The present environmental crisis has put the public war between current right-wing authoritarian governs and whoever in the world is concerned about the environment in the international spotlight....Show moreThe present environmental crisis has put the public war between current right-wing authoritarian governs and whoever in the world is concerned about the environment in the international spotlight. Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, on June 1, 2017 and the recent refusal of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro to stop the exploitation of Amazon illustrate the emergence of a situation in which the notions of territory and nation-state no longer sustain the reality of our shared planet. The more climate change, global warming and the environmental degradation haunt the Earth’s inhabitants, the more it seems that we break apart the world as if boundaries of exclusion could prevent what is inside from perishing. In this thesis, I argue that, in the core of this issue, dwell precisely our ‘notions’ and ‘concepts’—enclosed in the huge monolith of Western modern thinking. To confront the planetary crisis, one needs a new strategy to access these problems—that would not consist in simply applying a dialectical method of discussion, but instead deploying a multidimensional approach, capable of penetrating that Western bloc from all sides. By taking on the notion of networks—whether informatic, political and biological—I critically analyse this concept and introduce the framework of the ‘swarm’ that I used in my own artistic practice as a way to allow a multiplicity of viewpoints. The art project Game of Swarms, which explores mainly the fact that the individuals of swarms work together without a locus of control, provokes the audience to rethink our current political structures and use the narrative of the game to imagine new forms of making politics and a new way to think our relation to the world. The biological self-organised model of swarms comes as a tool to create new narratives to face today’s planetary crisis and foster a more sustainable way of thinking.Show less
Climate change is a scientific discipline that received extensive attention from both specialists and general public. This puts additional pressure on scientific writers in this domain to use...Show moreClimate change is a scientific discipline that received extensive attention from both specialists and general public. This puts additional pressure on scientific writers in this domain to use language means successfully to render their ideas to such a wide readership. Manty studies have researched the use of rhetorical moves and metaphors in scientific writing, but never in climate change writing and never in interrelation. This thesis, therefore, aims at bridging this gap and studies rhetorical moves, metaphors and the ways they may be interrelated in abstracts of climate change research articles in high-impact journals Science Advances and Nature Climate Change. It has been found that many abstracts in the data favor the Introduction-Purpose-Product-Conclusion structure, and overall the Product move is obligatory for all abstracts. However, Science data showed more variation both in the use of moves and in the usage of metaphors. The results of this study could be a starting point for a more in-depth research in the area, as well as of use to those studying scientific discourse for academic or practical reasons.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis analyzed a corpus of speeches of world leaders held at the COP conferences to the UNFCCC in the years 2013 until 2017, using a combination of the tool presented by Steen et al. (2010)...Show moreThis thesis analyzed a corpus of speeches of world leaders held at the COP conferences to the UNFCCC in the years 2013 until 2017, using a combination of the tool presented by Steen et al. (2010) for linguistic metaphor analysis, the MIPVU, and qualitative thematic analysis as described by Braun and Clarke (2006). The metaphors and themes found reflect a dichotomous discourse: from their speeches emerges either a scenario of great danger and threat or a scenario of a harmonious transition, allowing for the continuation of existing norms. Neither seem to incite a good incentive for action. This impacted/non-impacted dichotomy fit in a target approach of the climate change problem, with the two-degree line being the concrete realization of this target. The danger lies on the other side of this line, where climate change becomes a threat. Removing this threat will allow the world to return to a stable and balanced norm, which will be achieved through a quiet transition to a clean energy economy and sustainable development.Show less
