Download Linguistic and discursive perspectives on climate change knowledge

Linguistic and discursive perspectives on climate change knowledge
Professor Kjersti Fløttum
University of Bergen
[email protected]
Introduction
Narrative analyses
•The meaning that people ascribe to climate
change (their understanding of the phenomenon, their perception of risks involved, the
corresponding value judgments and emotional reactions) is closely related to how climate
change is portrayed in different sources of
communication.
Narrative – a way of understanding climate
change (CC) discourse?
Many kinds of narratives …
•People approach climate change from different perspectives, with different backgrounds,
world views, interests, values and beliefs.
There is now widening agreement that furthering the understanding of this global challenge requires improved analysis of individual
and collective human dimensions – in which
language is crucial.
Global warming?
Climate change?
Climate vs weather?
•There are multiple voices with different interests and world views interpreting scientific
knowledge.
•The voices of ”believers”, “sceptics” and “deniers” contribute to both consensus and controversy.
Does language matter?
•There is a general lack of knowledge about the
role of language in contested messages which
are science-based and concern a hotly debated
issue involving a large number of global and
local stakeholders.
•In particular, what is the role of language in
the construction, interpretation, circulation
and reception of climate knowledge?
•How are phenomena such as complexity and
uncertainty, inherent to climate change (CC),
represented verbally?
•In a discursive and narrative perspective: What are the stories told ?
-> narrative analysis
•In a linguistic perspective: What is actually said, explicitly and implicitly,
by whom?
-> analysis of polyphony (multivoicedness)
Materials
1) “Summary for policymakers”, 2007, in Synthesis Report, based on the 4th Assessment Report, edited by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), 22p. [IPCC]
2) “Position statement on climate change and
related issues”, 2009, edited by the South-African Applied Center for Climate and Earth Systems Science (ACCESS), 9p. [SA-ACCESS]
3) “Overview” (Fighting climate change: human
solidarity in a divided world) in the Human
Development Report 2007/2008, United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP), 18p.
[HDR]
4) “Overview” (Changing the Climate for Development) in World Bank’s World Development Report 2010, 36p. [WDR]
5) The Government of the Republic of South
Africa: National Climate Change Response,
2010, 41 p. [SA-GP]
•Why is communication on climate change so
difficult?
Classical narrative structure
1. Initial situation (or orientation)
2. Complication (something creating
difficulties; release mechanism)
3. Re-action(s)
4. Resolution
5. Final situation, Moral (evaluation)
•In CC narratives, the complication stage is
typically climate change itself. However, this
complication factor can give rise to new stories, new complications, according to different
contexts, interests and values. Polyphonic analyses
•In order to understand and explain the CC debate, containing various representations of and
responses to climate knowledge, we need to
know what is actually said and by whom.
•One fruitful perspective to reach this understanding is linguistic polyphony (multivoicedness).
•ScaPoLine theory (short for ”la théorie SCAndinave de POlyphonie LINguistiquE”, Nølke,
Fløttum, Norén 2004)
Explicit polyphony with identified voices
Example of reported speech (external voice):
Before his death, [Chico Mendes] spoke of the
ties that bound his local struggle to a global
movement for social justice: “At first I thought I
was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought
I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity.”
(HDR, p. 6)
•Narratives have plots, constituting a problem
or complication followed by events or actions
to achieve some particular effect(s).
Example of explicit presence of collective voice:
We need to engender joy and love for life and
the planet as opposed to fear of the future. (SAAccess, p.7)
•Narratives typically have actors. How are they
presented – as hero(es), villain(s) or victim(s)? Polyphony (multivoicedness): From harmonius song to verbal cacaphony
•SA-ACCESS: Contains elements of complication related to CC, but more clearly dominated
by political requirements for action (action
component). Plot: Even though the authors
recognise that South-Africa has a global responsibility because it is one of the major
emitters, they clearly point to the advanced
and rich economies as the villains. •WDR: Emphasis on (re-)action.
•Main message: the necessity to promote
growth in order to reduce poverty. CC is
blamed (villain?) because it may hinder
growth; and it is costly.
•SA-GP: Dominated by recommendations
and requirements of action (action component). The SA government assumes a triple
role for South Africa – as victim, villain and
hero. When combining the narrative with the
polyphonic perspective, the SA government
appears first and foremost as a particularly
engaged actor, and as the hero of its own narrative. The narrative properties of the Green
Paper can be seen as a strategy for building
consensus on CC policy.
Selectes references
Adam, J.-M. 2008. La linguistique textuelle. Introduction à l’analyse textuelles des
discours. 2e édition. Paris: Armand Colin
Bakhtine, M. 1984 [1952]. Les genres du discours. Esthétique de la création verbale.
Paris: Gallimard. 265−308.
Bowman, T. E., et al. 2009. Creating a Common Climate Language. Science 3: 36−37.
Boykoff, M.T. 2011. Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on
Climate Change. Cambridge: CUP.
Budescu, D.V., Broomell, S., Por, H.-H. 2009. Improving communication of uncertainty
in the reports of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Psychological Science 20
(3), 299-308.
Eide, E., Kunelius, R., Kumpu, V. (eds). 2010. Global Climate, Local Journalisms. A
Transnational Study of How Media Make Sense of Climate Summits, Bochum: Projekt
Verlag.
Fløttum, K. 2010a. EU discourse: polyphony and unclearness. Journal of Pragmatics
42(4), 990-999.
Ex: With this, Government will continue to engage actively and meaningfully in international
climate change negotiations, specifically the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations, in order
to secure a binding, multi-lateral international
agreement […]. [SA-GP]
Through the use of the verb continue, the authors presuppose – through an implicit collective voice – that the government has already
started to “engage actively and meaningfully in
international climate change negotiations”.
The effect of such a presupposition is not only
presenting it as given, but also to construct it as
accepted by the readers/audience.
Integrating a positive self-representation by
means of a presupposition can be rhetorically
effective, since such linguistic content is backgrounded and thus not easily refutable.
4) EPISTEMIC MODALITY –
modifiers which comment on the truth value of
the utterance, related to (UN)CERTAINTY:
certain, probable/-ly, likely, perhaps, maybe, it is
possible …, uncertain, etc. (different from the
IPCC calibrated expressions),and modal verbs
like may, might, can, could, would
Ex: Heavy rainfall and floods have become
more common, and the damage from—and
probably the intensity of—storms and tropical
cyclones have increased. [HDR]
RELEVANCE OF THE POLYPHONIC PERSPECTIVE
The author(s) or speaker(s) may set up a polyphonic ‘play’ signaling the presence of both his/
her or their own voice and the voices of others.
Different voices are given the floor, if not explicitly (for example by citation), then by some distinctive mark signaling polyphony.
•HDR and WDR: The represented plot seems
to be that those who have contributed least
to CC are the ones who are most vulnerable
to the consequences. Actors: No clear heroes;
rich countries are presented as villains and
poor countries as victims.
•The battle against CC is part of the fight for
humanity; CC may threaten human freedom.
Focus on moral responsibility. 3) POLYPHONY IN PRESUPPOSITION –
an underlying content which is taken for granted by the speaker, exempted from discussion,
thus belonging to a collective voice; a mechanism for imposing consensus, by burying controversial “truths”.
Pov1: ’the intensity of storms and tropical cyclones have increased’
Pov2: probably pov1
Pov2 is a ”comment” to the content of pov1, and
the responsibility of the authors.
Pov 1 can be the responsibility a) of the author,
in another context, or b) correspond to another
voice, or c) the proposition could reflect a discussion related to research findings.
•IPCC Summary for policymakers: The ”story”
is about the complexities and uncertainties
(complication component) inherent in climate
change. Implicit plot stating clearly the complications but with prudent recommendations
for action. Actors: nature is the victim; human
beings and society are the villains.
•HDR: Emphasis on complication and evaluation.
The speaker accepts that “such changes are projected to occur over millennial time scales”. Implicitly this point of view is also orienting the
discourse towards a conclusion that there is ‘no
reason to worry now’. However, by the connective but, it is emphasised that what counts here
and now for the speaker is that “more rapid sea
level rise on century time scales cannot be excluded”, with an implicit conclusion saying ‘do
worry!’.
Implicit polyphony
1) POLEMIC NEGATION – a subtle way of
representing hidden interaction:
EX: Climate change is not human-induced.
This play is created by the author in his or her
own way and represents a subtle mode of interaction, where the source of the different voices
or points of view is not necessarily explicit.
The polyphonic perspective helps us identifying argumentative relations such as acceptance,
concession, and refusal – all important relations
in the CC debate.
Two points of view (pov) are presented:
Pov1: climate change is human-induced
Pov2: pov 1 is not valid
The inherent instruction of not tells us that
the speaker is responsible for pov2 and refutes
pov1.
The isolated utterance does not indicate who
is the source of pov 1; it might or might not be
identified by the context.
Final remarks
2) CONCESSIVE POLYPHONY – lets the speaker admit to a point of view without
accepting its conclusion
P (concession) BUT q (point of view of speaker)
To understand the relation between linguistic
representation and people’s responses, psychological and linguistic scientists must collaborate.
EX: Such changes [referring to ‘sea level rise’]
are projected to occur over millennial time
scales, but more rapid sea level rise on century
time scales cannot be excluded. [IPCC]
Fløttum, K. 2010b. A linguistic and discursive view on climate change discourse. La revue
du GERAS, ASp 58, 19-37.
Fløttum, K., Dahl, T., Kinn, T. 2006. Academic Voices – across languages and disciplines.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishers.
Fløttum, K., Dahl, T. 2011. Climate change discourse: scientific claims in a policy setting,
Fachsprache 3-4, 205-219.
Fløttum, K., Dahl, T. 2012. Different contexts, different “stories”? A linguistic comparison
of two development reports on climate change. Language & Communication, 32 (1), 1423.
Fløttum, K., Gjerstad, Ø. (submitted). Arguing for climate policy through the linguistic
construction of narratives and voices: the case of the South-African Green Paper
“National Climate Change Response”
Giddens, A. 2009. The politics of climate change. Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA, US:
Polity Press.
Haddad, H., Morton, T., Rabinovich, A. (Forthcoming). The roles of ‘tone of voice’ and
To move forward, more linguistic analyses are
needed, but also more multidisciplinary research:
To understand the relation between sciencebased knowledge and what is actually said/written in public and private spheres, natural and
linguistic scientists must collaborate.
To explain patterns of consensus and controversy (actors, voices, topics), linguists must collaborate with social scientists within media, politics and economics.
uncertainty when communicating climate change information. British Psychological
Society Conference 2011, Cambridge.
Hulme, M. 2009. Why We Disagree About Climate Change. Cambridge: CUP.
Jones, M.D., McBeth, M.K. 2010. A Narrative Policy Framework: Clear enough to be
wrong? Policy Studies J. 38 (2), 329-353.
Koteyko, N., et al. 2010. From Carbon Markets to Carbon Morality: Creative Compounds
as Framing Devices in Online Discourses on Climate Change Mitigation. Science
Communication 32 (1), 25–54.
Nerlich, B., et al. 2010. Theory and language of climate change communication. Wiley
Int. Reviews: Climate Change 1(1), 97-110.
Nølke, H., Fløttum, K., Norén, C. 2004. ScaPoLine. La théorie scandinave de la
polyphonie linguistique. Paris: Kimé.
Painter, J. et al. 2011. Poles apart. The international reporting of climate scepticism.
Reuters Institute. University of Oxford.