THE SYNTAX OF CLIMATE CHANGE: SYNTACTIC MEANS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF GRETA THUNBERG’S COMMUNITY IDENTITY ON FACEBOOK

Oleksandr KAPRANOV

doi:10.24193/subbphilo.2022.4.01

Authors

Oleksandr KAPRANOV NLA University College in Oslo (Norway). Email: oleksandr.kapranov@nla.no https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9056-3311

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2022.4.01

Keywords:

climate change, dependent clauses, Facebook, Greta Thunberg, identity, online community, syntactic means

Abstract

The Syntax of Climate Change: Syntactic Means in the Construction of Greta Thunberg’s Community Identity on Facebook. It is argued that the identity of an online community (e.g., a Facebook community) is manifested by linguistic devices, such as syntactic means (Androutsopoulos 2015; Blumenfeld-Jones 2022; Kapranov 2019). This contention is explored in the study that is further presented and discussed in the article. The study seeks to identify syntactic means, in particular dependent clauses, which are involved in the construction of Greta Thunberg’s community identity on Facebook. Greta Thunberg, a famous climate change activist from Sweden, has a public account on Facebook that is followed by a substantial number of Facebook users, who, presumably, share her views on climate change, sustainability, and other environmental issues. It is assumed in the study that Greta Thunberg’s status updates on her public Facebook account could be characterised by syntactic means that facilitate the construction of the climate activists’ community identity. In order to verify the assumption, a corpus of Greta Thunberg’s status updates on Facebook was collected and analysed by the software program L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (Lu 2010). The computer-assisted analysis was supplemented by a manual procedure of identifying the types of dependent clauses in the corpus. The results of the corpus analysis revealed that Greta Thunberg’s community construction on Facebook was facilitated by such syntactic means as dependent clauses, in particular non-finite, adverbial, and relative clauses. The findings were further discussed in the article through the lens of the construction of community identity.

Article history: Received 2 August 2022; Revised 10 October 2022; Accepted 26 October 2022; Available online 20 December 2022; Available print 30 December 2022.

REZUMAT. Sintaxa schimbărilor climatice: mijloace sintactice în construirea identității comunitare a Gretei Thunberg pe Facebook. Se susține că identitatea unei comunități online, de exemplu, o comunitate Facebook, se manifestă prin mecanisme lingvistice, cum ar fi unele mijloace sintactice (Androutsopoulos 2015; Blumenfeld-Jones 2022; Kapranov 2019). Această dezbatere este explorată în studiul care este prezentat și discutat în continuare în articol. Studiul urmărește să identifice mijloacele sintactice, în special propozitii subordonate, care contribuie la construcția identitară a comunității Gretei Thunberg pe Facebook. Greta Thunberg, o celebră activistă din Suedia în domeniul schimbărilor climatice, are o pagină web publică pe Facebook, care este urmărită de peste trei milioane de utilizatori Facebook, care au în comun cu aceasta activismul în domeniul schimbărilor climatice, respectiv schimbările climatice, durabilitate și alte probleme de mediu. În studiu se presupune că actualizările de pe pagina publică de Facebook a Gretei Thunberg, scrise de ea însăși, ar putea avea drept caracteristici unele mijloace sintactice care facilitează construirea identității comunității interesate de domeniul schimbărilor climatice. Pentru a verifica ipoteza, s-a realizat și analizat un corpus de actualizări de pe pagina de Facebook a Gretei Thunberg prin intermediul programului software L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (Lu 2010). Analiza asistată de computer a fost completată de o procedură manuală de identificare a tipurilor de subordonate din corpus. Rezultatele analizei de corpus au arătat că identitatea în cauză a fost construită prin mijloace sintactice precum subordonatele, în special nepredicativele, adverbialele, relativele, condiționalele și exclamativele. Constatările sunt discutate în articol prin prisma construcției identității acestei comunități online.

Cuvinte-cheie: schimbări climatice, propoziții subordonate, Facebook, Greta Thunberg, identitate, comunitate online, mijloace sintactice

Author Biography

Oleksandr KAPRANOV, NLA University College in Oslo (Norway). Email: oleksandr.kapranov@nla.no

Oleksandr KAPRANOV, PhD, is an associate professor at NLA University College in Oslo (Norway), where he teaches English linguistics. Having graduated from The University of Western Australia in Perth, Dr. Kapranov was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Lund (Sweden) and at the University of Bergen (Norway), respectively. Dr Kapranov has published on such topics as: academic writing, speech fluency, and psycholinguistics. Email: oleksandr.kapranov@nla.no

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Webography

Posts from Greta Thunberg’s public Facebook page, 2020-2022.

https://www.facebook.com/gretathunbergsweden