Influential Spanish Politicians' Discourse of Climate Change on Twitter: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Study

Area of Science:

• Discourse Analysis
• Political Communication
• Climate Change Studies

Background:

• Climate change communication is a critical area of public discourse.
• The role of social media, particularly Twitter, in disseminating political messages is significant.
• Understanding the linguistic strategies employed by influential figures is crucial for analyzing public perception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the linguistic patterns in climate change communication by Spanish politicians on Twitter.
• To identify how specific word choices and metaphors shape the narrative of climate change.
• To reveal the worldview conveyed through political discourse on climate change.

Main Methods:

• Creation of a specialized corpus of tweets related to climate change from influential Spanish politicians over the past decade.
• Quantitative keyword analysis to identify lexical choices.
• Qualitative semantic classification and concordance analysis to examine discourse features.

Main Results:

• Prevalence of specific linguistic patterns, metaphors, and frames in the analyzed discourse.
• Identification of a narrative that positions climate change as a 'villain'.
• Emergence of political leaders as 'saviors' within the communication framework.

Conclusions:

• The study reveals distinct linguistic strategies used by Spanish politicians in climate change communication on Twitter.
• These strategies contribute to a specific framing of climate change, influencing public understanding.
• The findings highlight the power of language in political discourse to shape perceptions of complex issues.