Speech act anlysis of climate speeches in various UN climate conferences

Abstract

As one of the Triple Planetary Crises, climate change is one of the most pressing global issues. Urgent actions and policies are needed in order to effectively address the problem. However, the current climate actions are not sufficient, and it is not easy to communicate such a complex issue like climate change to the general public. While there are some research and studies on climate communication, they were mostly focused on a message given by a certain group, either a scientist or a politician. The study aimed to explore and compare the usage of speech acts in climate speeches given by representatives of different groups: youth activists, media, academia, and politicians. The climate speeches will be analysed through the application of speech act theory and other suggested techniques for climate communication. It was found that all 4 groups used Searle’s representative, expressive, directive, and commissive illocutionary acts, and with the combination of locutionary and perlocutionary acts, 14 actions were performed. Additionally, the findings suggested that speech acts could be used to enhance climate communication strategy in various aspects such as content development, structural format as well as nonverbal cues.