A linguistic framework for studying voices and positions in the climate debate

Abstract

Abstract:The public debate on the highly contested issue of climate change is characterized by a multitude of voices as well as position taking by the social actors involved. Studies involving the climate issue have emanated from many fields, notably media science. To date, few linguistics-based studies on climaterelated newspaper texts have been undertaken. This paper presents a theoretical framework -the Scandinavian theory of linguistic polyphony -which we argue is particularly well suited to analyze contested issues. To demonstrate how the theory can be operationalized, we present a case study involving four texts from The Guardian. Linguistic polyphony rests on the assumption that all texts are multivoiced. The case study focuses on the interaction of the journalist's voice and external voices, and considers the extent to which implicit (hidden) voices are present in the analyzed texts. The analysis reveals a complex interaction of different voices, integrated in the journalist's own argumentation and positioning.

Meta Framing And Polyphonic Structures

“…Like Dahl and Fløttum (Dahl and Fløttum 2014) I use a downscaled version of the linguistic polyphony theory termed ScaPoLine (Nølke 2004;Therkelsen, Nina Møller Andersen, and Henning Nølke 2007). This approach The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in Journalism Studies, published online: 20 Oct 2015 http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1461670X.2015.1091744 draws upon the insights from Ducrot and Anscombre that the notion of polyphony as introduced by Bakhtin as a literary concept can also be fruitfully applied in linguistics (Anscombre and Ducrot 1983;Ducrot 1972;Ducrot 1984).…”

“…In the analysis I use framing theory in combination with linguistic polyphony theory (Dahl and Fløttum 2014;Dendale 2005;Dendale 2005;Fløttum and Dahl 2012;Nølke 1993;Nølke 2001) in order to show how BT metaframes itself.…”

Norske klimanarrativer – hvor mange “fortellinger”? En lingvistisk og diskursiv analyse av to norske stortingsmeldinger

“…Men vi mener den er et velegnet instrument for å angripe den semantiske kompleksiteten som er innebygd i flerstemmighet. I tillegg gjør teorien det mulig å bygge bro fra det semantisk mikrolingvistiske til det makrolingvistiske eller diskursive analysenivået (Fløttum & Gjerstad 2013a;Dahl & Fløttum 2014). Et like viktig argument kan vaere at teorien inneholder et helhetlig begrepsapparat som tillater enhetlige analyser av en rekke til dels svaert forskjellige språklige fenomener som man ellers ville ha måttet beskrive og forklare med ulike og ikke alltid lett kombinerbare teorier (fenomener som blant annet gjengitt tale, pronomen, modale hjelpeverb, konnektorer, adverb, nektingskonstruksjoner, presupposisjon).…”

Narrative voice in popular science in the British press: a corpus analysis on the construal of attributed meanings

“…The audience finds a complex web of voices built with the voice of the journalist and the voices of the external sources of information thanks to the inclusion of many voices in the text (cf. Dahl and Fløttum 2014). Hunston (2000) and Charles (2006) also point to the presence of different voices in text depending on whether they are averred (the writer uses his/her own voice to refer to things in the world or to report some event) or attributed, as voices coming from external sources other than the writer.…”

“…It is through this inclusion of external voices that journalists establish relations and interact with their readers, by indicating to them who is speaking and what information should be considered essential (cf. Dahl and Fløttum 2014). Besides, the integration of external participants is not only carried out to support and give credibility to the information, but also to make the story more personal since, as Parkinson and Adendorff point out, "a proposition associated with a person may be viewed as that person's subjective opinion, perhaps influenced by emotion" (2004: 381; cf.…”