Trees as participants in news articles of British quality newspapers. An ecolinguistics perspective


Abstract


Humans are dependent on trees in ways that cannot be overstated, especially at times of severe climate crisis. Yet, the investigation of trees as participants in discourse is an under-researched field in ecolinguistics. The study addresses this research gap by exploring the construal of discursive roles of trees within a framework combining ecolinguistics studies (Alexander and Stibbe 2014; Bortoluzzi and Zurru 2024; Fill and Mühlhäusler 2001; Fill and Penz 2018; Steffensen 2024a, 2024b; Steffensen and Fill 2014, Stibbe 2021) and ecocultural identities (Milstein and Castro-Sotomayor 2020a; Stibbe 2020). The qualitative small-scale study examines how discoursal roles of trees as participants in news discourse are represented and contextualised in 100 news items published between January and June 2024 in three British quality newspapers (The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian). The research questions are: How are trees represented in mainstream news in British quality newspapers? What roles are construed for them in relation with human participants? Data-driven categories are discussed on the basis of news values (Bednarek and Caple 2012, 2017) and value assessment of natural entities (Himes et al. 2024). The resulting categories constitute a cline ranging from representing trees as living beings worthy of respect (a minority of instances) to beings functional to human needs, or as valueless and disposable objects. The majority of instances represents trees as instrumental to human needs and purposes, thus revealing a profound anthropocentric bias in news discourse. The results raise awareness on the need for more ecocentric perspectives in news discourse, and have implications for ecolinguistics education.

Keywords: ecolinguistics; trees; participant roles; British quality newspapers; ecocultural identities.

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