A Comparative Critical Discourse Analysis of Greta Thunberg and Gina Lopez’s Speeches
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11594/assrj.01.02.15Keywords:
Environmental activism, speeches, Greta Thunberg, Gina Lopez, critical discourse analysisAbstract
Language use in activism is essential to discussing social problems and issues. In recent years, activism and social movements have been prevalent and crucial in discussing issues that society is experiencing. Environmental activists Greta Thunberg and Gina Lopez are notable for their contributions to advocating for environmental protection and preservation. Engaging themselves in public appearances, both activists aim to get the attention of different organizations, leaders, and people around the globe to acquire social change and awareness. Hence, incorporating comparative Critical Discourse Analysis through Fairclough's Three-dimensional model, analyzing the mood choices, and extracting the ideologies, this study sought to compare the speeches of activists, analyzing the linguistic features and deriving the ideologies to understand better how these activists use language and power to inform and persuade people about the environmental crisis. Consequently, the result shows that the dominant mood is declarative statements, followed by interrogative and imperative. The functions of vocatives in the speeches are to call/summon and to address. The underlying ideologies found are strength and power in emotions and words, credibility through knowledge building, directness in words and actions, role of emotions and values in environmental justice, power of connections and communities, and help of knowledge and information, which encompass the speeches of the activists towards the environmental crisis.
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