A Comparative Study of Ecological Discourse in News Reports on “Carbon Neutrality ” in China, the United States, and India

Jiali Li

doi:10.63313/LLCS.9090

Authors

Jiali Li University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63313/LLCS.9090

Keywords:

Ecological Discourse Analysis, Carbon Neutrality, Cross-National Comparative Studies, Media

Abstract

As a key strategy to combat climate change, carbon neutrality has become an important issue for countries around the world. China, the United States and India, as the three largest carbon emitters in the world, are in the spotlight for their carbon neutrality progress and commitments. Based on the news reports on “carbon neutrality” in China, the United States and India from 2015 to 2023, this study uses the theory of ecological discourse analysis, combined with the corpus tool AntConc (version 4.3.1) and critical discourse analysis methods, to compare the characteristics of ecological discourse of the media in the three countries from the three dimensions of vocabulary, semantics and discourse, and reveal the positions, strategies and public opinion orientation of the three countries on the issue of carbon neutrality. The study finds that at the lexical level, the media in all three countries emphasized the importance of “carbon neutrality”, but the emphasis was different: Chinese media emphasized “green development”, the U.S. media focused on “technological innovation”, and Indian’s media focused on “sustainable development”. In terms of semantics, China mostly uses affirmative sentences to show determination, the United States often uses complex sentences to express doubts, and India often uses conditional sentences to reflect difficulties. In terms of discourse, China presents a “policy-action-effectiveness” model, the United States has a “problem-controversy-appeal” model, and India has a “problem-dilemma-appeal” model. These differences reflect their respective national interests, which are of great significance for understanding the pluralistic voices in global climate governance and promoting international cooperation.

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