Linguistic representations of climate change discourse and their individual and collective interpretations

LINGCLIM: Linguistic representations of climate change discourse and their individual and collective interpretations. What is the role of language in the climate debate? Climate change has moved from being mainly a physical phenomenon to become also a political, social, cultural and communicational matter. In the communication of and discussion about climate change, the role of language is important. Language does more than just representing knowledge and facts, it also influences attitudes and behaviour; and may create new realities. The overarching research question of the LINGCLIM project is to explore the role of language in the climate debate. One of LINGCLIM's challenges is to reveal the relation between linguistic representation and people?s attitudes and reactions to climate change. LINGCLIM has collaborated with The Norwegian Citizen Panel in representative Norwegian surveys related to questions about opinions of and attitudes towards the climate change question. The main aim is to develop new and integrated knowledge about the role of language through a multidisciplinary approach where linguistic analyses are complemented by opinion surveys and psychological experiments. The linguistic analyses study both single words and expressions as well as entire texts, in relation to their relevant contexts. In order to better understand the climate debate we investigate to what extent climate discourse may be understood as narratives, or stories, with possible actors such as heroes, victims and villains. Our materials are taken from various scientific, political and media contexts. The project also aims at exploring the role of various perspectives of the future (such as a gloom-and-doom, a techno-fixed or a green back-to-nature future). A collaboration with high school pupils provides better knowledge about young people's view on language, opinions about climate change and perspectives on the future. The findings of LINGCLIM show that various factors, such as values and interests, influence opinions and attitudes; there is great diversity of voices in the climate debate. Through new methods we find that people associate climate change with both (extreme) weather, concern about the future and a society dominated by consumption. We also see that the division between deniers and acceptors of human induced climate change is less sharp than previously expected. Narrative analyses show that ?climate stories? contain many villains and victims, but few heroes. Generally, Norwegians are concerned about the consequences of climate change, but they are also committed to conctribute to sustainable solutions. However, some think that "little Norway" can contribute only in a very modest way. Young people are quite optimistic about the future and believe that research and technology will solve many of the challenges. For results, see publication lists at the LINGCLIM web site: www.uib.no/en/project/lingclim Documentary film, TALKING ABOUT CLIMATE, at vimeo.com/178449717

Climate change has in recent years moved from being mainly a physical phenomenon to being simultaneously a social, cultural and political phenomenon. At present, both individual and collective attitudes and behaviour seem an equally serious challenge in t he climate issue as scientific knowledge of the phenomenon itself, and in this, language and communication are crucial. Language not only reflects and expresses, but also influences attitudes and behaviour, and thus constitutes a vital component of the cu ltural prerequisites underlying societal development. The overarching question of the LINGCLIM project is to what extent and in what way language matters. The primary objectives are to (1) generate comprehensive and integrated knowledge about the role of language in climate discourse through developing an innovative multidisciplinary methodology including an opinion survey and a psychological experiment; (2) investigate climate discourse in a micro-analysis focusing on specific linguistic features, and in a macro-analysis based on contextual factors established through the multidisciplinary approach; (3) explore the role of the perspectives of 'gloom-and-doom' versus 'opportunities-in-a new-sustainable-society'. We claim that instances of climate discours e may be described through a narrative structure with up to five components and a number of potential actors. Three major challenges to be handled are to (1) identify relevant contextual factors to be integrated in the analysis to understand the role of t he components and actors in the narrative structure; (2) identify explicit and hidden voices in climate discourse as well as identify what actors they represent; (3) unveil the relationship between linguistic representations and psychological factors such as people's attitudes, beliefs and responses to climate change. Our findings will contribute substantially to the understanding of the role of language in climate change as a social phenomenon.