Framing environmental discourse. Greta Thunberg, metaphors, blah blah blah!

Abstract

This study focuses on the analysis of Greta Thunberg’s speeches, from the early mobilizations of Friday for Future (Thunberg, 2019) to the latest Conference of the Parties in 2022. We explore her use of metaphors, their contribution to the construction of discourse frames and their role in persuasive argumentation. The overall analytical approach is guided by the principles of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), and the theoretical and philosophical background of Ecolinguistics. As one of the most significant environmental voices on the current global scene, Thunberg’s underlying ideologies are positively viewed, especially as they are expressed in climate related predictions. The analysis critically and diachronically examines Greta’s linguistic choices, identifying how they contribute to promote a positive perspective that highlights the interconnection between social groups and the natural world. As well as a positive dimension, which recognises the importance of Thunberg’s contribution to modern environmental movements (Bullon-Cassis, 2024), the paper critiques her use of these linguistic resources. It is suggested that at least part of her talismanic impact as a speaker relates to a familiar discourse of generational conflict among young audiences, a dimension which her use of framing is found to target.

Keywords:

• Ecolinguistics
• Greta Thunberg
• positive discourse analysis
• framing
• metaphor
• argumentation
• environmental discourse

REVIEWING EDITOR:

• Jeroen van de Weijer, College of International Studies, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

SUBJECTS:

• Language & Linguistics
• Semantics
• Sociolinguistics

Introduction

A recent trend in Ecolinguistics has been to adopt some of the perspectives of positive discourse analysis (Halliday, 2010; Martin, 1999, 2004; Martin & Rose, 2003; Ponton, 2022; Stibbe, 2018), and to a degree this paper can be seen as continuing the trend. From the point of view of the committed ecolinguist, it is hard to imagine where a positive analyst might find more of cheer and encouragement¹ than in the impactful words of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, a game-changer, an influencer and the spokesperson for a new, more environmentally aware generation.

From the point of view of the study of political discourse, however, there are critical questions that emerge, even in a study whose perspective is overwhelmingly positive about Thunberg and her already significant contribution to a cause supported by most ecolinguists. In a nutshell her proposition is that, unless there is a rapid, immediate, collective mind-shift away from fossil fuels to renewable sources then planetary disaster will occur in a very short while (Thunberg, 2019). Yet she is not the first to voice such opinions; why then, has her message caught the attention of the world, from her debut as the indignant schoolgirl who played truant to dress down world leaders at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019? If we answer this question with reference to conventional identity factors such as the seeming naivety with which she frames her questions, the freshness of the environmental message in the mouth of a callow Cassandra, then other questions follow. Is it because of the message itself that her words have enjoyed such resonance; is it not rather because media respond to what is a highly marketable figure, that her image can be bought and sold, her youth and energy feeding the very machine against which she rages? Again, one can ask to what extent the fragile figure is really voicing an artless ‘cry for help’ for a voiceless young generation, for vanishing species and devastated habitats, for burning forests and for the disenfranchised wretched of the industrial world. It might be asked to what extent her message, and discursive persona, have been shaped by environmental activists of an older generation, or again how far her language and argumentation conform to the outlines of familiar frames in traditional political rhetoric (Skilbeck, 2020).

In this paper we attempt to answer some of these questions through an analysis of Greta’s patterns of argumentation and her use of rhetorical features such as metaphor, in an attempt to understand her growing niche in contemporary environmental discourse. We firstly discuss the connection between Positive Discourse Analysis and its better-known predecessor, Critical Discourse Analysis.

A mirror image? Positive Discourse Analysis

From a certain point of view Positive Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis have much in common; indeed, they could be seen as simply the two sides of the same coin. Both spring from the contemplation of a social issue, directed by the analyst’s sense that the world is out of joint in some respect. In CDA studies of migration discourse, for example, analysis may expose racist ideologies that underlie lexico-grammatical patterns of representation (Baker & McEnery, 2005; Gabrielatos & Baker, 2008), and infuse media narratives on the topic, thus hardening the socio-political climate for migrants everywhere. Typical analytical tools in CDA come from discourse pragmatics – presuppositions (Polyzou, 2015), implicatures (Wodak, 2007), cognitive frames (Hart, 2023) – or from narrative analysis that may focus on aspects such as evaluative language (Bednarek, 2010; Martin & White, 2003), in-group/out-group construction (Khosravinik, 2010), representations of social actors (Van Leeuwen, 1996), etc. A key assumption of this approach is that people’s attitudes to phenomena are linguistically shaped and, in turn, expressed in language that may obfuscate the inherent ideology that is at the root of the communicative act. How does such analysis improve the world? Ideally, it acts to raise awareness of the fact that the underlying ideologies in each case, stripped of their rhetorical dressing, are unpalatable, even shameful. Orwell said of rhetoric that it enables us to ‘name things without calling up mental pictures of them’; here, it is more that language allows us to hide the negative mental states and prejudices that underlie what are conventionally termed our ‘thoughts’, ‘ideas’, ‘opinions’, and so on. Consider the following, for example: ‘Building a wall along the US-Mexico border has the potential to solve the problem of immigration.’² Anyone making such a statement in a political speech would be committing to an assumption, that immigration is a problem (possible counter-assumption, immigration is a resource); indeed the statement involves a presupposition – a nested judgement that assumes the truth of a debatable proposition. Because ‘solving problems is good’, the statement associates its author with something that is positively judged rather than with the expression of nasty, prejudiced, racist attitudes.

What then of positive discourse analysis? It is possible to find people saying nice things about immigrants:

I like immigrants, they tend to be friendly, hardworking people. Traditionally, immigrant populations have been a strength of our country and I’d like to see us continue to serve as a haven for immigrants. I’ve lived, worked and studied with immigrants, they make some of the best Americans there are. We need to address immigration to ensure it continues to happen in a safe and sustainable way.³

From the progressive, liberal reading position that most CDA analysts occupy, this is ‘encouraging’ discourse (in Martin’s terms); yet, if we apply the same analytical tools as are used in CDA, we see how such discourse reveals analogous rhetorical strategies to the kind of toxic discourse that would normally be critiqued. For example, the writer claims that immigrants ‘tend to be’ friendly and hard-working, a generalisation that frames ALL immigrants in this light. To express the hope that the country ‘continues’ to serve as a ‘haven for immigrants’ presupposes either that it currently does, or has done until very recently; by the same token the text presupposes that immigration currently happens in a ‘safe and sustainable way’. The claim that immigrants make some of ‘the best Americans there are’ presupposes a global recognition of the positive value of the American nation, and thus naturalises the notion that, if immigrants are indeed among the best Americans there are, they must be very special people.

While from an ideological point of view then, the PDA analyst might feel inclined to celebrate the author’s tolerant, anti-racist view of immigration, the text is not above criticism, since it appears to use rhetorical juggling to establish its positions, in precisely the same way that the text of an oil company, for example, might attempt to characterise its activities as eco-friendly and sustainable.

In the same way, Greta’s famous ‘j’accuse’ at the UN, while it springs from flawless ecological and scientific positions – and hence, is likely to appeal to the sensibilities of academics engaged in critical discourse studies – is not free of presuppositions that permit her argument to be seen as an instance of the logical fallacy of question-begging:

People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!⁴

Such a text assumes the truth of its own conclusion, i.e that the reason bad things are happening (people suffering, people dying, ecosystems collapsing, mass extinction) are the fault of the capitalist system that has produced situations conducive to their occurrence.

The paper is written from this perspective, i.e. it focuses on both positive and critical aspects of Greta’s discourse and her polemical strategies and the role of language in both.

Literature review

Greta Thunberg’s ascent as a global climate activist has not only sparked a significant shift in public discourse on environmental issues but has also become a rich subject for analysis, not just within linguistics but across the social sciences. Various scholars have delved into the ways Thunberg uses language to mobilize and empower, particularly in the domain of climate change advocacy. Works and theses such as those by Leann E. Leung (2020), Vesa Putkonen (2019), Hanna Sjögren (2020), Sofia Murray (2020), Suryaningsih (2021), Marthe Elden Wilhelmsen (2020), Bergmann and Ossewaarde (2020), Dominik Schmidt (2021) and Dorota Heidrich and Justyna Nakonieczna-Bartosiewicz (2021) collectively offer a window into the power of linguistic strategies in galvanizing social movements.

Leung’s in-depth analysis of Thunberg’s most influential speeches, including her 2018 TED Talk, her participation at the UN COP24, and her address at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, applies Critical Discourse Analysis to Thunberg’s use of youth-centric discourses. This study reveals how she challenges established power dynamics and portrays young people as vital agents in the climate justice narrative, redefining the role of youth in the global socio-political landscape.

Putkonen unpacks the strategic interplay of diverse climate change discourses in Thunberg’s 2019 UN Climate Action Summit speech. Her use of an accusatory tone, particularly in her poignant ‘How dare you?’ address, contrasts the complacency of current leaders with the urgency felt and demanded by the younger generation.

Sjögren’s examination (2020) of narrative in Greta’s ‘No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference’ speech sheds light on her unique blend of nostalgic emotion and scientific reasoning. A persuasive narrative, grounded in scientific knowledge, is thereby created that critiques the supposed progress of modern society and argues for a return to simpler, ecological ways of living.

In a study that influenced our methodological choices for the current paper, Murray (2020) pinpoints specific framing techniques that amplify the urgency of climate action. The ‘Crisis’ frame for example, evident in her use of metaphors like ‘the house is on fire’ is a powerful tool that stresses the immediate dangers posed by climate change. These frames are not merely rhetorical devices but are instrumental in shaping public understanding and response to environmental challenges. A framing perspective is also found in Wilhelmsen (2020), who identifies the repetitive use of certain frames such as that of Moral Prophet, Generational Justice, Power Shift, Empty Rhetoric, Scientific Authority, and so on.

We also draw on Suryaningsih (2021), whose critical examination of Thunberg’s use of personal pronouns in her speeches shows how these linguistic tools build solidarity and draw distinctions. Thunberg’s inclusive use of ‘we’ and exclusive ‘you’ delineate allies and opponents in her advocacy, serving not just as parts of speech but as potent tools for empowerment and distinction in the climate movement.

Bergmann and Ossewaarde (2020) explore the role of media in shaping public perception of activism, particularly of youth movements, showing how Thunberg and other young activists are portrayed via ageist language as naïve or disconnected.

Dominik Schmidt’s article (2021) presents a focused analysis of Greta Thunberg’s climate activism rhetoric. Examining 30 of her speeches between November 2018 and March 2020 through a post-structural discourse lens, the study reveals how Thunberg crafts a ‘global people’ in opposition to ‘world leaders’. This approach highlights the populist elements in her discourse, particularly her use of ‘empty signifiers’ to transcend national borders and foster a global populism. Conclusively, Thunberg’s language is seen as a manifestation of global populism, creating a unified global identity in response to climate change. This analysis serves as an insightful example for linguists of how language can shape global identities and movements.

In the work of Dorota Heidrich and Justyna Nakonieczna-Bartosiewicz (2021), a comprehensive and methodical analysis of Greta Thunberg’s communicative output is presented, encompassing 17 public speeches, 14 written publications, and a broad spectrum of social media posts from August 2018 to February 2020. Their study, grounded in an exploratory and inductive framework and informed by the principles of social constructivism, provides a nuanced exploration of Thunberg’s discourse. Thunberg’s approach is distinguished by its emotive language, creating a stark dichotomy between the proactive stance of youth and the perceived ineffectiveness of adults. She employs impactful slogans such as ‘our house is on fire’, effectively marrying emotional engagement with clear, direct messaging. Importantly, her discourse is underpinned by scientific evidence, lending her emotive appeals a solid foundation of rational argumentation. The researchers conclude that Thunberg’s distinctive communication style has established her as a pivotal ‘norm entrepreneur’ in the discourse surrounding climate change. This makes her a particularly intriguing figure for linguists interested in the interplay between language, societal change, and environmental activism, illustrating how linguistic strategies can be leveraged to influence public discourse and drive social movements.

Methodology

As hinted at above, our research methodology is neither completely ‘critical’ nor ‘positive’, but instead attempts to integrate certain aspects of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) within an overarching framework inspired by Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA).

From a CDA perspective we explore linguistic nuances in Thunberg’s speeches; her lexical choices, sentence construction, pronoun use and framing, to reveal the substratum of meanings, ideologies, and dynamics of power interwoven within her discourse. This approach is informed by the perspective that language is not merely a medium of communication but a powerful tool in shaping and reflecting realities, attitudes, and actions. As Fairclough (2003) notes, language is an inextricable component of social life, playing a crucial role in the formation and evolution of cultural conditions and social development. Discourse, especially when it consists of public speeches given under the reflectors of global media attention, is seen as a reflection of world interpretations, which can potentially steer societies in various directions (Fairclough, 2003; Skrede, 2017). In line with the views of Unger et al. (2016), we recognize discourse as a form of social practice that both shapes and is shaped by other social practices and structures. This dual nature of discourse, being both constituted and constituting, forms the crux of our exploration of Thunberg’s speeches. Somewhat paradoxically, we approach discourse with whose ideological bases we concur with the same critical lens that would be applied in a study where abuse of power is at stake.

Our application of CDA is problem-oriented, focusing on texts and their role in maintaining or changing power dynamics, social injustices, and cultural norms within society. This critical perspective, as highlighted by Hågvar (2013), involves questioning how discursive practices contribute to legitimizing or contradicting established social structures. The inductive frame analysis, suggested by Wilhelmsen’s study (2020), focuses on Thunberg’s framing of the climate change issue. We identify persistent themes, narratives, and viewpoints employed to structure the message of climate change. As discourses represent aspects of the world from specific viewpoints, they are inherently connected to imaginaries and frames (Skrede, 2017; Unger et al., 2016). We thus examine both the frames Greta employs and the underlying imaginaries she both believes in and critiques, and so shed light on the ideological foundations of her discourse. Frames (Entman, 1993; Goffman, 1974; Hart, 2023) relate to the way discourses are structured via the use of metaphors or other linguistic cues in order to encourage the hearer to interpret the message in the way that the speaker wants (Edwards, 2005: 15), and are thus crucial in political rhetoric generally or, as in our case, in the discourse of activism (Vu et al., 2021).

Our perspective on metaphor follows the dynamic trend in metaphor studies that views it as a central plank of human cognition (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003) and a key resource in the persuasive armoury of politicians (Charteris-Black, 2009; Goatly, 2006, 2022), whose linguistic goals have much in common with those of activists such as Greta. We follow Stibbe, in his understanding of the social significance of metaphor. In an ecolinguistic context this refers to the potential of certain patterns of metaphorical understanding to impact the environment positively or negatively, and Stibbe cites Larson (2011: 10, in Stibbe, 2015: 10), who asks ‘whether the metaphors we have chosen will help us on the path of sustainability or lead us further astray’. As an example Stibbe cites Goatly (2000: 78, in Stibbe, 2015: 25), who points out that, instead of using ‘growth’ metaphors for rising economic indicators in modern economies, that of ‘cancer’ would be more accurate; hence, more socially beneficial.

The social-constructivist, ecolinguistic perspective on ‘growthism’ and its associated metaphors was also present in the seminal paper by M.A.K. Halliday (1992) that launched Positive Discourse Analysis (see also Martin, 2004; Martin & Rose, 2003). From this angle we highlight the positive dimensions of Greta’s discourse, examining how her speeches might contribute to social changes in the area of youth empowerment and a reshaping of societal attitudes towards climate change. In PDA, ideologies are perceived in a dualistic manner: both as mechanisms of power and as collections of the beliefs, attitudes, and perspectives of social groups (Ponton, 2022) This approach contrasts with the traditional focus of CDA on power mechanisms, instead exploring how collective beliefs and viewpoints contribute constructively to social discourse and drive change (Fairclough, 2003).

A central tenet of PDA, consistent with broader discourse analysis, is the recognition that utterances typically encompass more than their explicit or referential meanings. This involves considering non-verbal communication elements such as intonation, body language, and contextual cues, which require interpretative efforts to fully comprehend the discourse (Leech, 2016; Underhill, 2008). The current paper does not go deeply into these aspects, beyond noting that Greta’s visible ‘childlike’ appearance, especially in her earliest talks, makes a significant non-verbal contribution to the child vs. adult component of her message.

Data

The corpus analysed (see Appendix) consists of a collection of nine public speeches (9753 tokens) delivered by Thunberg between the years 2018 and 2022, from her dramatic emergence as a 15 year old schoolgirl to some of her most recent addresses. It includes various formats of public discourse, addresses at global summits, speeches at climate rallies, and presentations at educational institutions. These texts provide valuable insights into the language of environmental activism, the persuasive strategies employed, and the dynamic interplay between youth advocacy and global policymaking.

The chronological arrangement of the speeches allows for an analysis of the trajectory of Thunberg’s discourse, reflecting her transition from a young, passionate activist to a globally recognized voice in environmental advocacy.

In the table below (Table 1) the metaphors and frames in each of the speeches have been collected:

Table 1. Greta corpus: metaphors and instantiations in environmental discourse.⁵

Year	Event	Metaphor	Instantiation	Frame
2018	TEDx Stockholm	i) The world is asleep ii) Life is a game	i) All we have to do is to wake up and change; ii) we can’t save the world by playing by the rules	Normality
2018	COP24 KATOWICE UNCCC in Polonia	i) The world is a car ii) Parents are thieves	i) the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake; ii) you’re stealing their future	Generational divide
2019	European Parliament in Strasbourg	i) The world is a house on fire ii) Civilisation is a building	i) I want you to act as if your house was on fire; ii) Our civilisation is so fragile. It is almost like a castle built in the sand	Panic
2019	United Nations General Assembly in New York City	i) Grown ups are thieves ii) the world is a sleeper	i) You have stolen my dreams and my childhood ii) The world is waking up.	Generational divide
2019	COP 25 Chile, Madrid	The environment is a child	If there is a child standing in the middle of the road and cars are coming at full speed, you don’t look away because it’s too uncomfortable	Science; numbers
2020	Davos Forum	The world is a house on fire	Our world in case you haven’t noticed is currently on fire. Our house is still on fire	Generational divide
2020	EU climate law and targets: exchange of views.	The world is a house on fire	When your children set off the fire alarm..you stated that, yes, the house is actually burning	Generational divide
2021	Glasgow COP26	i) People in power are sleepers ii) People in power are emperors iii) People in power are fantasists iv) the world is a house on fire v) ordinary people are soldiers	i) what will it take for the people in power to wake up? But let’s be clear, they are already awake ii) our emperors are naked iii) people in power can continue to live in their bubble iv) All this while the world is literally burning on fire v) while the people living on the front lines	Uselessness of talk Generational divide
2022	Glastonbury Speech	i) Humanity is a car ii) Climate disaster is a cliff iii) Human policies are a game iv) Climate disaster is a cliff v) Human history is a journey vi) Human history is a story	i) our safety as a species is on a collision course with our current system ii) greed that has brought us to the very edge of the precipice iii) we are at best playing defence iv) to step back from the edge of the cliff v) …choose a new path vi) the time has come for us to tell this story and perhaps even change the ending	Emergency

For reasons of space, the table does not include all metaphors; dead metaphors are not counted, repeated metaphors are given only once, and extended metaphors are represented by a single instance rather than each lexical item that could be seen as part of the metaphor. Selection of metaphors focused on their role in framing and argumentation, as in the 2019 UN speech, where Greta’s accusation: You have stolen my dreams and my childhood has clear semantic relations to the frame, which has been identified as ‘generational divide’.

Analysis

The discussion will focus on: Thunberg’s use of pronouns, some of her dominant discourse frames and metaphors and the role of these in argumentation, as well as some suggestions as to possible evolutionary trajectories in her career as a public speaker.

Pronoun reference is a much studied aspect of political discourse, and its role in construing discursive in and outgroups has been noted (Van Dijk, 1996 Oktar, 2001, Wodak, 2008). In the case of Greta Thunberg – who, we should remember, is not a politician and so we also need to consider the question of her likely intended audience – it is not always straightforward to identify who is meant by ‘we’, ‘you’, and so on. In the context of climate change discourse we might expect an activist like Greta to understand the outgroup as consisting of those responsible for the approaching planetary disaster. In such cases the usual suspects would be politicians, global institutions like the UN, the EU, the World Bank, multinational corporations generally and fossil fuel industries in particular, climate change deniers, complicit media outlets, prominent celebrities and so on.

As an example of the difficulty, consider the following:

We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! (United Nations General Assembly)

Given that she is addressing an audience of the influential it would appear straightforward to view those in the hall as the likely addressees here. However, as a glance at the UN’s website will show, it is hardly fair to tar the whole organisation with the same tainted brush since it has actively participated in numerous climate initiatives, including the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global greenhouse gas emissions to 1.5% above pre-industrial levels.⁶ It is safe to presume that among Greta’s public would have been many burocrats, politicians and others professionally interested in the question of climate change, i.e. folk engaged in opposing abuses that result from the capitalist system. Therefore it makes sense to hear Greta’s accusation as referring not just to those present but to a global audience of overhearers. Her outgroup logically consists of the people that do only talk about these things, whether they be politicians, economic advisers, industrialists, and so on. However the effect is rather confusing for the general listener who, because of the pragmatics of the pronoun (Gardelle & Sorlin, 2015), will feel addressed directly.⁷

In another talk she seems to confuse the borders between in- and out-groups:

Maybe they will ask me about you, the people who were around, back in 2018. Maybe they will ask why you didn’t do anything while there still was time to act (TEDx Stockholm)

The pronoun ‘You’ used in an accusation, as here (‘why didn’t you do anything while there was still time to act?’) would normally construct an out-group. But a TED talk audience is likely to consist mostly in people sympathetic to her message; it will certainly not be attended by world leaders or others with a decisive role in shaping global policies. Young people who go to TED talks seem to be Greta’s natural constituency, and many are no doubt engaged in environmental activities. As in the last example, such people will have to perform a cognitive mental operation of self-exculpation (but I do as much as I can for the environment). Moreover, since her audience will likely be ‘ordinary people’ rather than anyone whose choices could have the slightest impact on the state of the environment, it hardly seems fair for her to drop responsibility for the situation on them. As in the last example, the pragmatics of ‘you’ involve everyone in the out-group and, indeed, Greta makes this clear in the co-text (the people who were around). The ‘people who were around’ is a vast group with vague borders – it basically refers to everyone except Greta, who could have softened this accusation here by using the inclusive pronoun ‘we’. Again, as in the last example, it would seem that to create a rather uncertain, discomforting effect is part of her rhetorical strategy, so that people do feel challenged, whether they are important social actors or simply members of the powerless general public.

A final example, also from the UN address, deepens the uncertainty regarding who is addressed:

My message is that we’ll be watching you. This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. (United Nations General Assembly)

The first sentence is the opening of the speech itself; nothing that comes before, then, can assist listeners in disambiguating the pronoun references (who is meant here by ‘we’ and ‘you’?). ‘We’ could mean young people in general, Greta Thunberg’s environmental movement, the world’s environmentalists in general or some other group; the most salient meaning for ‘you’ would be ‘the UN’, since the talk is given at that institution. But if this is so, then why does she say, a few seconds later: ‘you all come to us young people for hope’? ‘You all’ is apparently a much broader category; by inference it consists in ‘all people who are not young people’, i.e. adults.⁸ Thus, a plausible interpretation of her meaning here would be: adults look to young people for hope, and this is wrong.

In terms of metaphor, it is striking that most of Greta’s appear to have some connection with the world of infancy/domesticity, as Table 2 shows:

Table 2. Childhood and domesticity in Thunberg’s metaphors.⁹

Year	Talk	Metaphor	Comment
2018	TEDx Stockholm	i) The world is asleep ii) Life is a game	i) We / the world are like sleeping children, waiting for (an adult) to wake us ii) Children play all the time
2018	COP24 KATOWICE UNCCC in Polonia	i) The world is a car ii) Parents are thieves	i) A family car? ii) Child / Parent relationships
2019	European Parliament in Strasbourg	i) The world is a house on fire ii) Civilisation is a building	i) Childhood anxiety about the house burning down ii) Here she talks of castles of sand, archetypical kids’ seaside activity
2019	United Nations General Assembly in New York City	i) Grown ups are thieves ii) the world is a sleeper	i) Child / Parent relationships ii) Again, we are like sleeping children
2019	COP 25 Chile, Madrid	The environment is a child	An endangered child is pictured in the middle of a road with an onrushing car; vulnerability, danger coming from an adult world
2020	Davos Forum	The world is a house on fire	Childhood anxiety about the house burning down
2020	EU climate law and targets: exchange of views	The world is a house on fire	Children are shown setting off the fire alarm
2021	Glasgow COP26	i) People in power are sleepers ii) People in power are emperors iii) People in power are fantasists iv) the world is a house on fire v) ordinary people are soldiers	i) Once again, reference to sleep – here it is the adults who sleep and are hence off their guard ii) Reference to fairy tale of ‘emperor’s new clothes’ iii) Blowing bubbles another childhood pastime iv) Childhood anxiety… v) The realm of childhood is peopled by toy soldiers
2022	Glastonbury Speech	i) Humanity is a car ii) Climate disaster is a cliff iii) Human policies are a game iv) Climate disaster is a cliff v) Human history is a journey iv) Human history is a story	i) Another driving metaphor ii) Like cartoon character Wile E. the Coyote we are falling off a cliff iii) Another reference to gaming iv) Another cliff reference v) Travel iv) Story-telling

To glance at the above table is to absorb a semantic prosody of childhood, without the need for a close semantic or pragmatic analysis of each instance. Reference is made to houses on fire, blowing bubbles, story-telling, fairy tales, sleepers, children standing in the middle of a road, to gaming, to cartoon scenarios, to driving a car. Naturally, the mere fact of Greta’s using a car as the source domain of her metaphor does not automatically implicate childhood. However, if the co-text is taken into account, her meaning emerges clearly:

You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is, even that burden you leave to us children…

It is therefore an adult – perhaps, a parent driving a family car – who is concerned. Greta’s perspective is that of the child being driven around with the family, watching an accident unfold from a back seat, powerless to intervene as the driver fails to resolve the situation. As we shall shortly see, this metaphor is part of her construal of a ‘Generational divide’ frame that relates to a specific argumentative position re the climate change debate.

It is noticeable that where parents are concerned, these metaphors are suggestive of toxic rather than supportive relationships. The parents, or older generations, are represented as thieves, bad drivers, unaware, irresponsible. One repeated metaphor that appears in early and later talks, the ‘house on fire’, allows us to observe something of the evolution of her thought. Of course, the pragmatic force of the metaphor is always that older generations have ruined the environment and brought the world to the brink of climate apocalypse. In 2019, however, she says:

I want you to act as if your house was on fire

Pragmatic inferences: a) the house is not currently on fire, b) it would be good if we acted as if it were. By 2021 this has become:

All this while the world is literally burning on fire

In other words, it is too late now to take the kind of preventive measure which the early metaphor was calling for.¹⁰

The frame of generational divide, because it occurs at various chronological points throughout our small corpus, can be seen as a dominant discursive device by means of which Thunberg structures her thought and argumentation on climate issues. In experiential terms, and in terms of a cognitive perspective on metaphor such as that of Lakoff and Johnson (2003), it is an understandable choice. At the point in which she finds her voice, Thunberg’s experience is that of a child who has grown up into a world that has been shaped by older generations. Generally speaking, environmental concerns relate to the side-effects of economic activity and industrial production such as the exploitation of resources, pollution, species loss, desertification, and so on – and all this relates to the adult world, into which children are gradually socialised by ‘education’. As Greta says herself ‘I should be in school’ (UN General Assembly). Unfortunately, she has realised that ‘school’, far from passing on to new generations reliable guidelines, consolidated praxis for problem-solving, mature scientific knowledge, and the like, is simply inadequate to the times. As institutions, schools partake of the same social critique she poses to other adult structures – they are run by ‘sleepers’, who simply believe in ‘business as usual’ (EU climate law and targets), in ‘blah blah blah’ (Glasgow COP26), who are not ‘mature enough to tell it like it is’ (UN General Assembly).

Moreover, in 2018 when she bursts on the scene, Greta is visibly ‘a child’, and still today appears astonishingly young for someone with such an immense media profile and potential to influence global thought and events. Rhetorically then, projecting generational conflict is something that she does automatically – she literally embodies the essence of her message, at least as far as the ‘generational divide’ frame is concerned.

As far as the rhetorical strength of the frame and its role in argumentation is concerned, the discourse feeds on other societal cultural discourses that give it force, especially given Greta’s extreme media and social media friendliness which turn her almost overnight from unknown Swedish schoolgirl into modern environmental icon. Despite the facts that a) it is manifestly not true that all adults are responsible for the current state of the world’s climate, b) some adults have dedicated their lives to the same cause that she is fighting, and c) not all children care as deeply as she does about the issue while some may not care at all; despite this, she has managed to connect the environmental cause with wider currents such as teenage rebelliousness, the kind that frequently leads the young to question and reject the values of past generations, with the search for heroes generated by the affordances of social media, as well as with the trendiness of Green as an alternative ideology.

To observe the role of metaphor and discourse frame in Greta’s habitual style of argumentaton, consider the following:

When your children set off the fire alarm, you went outside, took a look and smelled the air. You stated that, yes, the house is actually burning. This was no false alarm. But then you went back inside, finished your dinner and watched your movie and went to bed without even calling the fire department. I’m sorry, but this makes no sense at all when your house is on fire. You don’t wait a few more years to start putting it out. And yet this is what the commission are proposing today. When the EU presents this climate law and net zero by 2050, you indirectly admit surrender that you are giving up, giving up on the Paris agreement, giving up on your promises and giving up on doing everything you possibly can to ensure a safe future for your own children. (EU climate law and targets)

This extended metaphor emphasises the childhood frame via its evocation of a domestic scene in which the family behave absurdly in response to a warning from the children. The crux seems to be the EU’s new climate law with its target of net zero by 2050¹¹, whose introduction is viewed by Greta that the goals of the 2015 Paris conference were unrealistic and have been scrapped.

The characterisation of the children is positive – they are seen as smart, active and alert. They do the responsible thing by sounding the fire alarm when they notice the fire, warning the parents that there is a problem that requires attention. The parents are negatively judged, since they agree that the house is burning but take no practical steps to deal with the situation, instead going on with their lives as usual. The metaphor gains persuasive force via the humour, which is reminiscent of that in the hit film ‘Matilda’, with its portrait of a neglected genius daughter paired with dysfunctional, consumerist parents.¹² In terms of classical argumentation, and translating the metaphorical terms into their real world counterparts, it could be analysed as follows:

Since: The house is on fire (the house = the world, fire = the oncoming climate catastrophe)

And Since: When a house is on fire you call the fire department (i.e., you respect the Paris agreement)

Therefore: We should call the fire department (i.e, we should respect the Paris agreement)

In terms of achieving a desired perlocutionary effect this is clearly not relevant, since as she says, the Paris agreement has been ‘given up on’. Greta, as we have noted, is an influencer and an activist rather than a politician. If such language is persuasive, its effect will be in the area of spreading her message more widely, and increasing her popularity among young people.

Conclusion

In light of the escalating evidence, as underscored by the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)¹³ report, the urgency for immediate and decisive action against climate change has never been more critical. This report reveals that global temperatures are increasing at a rate that far exceeds previous scientific predictions, with catastrophic impacts on biodiversity, human health, and economic stability becoming increasingly palpable with each passing year. Such findings not only reinforce the factual reliability of the messages delivered by activists like Greta Thunberg (see, e.g. Bedford & Cook, 2016) but also highlight the inadequacy of current global efforts to mitigate the crisis. Therefore, as we conclude, it becomes imperative to not only echo Thunberg’s call for change but to also recognize that the window for effective action is rapidly closing. Our examination of Thunberg’s discourse reveals her adept integration of scientific evidence to underscore the immediacy of the climate crisis, notably in her 2019 United Nations General Assembly speech. Here, Thunberg starkly confronts global leaders with the facts of climate science, coupling her poignant metaphor ‘Grown ups are thieves’ (You have stolen my dreams and my childhood) with data on rising global temperatures and carbon emissions to critique the inadequacy of current global climate actions. This melding of scientific rigour with emotional resonance amplifies her call to action, demonstrating a sophisticated rhetorical prowess that bridges the gap between scientific communities and the public. By grounding her emotional appeals in empirical data, Thunberg not only enhances the credibility of her message but also mobilizes a broader segment of society towards urgent climate action.

From an Ecolinguistic perspective the stories people tell about the environment have a special significance. As Stibbe (2015) notes, it is vital to raise social awareness of the fact that so many of the stories we tell are based on anti-Green ideologies, and therefore assist in the spread of pernicious attitudes through all levels of society. Examples of these are more is better, (economic) growth is good, technology is good because it solves problems, humans are the most important species. Not only should narratives that embody such ideologies be challenged, but Ecolinguistics should also propose alternative stories that enhance the role of nature in our lives, give it value, celebrate the perspectives of more-than-human social actors and underline their importance in themselves, not just because they have value for us. In this latter consideration, Ecolinguistics and Positive Discourse Analysis are seen to converge since, for the ecologically sensitive, such stories will always be among those that inspire and encourage (Martin, ibid).

Having said as much, it is plain that Greta is a divisive figure, since she challenges values in our societies which have tremendous force. While, as we have said, she has a powerful appeal to the young and to the ecologically-minded of the older generations, her attack on the foundations of consumerist-capitalism made her a target for reactionary voices in the social and mediatic mainstream. She has drawn ageist, sexist and ableist flak on Youtube, where she is characterised as a ‘lightning rod for criticism’ (Park et al., 2021), while Ryalls and Mazzarella (2021) highlight the the socio-political risks involved in the mediatic construction of a global icon, an exceptional – but because of her autism, crucially flawed – climate saviour. Such a figure may be marginalised and, as the authors note (ibid, 10), ‘It is not surprising that a strong, vocal, non-normative teenage girl who calls out adults would become a target of those same adults.’ Plainly, among the adults gunning for Thunberg would be many working in the oil industry, now compelled to augment their greenwashing, like chief executive of Oil and Gas UK, Deirdre Michie, who in 2019 said, in Aberdeen:

Climate change is a real and present danger that we must deal with together. I would like to reassure Greta Thunberg we are listening, because we want the world to be a better place too.

Greta Thunberg’s stories struck a new note when she broke through to public global attention in 2018 and, although the tone in this paper could be seen as critical of her use of framing and metaphor, this should be seen in the context of an overall sharing of her environmental message and approval of what she represents. The house may not be literally burning, but parts of it appear to have caught fire. This is not a new message and, contrary to Greta’s assertions, it has been present in mainstream media discourse at least since the early 70s, when Friends of the Earth was founded. People have not been left in the dark about the fact that a high percentage of the world’s scientists concur over doomsday scenarios of species loss, desertification, melting of polar ice caps and consequent rising water levels, acid rain, ozone layer depletion, climate tipping points, the coming Venusification of the Earth, and so on.

Our study shows that Greta’s use of metaphors and strategic framing produces a distinctive brand of persuasive environmental discourse. We have not dwelt much on the aspect of facticity, and there is no doubt that her able use of scientific data and the technical lexis of climate change increases the credibility of her overall discourse. Yet, as we pointed out above, such data has often been laid before the public by scientists engaged in climate research without creating the same kind of waves in public opinion that Greta achieves. It is the stories she tells, and above all the story she represents and embodies, backed up by reliable scientific data, that make the difference.

Greta’s linguistic choices, as we have seen, coalesce around a number of striking frames among which, we suggest, that of ‘generational divide’ appears to occupy a dominant place in our data. There is a symbolic resonance to the circumstance that it is a fearless youngster that preaches change to what is depicted in her discourse as a tired generation of adult polluters and cynical career politicians. A change from fossil fuel to renewables will require the boundless energy of a new generation, and Greta Thunberg, more than any comparable recent public figure, appears to be its perfect incarnation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by FSE+ (Fondo sociale europeo Plus) REACT-EU (Assistenza alla ripresa per la coesione e i territori d’Europa), PON “Research and Innovation” (2014-2020) scholarship code DOT1303555-3; code CUP J35F21003080006.

Notes on contributors

Douglas Mark Ponton

Douglas Mark Ponton is Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Catania. His research interests include political discourse analysis, ecolinguistics, discourse in interaction, applied linguistics, pragmatics, corpus linguistics and critical discourse studies. He has held teaching and research positions at the universities of Catania, Messina and Pisa. Some recent publications: Understanding Political Persuasion: Linguistic and Rhetorical Analysis (Vernon Press, 2019), Exploring Ecolinguistics: Ecological Principles and Narrative Practices (Bloomsbury, 2024). As well as politics and ecolinguistics, his research deals with social topics such as legal language and crime, the discourse of mediation, migration, cross-cultural politeness and folk traditions.

Anna Raimo

Anna Raimo holds a Master’s degree with honors in “Linguistica e didattica dell’italiano nel contesto internazionale” (2019) from the University of Salerno and the Universität des Saarlandes in Saarbrücken. She subsequently obtained a second-level Master’s degree in “Didattica dell’Italiano L2” (2020) from the University of Naples L’Orientale. Currently, she is pursuing a Ph.D. in “Culture Letterarie e Filologiche” at the University of Bologna under the supervision of Prof. Aldo Gangemi, Prof. Francesca Tomasi (University of Bologna) and Prof. Zuzana Toth (University of Basel). Her doctoral research, titled “Public Discourse Versus Sensor-Based Data About the Relationship Between Human Society and National Environment,” critically examines the discourse on ecological themes in political contexts in Italy and investigates the pedagogical implications for teaching Italian as a second language.

Notes

1 In the oft-cited words of Jim Martin (1999, pp. 51–52), the positive discourse analyst seeks solace in the study of discourse that ‘inspires, encourages, heartens, discourse we like, that cheers us along’.

2 Speedy Paper: https://speedypaper.com/essays/would-a-border-fence-solve-the-immigration-problem-in-the-united-states, retrieved 18.12.2023.

3 Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/co27f2/what_do_you_think_about_immigrants_and_immigration/, retrieved 17.12.23.

4 NPR: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action- summit, retrieved 17.12.23.

5 The data can be checked in the sources cited in the Appendix – Corpus of Greta Thunberg speeches.

6 United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/paris-agreement, retrieved 11.01.2024.

7 Space prohibits an extensive treatment of this; briefly, the presumption in a verbal exchange between Speaker (S) and Hearer (H) is that ‘when S uses the pronoun ‘you’ they intend to address H in the first person’. Not to do so would be to flout Grice’s maxim of Relevance. In the case in question, any of Greta’s listeners – whether present in the hall or among the global audience that followed her remarks on YouTube, for example – who DO NOT talk about money and eternal economic growth will be compelled to perform a mental operation of refusal (she can’t mean me). This involves them in a certain cognitive discomfort, which would be completely absent from an utterance whose referee is more specific such as: ‘all bankers and economists can do is talk about money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth’. A listener who is not a banker or an economist will process this statement without difficulty. As we shall see from other examples, the creation of this ambiguity of engagement could be a deliberate rhetorical choice.

8 She is clearly not referring to the UN, since there is no sense in which the UN ‘come to young people for hope’. Greta was not invited to the event because the UN wanted to canvas the views of a random teenager but because she had become a global celebrity who they could hardly ignore.

9 For sources cited, see Appendix – Corpus of Greta Thunberg speeches.

10 Parenthetically we should note that by using the word ‘literally’ in conjunction with a metaphor, the speaker explicitly tells listeners that they should not hear this in a metaphorical sense. In this case Greta departs from her customary stance as the Casssandra warning of dire consequences if necessary steps are not taken; instead she offers a controversial description of the actual state of things, perhaps thereby weakening her argument. As O’Neill (2023) comments, the planet is visibly not yet at ‘boiling’ point.

11 EU Climate Law: https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/european-climate-law_en#:∼:text=The%20European%20Climate%20Law%20writes,2030%2C%20compared%20to%201990%20levels., retrieved 17/01/2024.

12 As a hero, Greta has been compared with Malala Yusufzai and Nadia Murad, and in the fictional sphere to the figure of Pippi Longstocking, ‘independent, wilful, strong, rebellious and imaginative [.] who dared question authority’ (Coughlin and Hauck 2023: 160).

13 For further information see the website: https://www.ipcc.ch/.

Appendix –

Corpus of Greta Thunberg speeches

1. School strike for climate - save the world by changing the rules: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/730383662

2. COP24 Katowice UNCCC, 12/12/2018, https://www.ienonline.org/ien/ci-state-rubando-il-futuro/

3. Eu Parliament in Strasbourg, extraordinary meeting of the Environment Committee 16/4/2019: https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2019/12/02/speech-at-the-european-parliament-april-16-2019/

4. UN General Assembly New York 23 September 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9KxE4Kv9A8&ab_channel=UnitedNations

5. COP25 Chile Madrid 11/12/2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11FCyUB81rI&ab_channel=Channel4News

6. Davos Forum Speech Transcript 21/01/2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zn1UI6wx0Q&ab_channel=WorldEconomicForumVideo

7. EU climate law and targets: exchange of views: https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/video/eu-climate-law-and-targets-exchange-of-views-opening-statement-by-with-greta-thunberg-climate-activist_I185413

8. Glasgow COP26 or “Global North Greenwash Festival” 6/11/2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBL7td5sozk&ab_channel=FridaysForFuture

9. Glastonbury Speech 19 Ottobre 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yK_N11pGEs