explicit manifestations of authorial identity (namely self-mention pronouns) and their collocation networks in academic and workplace written texts. Based on a purpose-built corpus of research articles and the Hong Kong Financial Services Corpus (HKFSC), this study used Antconc and Graphcoll to extract and analyze...
The use of clarificatory metaphors in argumentative discourse in British Public Bill Committee debates
Published in Text & Talk
In this paper, we aim to explain how metaphors can be employed for clarificatory purposes in British parliamentary debates. These debates typically involve an exchange of arguments concerning complex issues, which more often than not may require clarification. In clarifying something complex, metaphors are often employed in which an unfamiliar and ...
“Together we can all make little steps towards a better world”: interdiscursive construction of ecologically engaged voi...
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Drawing on the resources of Ecolinguistics and Positive Discourse Analysis, this paper investigates the interdiscursive practices that lifestyle vloggers engage in to construct their expertise and credibility when performing eco-activism. The analysis of the corpus of 30 YouTube vlogs promoting a sustainable lifestyle reveals the interplay of cross...
Environmental issues in the Victorian era: an ecostylistic examination of metaphor and framing in Ruskin’s The Storm-Clo...
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This article presents an ecostylistic analysis of the use of metaphor and framing in The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century, two lectures by the Victorian polymath John Ruskin. The metaphors and frames identified and examined here are those triggered by the two title words ‘storm’ and ‘cloud’. The overall purpose of this study is to demonstrate ...
The Anthropocene: genesis of a term and popularization in the press
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The term Anthropocene first appeared in 2000 when scientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer attempted to define the environmental effects of anthropic activities. Since then, it has become a widespread, but also controversial, term in the academic community. As environmental discourses increasingly permeate our lives, it has trespassed the border...
Narratives of industrial damage and natural recovery: an ecolinguistic perspective
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In this paper, websites promoting a nature reserve on the South Eastern coast of Sicily, Priolo Saltpans, are analysed from an ecolinguistic and narrative perspective. The heuristic device of proximisation is used, connecting it to more traditional concepts of temporal-spatial deixis. More specifically, the paper investigates narratives of contact ...
Communicating climate change: how (not) to touch a cord with people and promote action
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Climate science has established human activity as the major cause of climate change. The successive reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have also provided future scenarios of the detrimental effect of rising temperatures. Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus, the voices of climate deniers are still given ample s...
Risk and resilience in a changing climate: a diachronic analysis in the press across the globe
Published in Text & Talk
Building on our previous work investigating discourses of climate-induced mobility in the UK and US press, this paper addresses the overarching theme of environmental issues and the anthropocene by looking into representations of migration as adaptation in the context of climate change. In particular, drawing on corpus-assisted discourse analysis m...
