A critical discourse analysis of english media texts on climate change

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



LƯU THỊ KIM NHUNG

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
OF ENGLISH MEDIA TEXTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
A thesis submitted to the University of Languages and International Studies
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 62 22 15 01

Hanoi, 2016


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



LƯU THỊ KIM NHUNG

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
OF ENGLISH MEDIA TEXTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
A thesis submitted to the University of Languages and International Studies
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 62 22 15 01

Supervisors: Ha Cam Tam, Ph.D.
Tran Xuan Diep, Asso. Prof. Ph.D.

Hanoi, 2016


Declaration
I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the Doctor of
Philosophy degree at the University of Languages and International Studies,
Vietnam National University, Hanoi is solely my own work other than where I have
clearly indicated that it is the work of others.
The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted,
provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced
without my prior written consent.
I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights
of any third party.
Hanoi, 18th May, 2016
Signature

Luu Thi Kim Nhung

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Abstract
This study critically analyzed how the power relation between the developed and

developing countries as well as the ideologies about these countries‘ responsibilities
for climate change were discursively constructed in The Independent and The New
York Times‟ coverage of the Conferences of the Parties to the UNFCCC between
2004 and 2013. The method of analysis was a qualitative critical discourse analysis
with the support of corpus techniques.
The findings from the study showed that although the altering but consistent
ideologies were struggling with each other, they were all important. Three main
ideologies were decoded in response to the research questions. First, both unity and
conflict existed in the power relation between the developed and developing
countries at the global climate conferences, with the heavier weight on the conflict.
Second, the developed countries seemed reluctant and indifferent towards their
responsibility for climate change. Third, the developing countries were required to
take responsibility for climate change due to their rapid growth but they still
demanded aid from the developed countries. Consequently, no consensus could be
reached on a common framework for climate change, and the lengthy process of
global climate conferences yielded nothing but confusion and delayed action.
The linguistic features of lexical choice, lexical relation, metaphor, passivization,
nominalization and modality were found ideologically invested in the newspapers‘
portrayal of the power relation and ideologies. Also, the ideologies and the language
features that conveyed these ideologies were influenced by the two media outlets‘
political commitments, news values, news agenda, and the socio-economic and
historical background that embedded the discourse. All in all, the media bolstered
the asymmetrical power nexus and the ideologies about the responsibilities for
climate change in the interest of the developed nations.

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Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I am especially indebted to my supervisors, Doctor Ha Cam

Tam and Associate Professor Tran Xuan Diep, for their challenging questions,
immeasurable guidance and support through every stage of my PhD journey so far.
I do really appreciate their astute advice, kind encouragement and insightful
feedback on my work.
I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Professor Nguyen Hoa, Professor
Hoang Van Van, Associate Professor Le Hung Tien, Professor Nguyen Quang,
who, in one way or another, have inspired me into the field of linguistics in general
and critical discourse analysis in particular; to Doctor Huynh Anh Tuan, Associate
Professor Ngo Huu Hoang, Associate Professor Nguyen Van Do, and numerous
other lecturers at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam
National University, Hanoi for their immensely helpful guidance and support during
my study.
I would also like to thank the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of
Languages and International Studies, and all its staff members for their constant
supply of information and advice on stages of my study; my fellow graduate students
who have built such a pleasant community to be part of.
I am really grateful to my colleagues at Faculty of English in particular, at Hanoi
National University of Education in general, for supporting me throughout my study.
My final but definitely not least thanks go to my beloved big family for their
unconditional support all along the way. I am particularly indebted to my late father
for his absolute confidence in my learning capacity and my devoted mother for
guiding me into this field of study since my very early years in life. A special thank
goes to my husband for showing his continuing concern during my studies and
beyond. Ultimately, a most loving thank to my son and daughter for their always
being proud of their mom, and for always being there to remind me of the real
significance in life.
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List of Tables and Figures

Table 2.1. Time frame for data collection .................................................................51
Table 2.2 Adjectival collocates of the nodewords ―countries,‖ ―nations,‖ and ―states‖ .....53
Table 2.3 Collocation profile of the nodewords ―developed countries‖ in The
Independent corpus ...................................................................................................55
Table 2.4. Part of the concordance lines for the nodewords ―developing countries‖
in The Independent corpus ........................................................................................57
Table 2.5. Elements in the research design ...............................................................64
Table 3. Summary of language features in Chapter 3 ..............................................94
Table 4. Summary of language features in Chapter 4 ............................................124
Table 5. Summary of language features in Chapter 5 .............................................142

Figure 1. Discourse as text, interaction and context (Fairclough, 1989) ..................32
Figure 2. Analytical procedure ..................................................................................65
Figure 3. Total tokens in the study corpora ..............................................................68

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List of Abbreviations

Abbreviation

Meaning

CDA

critical discourse analysis

COP

Conference of the Parties

DHA

Discourse-Historical Approach

EU

European Union

IC

The Independent corpus

IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

NYTC

The New York Times corpus

UN FCCC

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change

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CONTENTS
Declaration ...................................................................................................................i
Abstract ...................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... iii
List of Tables and Figures ..........................................................................................iv
List of Abbreviations...................................................................................................v
CONTENTS ...............................................................................................................vi
INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................1
1. Rationale for the study ............................................................................................1
2. Aim and objectives of the study ..............................................................................3
3. Research questions ..................................................................................................4
4. Significance of the study .........................................................................................4
5. Contextual background ...........................................................................................5
Social context ..............................................................................................................5
Discursive practices ..................................................................................................11
6. Methodological considerations .............................................................................13
7. Scope of the study .................................................................................................14
8. Structure of the thesis ............................................................................................15
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW ..............................................................17
1.1 Critical Discourse Analysis .................................................................................17
1.1.1 Basic notions in CDA.......................................................................................18
1.1.2 Major tenets in CDA ........................................................................................23
1.1.3 CDA as a Conceptual Framework and Methodology ......................................26
1.1.4 Critiques of CDA .............................................................................................34
1.2 Corpus techniques in CDA..................................................................................35
1.3 Previous research on climate change discourse ..................................................37

1.3.1 Content analysis of media discourse on global warming and/or climate change
...................................................................................................................................37

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1.3.2 Discourse analysis of media discourse on global warming and/or climate
change........................................................................................................................38
1.3.3 CDA of media discourse on global warming and/or climate change ..............39
CHAPTER 2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ..................................................48
2.1 Research questions ..............................................................................................48
2.2 The study corpora ................................................................................................48
2.2.1 The sources .......................................................................................................48
2.2.2 Corpus compilation ..........................................................................................50
2.3 Analytical framework..........................................................................................51
2.3.1 Corpus tools used in this study ........................................................................52
2.3.2 Fairclough‘s Dialectical-Relational analytical framework adopted in this study
...................................................................................................................................58
CHAPTER 3. POWER RELATION .....................................................................67
3.1 Newsworthiness of the COPs in The Independent and The New York Times .....68
3.2 The contextual background .................................................................................69
3.3 The unity discourse .............................................................................................71
3.4 The conflict discourse .........................................................................................75
3.4.1 The conflict between the developed and developing countries .......................76
3.4.2 The conflict among the developed, developing, and small countries ..............90
CHAPTER 4. THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES’ RESPONSIBILITY FOR
CLIMATE CHANGE .............................................................................................96
4.1 The developed countries‘ responsibility for climate change ..............................98
4.2 The developed countries‘ responsibility for climate change is a possibility, not a
reality.......................................................................................................................105

4.3 The developed countries‘ attitudes towards their responsibility.......................107
CHAPTER 5. THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES’ RESPONSIBILITY FOR
CLIMATE CHANGE ...........................................................................................126
5.1 The developing countries‘ responsibility for climate change ...........................127
5.2 The developing countries‘ attitudes towards their responsibility .....................134
5.3 The developing countries‘ demands .................................................................137
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CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................143
1. Recapitulation .....................................................................................................143
2. Implications .........................................................................................................151
2.1 Theoretical implications ....................................................................................151
2.2 Methodological implications .............................................................................153
2.3 Practical implications ........................................................................................154
2.3.1 For the media..................................................................................................154
2.3.2 For education .................................................................................................156
3. Limitations ..........................................................................................................156
4. Suggestions for further research..........................................................................157
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................160
APPENDIX ..................................................................................................... CLXXII

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INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale for the study
This research work originated in our interest in the climate change issues and
the applicability of critical discourse analysis in exploring the manipulative power

exercised through media discourse on climate change.
Climate change has been considered one of the most crucial challenges that
faces every nation of the world today (see Betsill and Bulkeley, 2004; de Blij, 2005;
Dow and Downing, 2007; Hoffman and Woody, 2008; Held, Theros and FaneHervey, 2011; Singer, 2011; Filho and Manolas, 2012; Klein, 2014; Dunlap
and Brulle, 2015; to name but a few). It has adversely affected the lives of all
people, regardless of their socio-economic status. As a globally comprehensive
response to climate change, the annual United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change‘s (UNFCCC) Conferences of the Parties (COPs) – the biggest
international climate conferences - have been going on for over twenty years now.
Every year, assurances are said and expectations are raised but only partial solutions
are produced and little is achieved in terms of concrete tangible outcomes. As the
world is becoming ever more polarized between the developed and the developing
countries, the rich and the poor countries, even among the rich developed countries
themselves and among the developing countries themselves, more and more parties
with conflicting interests and benefits are joining the negotiation table at the climate
conferences. Particularly, when the issues of responsibility distribution and
economic contribution have become more apparent on the agenda of the
conferences, such conflicting interests and benefits have contributed to the
increased complexity and complication of the contested global debates about
climate change issues. Certainly, such a pivotal issue in such a lengthy process
involving so many governments and people must definitely resort to particular
1


linguistic and discursive means in the media to justify the different parties‘ interests,
attitudes and behaviors in ways that they appear fair on the one hand and avoid or
delay taking action for their own benefits on the other hand. The situation inspires
us to conduct this research to uncover how media language has been manipulated to
convey the power relation between the developed and developing countries as well
as their responsibilities for climate change.

As the climate change debate has become such a globally sophisticated arena,
multiple voices are getting heard. Among them, linguists have delved into the
analyses of rhetorical devices, discourse strategies, metaphors, framing, and other
aspects of text and talk on climate change. Typical examples include Arnal et al.
(2014), Boykoff and Boykoff (2004, 2007), Carvalho (2005, 2007), Doulton and
Brown (2009), Ereaut and Segnit (2006), Grundmann and Krishnamurthy (2010),
Moser and Dilling (2004, 2007), Nerlich and Koteyko (2009, 2011), Painter (2011),
Thaker and Leiserowitz (2014), Tillinghast and McCann (2013), Ukonu et al.
(2013), Wang (2009), Ward (2008), Wodak and Meyer (2012) who have all
commented on the significance of the language used in communicating climate
change issues. Despite such a body of literature, however, to our best knowledge,
virtually no study has focused on the linguistic realizations of the ideologies about
the developed and developing countries‘ responsibilities for climate change which
are discursively constructed in the media so as to interpret and explain these
countries‘ attitudes, behaviours and actions at the global climate debate. In
consideration of the increasingly changing power relations among countries in the
world, we believe it is significant to conduct a systematic and critical (discourse)
analysis employing linguistic tools with a fairly large sample of media language
focusing on the developed and developing countries at the global climate
conferences. In so doing, it is expected that the media‘s use of language and the
ideologies about these dichotomous countries‘ responsibilities for climate change
will be deciphered through the lens of the discursive and social practices that embed
the language in the media.

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2. Aim and objectives of the study
According to the prominent CDA scholars, such as Billig, Chilton, Fairclough,
van Dijk, van Leeuwen, and Wodak, one of the most significant purposes of CDA is

to decode the ideology embedded in language use. Considering discourse a form of
social practice, critical discourse analysts attempt to uncover the reciprocal
influences of language and social structure (see Fairclough, 1989, 2015; van Dijk,
1993). Also, CDA aims ―to unmask ideologically permeated and often obscured
structures of power, political control and dominance as well as strategies of
discriminatory inclusion and exclusion in language use‖ (Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl
and Liebhart, 1999: 8). It could, hence, be deducted that ideology and power
relations are of great importance in CDA research.
On account of the issues stated in the rationale for this study and in line with the
main purpose and aim of CDA, this study was set out to uncover the ideologically
contested power relation(s) between the developed and developing countries at the
global climate conferences as well as the ideologies about these countries‘
responsibilities for climate change, which are manifested in the English media
discourse on climate change under study. In particular, we will analyze how the
developed-developing countries‘ power relation and the ideologies about these
countries‘ responsibilities for climate change are constructed via the language in
The Independent and The New York Times‟ newspapers. Therefore, the objectives of
the study are:
- to analyze the linguistic features in the English media discourse on climate
change under study and uncover the power relation(s) between the developed
and developing countries at the global climate conferences; and
- to analyze the linguistic features in the discourse and decode the ideologies
about the developed and developing countries‘ responsibilities for climate
change conveyed via the discourse; and
- to interpret and explain the power relation(s) between the developed and
developing countries and the ideologies about these countries‘ responsibilities
3


for climate change in light of the social, political, and historical context

embedding the discourse under study.

3. Research questions
In consideration of the aim and objectives stated above, the following research
questions were posed:
1. What kind of power relation between the developed and developing countries
is constructed in the English media discourse under study? How is this
relation linguistically manifested via the discourse?
2. What are the ideologies about the developed and developing countries‘
responsibilities for climate change? How are these ideologies linguistically
manifested via the English media discourse under study?

4. Significance of the study
From a practical perspective, this research work is expected to contribute to an
enhanced understanding of a global concern about the international climate
conferences during the period 2004 – 2013 and the newspapers‘ ideologies about
the developed and developing countries‘ responsibilities for climate change. More
importantly, it is hoped that, as a critical analysis of media discourse, the research
will help the newspapers‘ readers see the manipulative power of the media so as to
become critical in their reading of the news.
From a methodological point of view, this study seeks to not only contribute to
an enhanced understanding of how to apply and extend the methodology of CDA,
but also to offer insights into the benefits of using corpus techniques to support
CDA.
From a pedagogical perspective, the findings of the study can be used as a
reference for schools and other educational institutions in establishing their
educational programs about climate change and critical reading. It is also important

4

that the study contribute to raising faculty and students‘ awareness of the role of
CDA in education and the role of media language in constituting the society.

5. Contextual background
As analyses of mediated discourse often entail the examination of discursive
practices as well as the broader societal conditions that ―frame discourse practices
and texts‖ (Fairclough, 1998: 144), this section provides the social and discursive
contexts embedding the study discourse so as to lay the background for the study.
Social context
Climate change officially emerged on the world‘s agenda at the Earth Summit
in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, which agreed on the importance of the problem and
created a framework, the UNFCCC, for international action, although it left actual
policy recommendations mostly for the future. Being the most prominent
spokesperson on the state of climate change(1), the UNFCCC aims at preventing
humans‘ dangerous interventions into climate. In 1995, there were international
talks in order to urge the whole world to respond to climate change. In 1997, the
UNFCCC met in Kyoto (Japan) and approved of the Kyoto Protocol. But it was not
until 2005 that the protocol came into effect. Under this protocol, industrialized
countries are encouraged to reduce their greenhouse gases emissions to 5% below
1990 levels to keep the global temperature within 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
Although the Kyoto protocol has been widely criticized as a weak and
indecisive agreement, it is the strongest international legal framework that the
world‘s countries have so far been able to agree upon. For the time being, however,
there are quite different attitudes towards the protocol. On the one hand, the rich
industrialized countries in the European Union, including Britain, were pioneers and
have achieved certain success in reducing greenhouse gases emissions. On the other
hand, such countries as the United States, Canada and Australia have been really
reluctant to commit to the targets in the Kyoto protocol for fear that these targets
1

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, />
5


might constrain their future economic growth, or there might be even further
requirements for deeper emissions cuts in the future. On the other hand, many
developing countries are fearful that some of the positive features of the Kyoto
protocol would be lost if a new treaty were agreed. Because climate change is a
complicated global issue that requires comprehensively concerted actions of every
nation in the world, the efforts of some countries have not been sufficient to respond
to the increasing climate-related problems. This has resulted in a slow progress in
the emissions cuts agendas. Thus, even though the national targets were met, it
would not be enough to offset the rapidly increasing emissions from other countries
without further legal commitments on a global basis. Lately, the EU‘s, particularly
the UK‘s, role in the climate change arena has diminished, along with the delayed
action or inaction on the part of other developed countries. Consequently, the whole
process of the global climate negotiations has been the target of criticism primarily
for being very slow and deficient in relation to the urgency it calls for.
The incapability of governments to forge meaningful and effective progress in
these climate talks has historically been attributed to the prevalent divide and
conflict between the developed and the developing countries that the climate regime
portrays (Parks and Roberts, 2010). This divide influences not only the climate
conferences but also the whole global decision-making structure due to the differing
interests of countries involved. The socio-economic development gap between the
rich developed countries and the poor developing countries, as defined by the
Human Development Index2, has defined the countries‘ interests. Sharing similar
past experience as colonies, the developing nations employ the arguments that are
linked to the developed countries‘ historical atrocities towards the environment.
Therefore, they consistently insist that the developed countries provide them with

financial aid and lead the global fight against climate change. Also, with their social
identification as past colonies, the developing countries often assemble with
similarly disadvantaged peers to form a force that would increase the group‘s
2

/>
6


political leverage at the global climate debate. Such coalitions can help the
developing countries set the framework for future negotiations, too (Penetrante,
2010, 2011). The various coalitions such as the G77+China, BASIC, AOSIS, and so
on provide the developing countries with a negotiation position to ensure equal
footage with the developed countries and challenge the current principles, norms
and rules that underpin international economic order and power structures.
The divide between the developed and the developing world has been mainly
determined by the countries‘ positions on who should pay for the costs of mitigating
and adapting to climate change, and how much should be paid (see Beyerlin, 2006;
Mejia, 2010; Penetrante, 2010, 2013). Such climate-related costs include direct
investments into low emission technologies, technology transfer, and the
opportunity costs brought about by abandoning cheaper, higher emission
technologies. These positions result from the countries‘ perceptions of justice and
fairness following considerations of their own domestic circumstances. The
multidimensionality of climate change as well as the diversity of nations‘ historical
experiences leads to a diversity of paradigms, implicating differences in notions of
justice and fairness (Zartman, 2003: 34, cited in Hernández, 2014). For the rich
developed world, a fair and just climate policy employs mandatory emissions
reductions that would not distort sound competition between future generations
from the developed and the developing countries (Schelling, 1995; Posner and
Weisbach, 2010, cited in Hernández, 2014). Therefore, responsibilities for the

climate issue should not be shouldered by the developed countries alone, but the
developing countries, particularly the fast-growing countries, must also adopt
concrete emission reduction targets. For the developing world, on the contrary, the
fairness of a climate policy has to take into account the developed countries‘
historical contribution of greenhouse gases and the poor developing countries‘
sufferings.
However, as the world is changing dynamically, the UNFCCC distinction
between the developed (Annex I and II) countries and the developing (Non-Annex)
7


countries no longer reflects these countries‘ current development status. Despite
their currently higher per capita income, such nations as South Korea, Singapore,
Israel, and Saudi Arabia are still not in the Annex list due to political
considerations. Similarly, the OECD members like Mexico and Chile should have
been listed as Annex II countries. In the same manner, Brazil, Argentina, China,
India, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa and South Korea are members of
the G20, which is the bloc of leading industrialized nations of the world, but they
follow different preferences and expectations as to how they should contribute to
the global climate issues.
Another issue of consideration is that the developed, like the developing world,
is a not a homogeneous entity. Despite their common characteristic of earning high
per capita income and advanced economic development level, the developed
countries do not necessarily pursue the same interests. There is also a huge
difference in these countries‘ approaches in dealing with the developing countries
such as China and India (Yamin and Depledge, 2004: 45-46).
In the post-Kyoto climate conferences, the developed world seeks to replace the
protocol which does not oblige the developing countries with binding commitments,
because the developed countries see their rights of development undermined by
legally binding gases emission reduction schemes under the Kyoto protocol‘s

principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed nations,
while addressing the developing countries‘ concerns, call upon the developing
countries to commit to concrete comparable efforts and suggest timelines for future
commitments to ensure the effectiveness of the gases emission reduction schemes.
Furthermore, as they fear the attempts to reduce gases emissions might negatively
affect their economies, many developed countries call for more flexibility
mechanisms so that they can achieve the emissions targets without jeopardizing
their economic competitive edge.
At Copenhagen conference in 2009, the developed and developing countries
pledged to their relevant reduction targets and mitigation actions. Also, the
8


developed countries committed to provide approximately $30 billion of immediate
fast start funding over the period 2010 - 2012 to support the developing countries‘
mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Moreover, the rich developed countries
committed to work towards long-term public and private climate finance flows
reaching $100 billion a year by 2020. However, as these were just pledges, the
divide and conflict between the developed and developing countries at the global
climate conferences was more evident at COP15, where the developed countries
insisted that the developing countries, especially China and India, participate in all
legally binding post-Kyoto emission reduction mechanisms, or at least try to reduce
greenhouse gases emissions to levels comparable with those of the developed
countries. The developing countries, conversely, defended the benefits they had
with the exemptions they were granted in the UNFCCC and the Kyoto protocol.
All in all, the conflict between countries‘ economic goals and immediate need
for climate safety has made it hardly possible for parties at the global climate
conferences to reach a stronger agreement than the Kyoto protocol. Thus far,
countries have followed different agendas to climate change. The UK‘s government
has taken a number of steps to limit the UK‘s emissions of greenhouse gases

through legally binding targets. The country has endorsed the Kyoto protocol and
passed the Climate Change Act, establishing a framework to develop an
economically credible emissions reduction path. The UK‘s leadership was
strengthened internationally by highlighting its role in contributing to urgent
collective action to tackle climate change under the Kyoto protocol. However, its
perceived credibility has declined as the economic crisis has led to a more negative
attitude towards climate-policy proposals which may undermine the country‘s
competitive edge. As a consequence, much of the UK‘s climate policy has fallen
short of expectations. Due to its recent gloomy realities, the UK‘s government has
now increased its international push for deeper climate cooperation. Also, when the
economy tends to be constrained by carbon reducing policy instruments, industry
holds a firm grip on the UK politicians and reacts strongly against the emissions
targets. Hence, the politicians‘ opinion changes in favour of emissions trading
9


projects with developing countries and questions the developing countries‘
responsibility for climate change.
The U.S. has experienced political divide within the country on the issue of
climate change. Since it first entered the U.S. national agenda, climate change has
been strongly contested, especially regarding the Kyoto protocol, and increasingly
politicized. The lobbying of industries, the mobilization of social activists, the
political behaviors of scientists, and the actions of congressional and administrative
actors have all exerted influences on the issue of climate change in different
manners. Never has the U.S. Congress approved of the Kyoto protocol. According
to the UNFCCC Party Groupings 3 , this country neither commits to emissions
reduction nor agrees to binding international agreements that do not commit
developing countries. Moreover, the Republican majority in the U.S. Congress
influences the U.S. climate negotiators at the international climate conferences in
ways that the U.S. has been seen as being less interested in taking action than many

other rich countries despite the country's rising level of carbon emissions. On top of
these, considering themselves representatives of a powerful country with global
interests, the U.S. climate negotiators tend to exert super power on the COPs and
skew the conferences in their nation‘s favour.
The rapidly developing nations, such as China, India, and Brazil, take their own
routes to climate change, too. Over the last decade, the pattern of the world‘s
economy has changed dramatically, leading to the restructuring of international
power nexus. The rapidly developing countries are now considered strong
economies, hence are demanded to take more responsibility for their own gases
emissions in particular, and for climate change in general. In line of this reasoning,
the Kyoto protocol is perceived by the developed countries as no longer appropriate
and the fast-growing countries are no longer eligible for financial aid from the
developed countries. Nevertheless, from its own perspective, China has enacted
rules to curb air pollution. China demands that the global climate negotiations
3

/>
10


address developing countries‘ needs and wants to maintain the ―binary distinction
between developed and developing countries‖ (UNFCCC Party Groupings) as
stated in the Kyoto protocol.
Such a lengthy process of climate debate with so many conflicting interests has
attracted heavy media attention from around the world. Also, the developed
countries‘ dominant ideologies are mediated through the language in their
newspapers, as will be delineated in chapters 3, 4, and 5 of the thesis.
Discursive practices
The dialectical process of production, dissemination and consumption of the
newspaper articles can help explain the linguistic phenomena encoded in them. In

this study, discursive practices mean The Independent and The New York Times‟
political commitments, the relation between the media (as an industry) and other
industries, the media‘s view of the relation between themselves and the audience,
their news agenda, and news values (see Richardson, 2007: 89-93).
With respect to the news production procedure, for a story to be published in
the newspaper, it must go through a chain of selection. First of all, a newspaper‘s
political commitments and the audience‘s expectations of its reportage are of crucial
influence on the selection of articles to be published, and therefore, on shaping their
readers‘ opinion on the global climate change debate. In the UK, the audience
expects the media to report on different independent voices rather than deliberately
emphasize individuals with differing opinions. The British press has a tendency of
offering ―a wide range of perspectives to its readers‖ (Goddard et al., 2008: 12). In
terms of its political commitments, ―The Independent leans towards the Labour
Party but often oscillates somewhat to the right‖ (Carvalho, 2007: 226; see also
Hulme, 2007). As a centrist newspaper, it commits both to an economically
neoliberal ideology and a social democratic ideology (Carvalho and Burguess,
2005). That is, The Independent‟s ideological lines often sway between the two
poles: (1) a neoliberal ideology which frames climate change as a global threat that
requires every country to share the burden; and (2) a social democratic ideology
11


with a precautionary approach to climate change, global equity and socially shared
responsibility (Carvalho, 2005, 2007; Carvalho and Burgess, 2005). What is more,
the newspaper declares in its Code of Conduct to commit to ―high journalistic
standards,‖4 placing itself at a quality newspaper position.
In a different manner from the UK media practice, the U.S. audience demands
for objectivity and equal coverage of divergent voices on all sides of a debate. The
New York Times is considered a liberal capitalist newspaper, being just a little more
to the left (Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2010: 47). Additionally, rooting as a hometown

paper of New York City, The New York Times adheres to cosmopolitanism and
balanced reporting. That is, the newspaper sticks to the ideology of all human ethnic
groups belonging to a community based on a shared morality, a shared economic
relationship, or a political structure that encompasses different parties (Boykoff and
Boykoff, 2004: 134). As such, The New York Times addresses ―both sides of the
story‖ in presenting the news stories on the controversial climate change debate and
in claiming the climate change issue is unresolved, consequently causing confusion
in the general public understanding of the UNFCCC‘s climate conferences. Through
balanced reporting, the urgency of the real issue of climate change is stressed at
times but more often is blurred by the controversy over the question of who and
how the responsibility for climate-related problems are distributed among countries.
Also, the newspaper emphasizes conflicts between the politicians of the developed
and the developing world, between the moral challenge of taking action and the
potential negative impacts of the international climate change policy on national
economic competitiveness.
Another noteworthy discursive feature is The New York Times‟ viewpoint
regarding its reporting on environmental issues. Differently from The Independent
and many other broadsheets in the U.S., since 2009, The New York Times has
developed an environmental cluster, and dedicated a section editor to manage a
team of environment reporters and to attend the daily Page One news meetings for
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the newspaper. This placed an advocate for environment-related news in the
newspaper‘s agenda and selection of news. The environmental cluster enables the
newspaper to report more systematically about climate change issues and exerts an
agenda-setting effect on the newspaper‘s reportage of the matters.

In addition to the issues competing to appear in the news, there is a harsh
competition among key stakeholders such as politicians, environmental activist
groups, economic think tanks, scientists, fossil fuel industry to take control of the
issue of climate change when it is communicated through the media to the public
(Boykoff and Roberts, 2007). Pursuing their own interests, these stakeholders
attempt to fund campaigns to skew the global climate conferences in their favour.
For instance, politicians and government officials are generally thought to be
credible sources of information; the fossil fuel industry runs public relations
campaigns – all of which are facilitated by professional journalistic practices.

6. Methodological considerations
To answer the research questions, the present study looked at both quantitative
and qualitative dimensions of data, but focused mainly on the qualitative, from a
corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis approach. There are two main reasons for
this. First, for the analysis of such a complex issue as the global climate politics,
CDA is really compatible because of its major interest in studying the use of
language in socio-economic political contexts and incorporating concepts from
other disciplines. Second, corpus techniques make it possible to obtain reliable
evidence from a fairly large sample of data and to reveal language patterns that are
hard to detect by merely manual analysis.
Specifically, Norman Fairclough‘s (1989, 1995a) Dialectical-Relational
Approach to CDA and corpus techniques (frequency, collocation, concordance)
were utilized in analyzing The Independent and The New York Times‟ news articles
covering the ten consecutive international climate conferences, from COP10 in
2004 to COP19 in 2013. The data for analysis consisted of two study corpora: one
comprising the articles in The Independent and the other comprising the articles in
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The New York Times published during and around the time spans of the COPs. Each

of the sample articles contains at least one key phrase „climate change.‘ The articles
were skimmed to ensure that they actually covered the climate conferences. First,
the corpus software Wordsmith Tools 6.0 (Scott, 2012) was employed to identify the
collocation profiles of the nodes ―developed,‖ ―developing,‖ ―rich,‖ and ―poor‖
countries. These collocation profiles of the nodes provided a bird-eye‘s view of the
prominent ideas conveyed by the media. Then, the qualitative analysis in
accordance with Fairclough‘s (1995a) Dialectical-Relational approach to CDA was
undertaken manually on the most frequent collocates of the nodes. This qualitative
analysis is the textual analysis of the concordances to examine the linguistic
features (namely, lexical choices, lexical relations, passivization, metaphor,
modality, nominalization) which manifest the power relation between the developed
and developing countries in the global climate talks as well as the ideologies about
these countries‘ responsibilities for climate change. The concordances can be
opened up to a whole-text view for investigation of the linguistic context.
Intertwined with the textual analysis, the discursive practices and the socioeconomic and historical context that embedded the sample texts were analyzed to
interpret and explain why the language was used the way it was described in the
textual analysis.

7. Scope of the study
The purpose of this study is to critically analyze the power relation between the
developed and developing countries at the global climate conferences, to decode the
ideologies about these countries‘ responsibilities for climate change, and how the
relation(s) as well as the ideologies are mediated through The Independent and The
New York Times‟ news coverage of the climate conferences. In consideration of all
factors that might affect the critical analysis, within this study, the English media
texts comprised articles from two national newspapers, namely The Independent
and The New York Times. There are two main reasons for this. First, as indicated by
previous studies (for example, van Dijk, 1988; Fairclough, 1989), a government‘s
political stance exerts significant influence on its national newspapers‘ reports of
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news events, and each news agency employs its own discursive strategies to
manipulate its readers‘ attitudes and behaviours toward the issue. Hence, it is
possible to examine how the two newspapers‘ ideologies about the developed and
developing countries‘ responsibilities for climate change are realized at the textual,
discursive, and social levels in the media discourse analysis. It is important to note
that, in this study, we did not focus on the comparison of The Independent and The
New York Times‟ stances regarding the global climate debate, though similarities
and differences between the two newspapers were mentioned from time to time to
represent the multiple depictions of the countries under scrutiny. Second, these two
newspapers are from two most important English-speaking countries, the UK and
the US. Therefore, the reliability of language and the representativeness of data can
be accounted for. Even though the newspapers from other English-speaking
countries, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and so forth are all regarded as
English media, they are not considered in this research so as to ensure the
qualitative analysis to be in-depth and focus on the ideologies of the newspapers
under study within the space constrains of the thesis.
Another noteworthy point is that the study focuses on The Independent and The
New York Times‟ coverage of ten consecutive UNFCCC COPs rather than the
coverage of all climate change events during the surveyed period for two main
reasons. First, the COP is the supreme decision-making body of the UNFCCC
which has near-universal membership. Second, COPs are held annually with the
participation of almost 200 countries around the world and attract really enormous
attention from media representatives. Thus, the coverage of the consecutive COPs
provides sufficient data across the media through time for the purpose of the study.

8. Structure of the thesis
This thesis is structured into three main parts, as follows:
The first part, Introduction, gives the reader an overview of the study through

the rationale for the study, the research aim and objectives, the research questions,

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