STUDYING THE ECONOMIZATION OF DISCOURSE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THE CASE FOR ECOLINGUISTICS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/TIS.2022.009Keywords
critical theory, green theory, international relations, ecolinguistics, discourse analysis, economization, constructivism, interpretivismAbstract
Purpose: The purpose of the article is to serve as an interdisciplinary methodological proposal which aims to enrich the critical, constructivist and interpretivist schools of International Relations. It builds on the already existing, although still modest tradition of using discourse analysis in IR.
Methodology/approach: The methodology proposed is the combination of the interpretivist method with ecolinguistics. The inclusion of this innovative linguistic school provides an avenue of research that is both critical, ecological (or even eco-radical) and focused on language and its role in shaping both international politics and the world at large. The article contains a short introduction to ecolinguistics for IR scholars and tries to showcase its potential usefulness for analyzing different IR discourses.
Findings: The article is supplemented by a short empirical case study that shows the viability of using basic econliguistics in IR discourse analysis. The study is focused on the phenomenon of increasing economization of mainstream discourse on international affairs and uses the example of IR think tanks. Ecolinguistics are thereby applied to the narratives on the Paris Agreement published by chosen European think tanks in 2015 and 2016. The findings confirm both the economization of discourse on the matters of global political ecology as well as the usefulness of ecolinguistics in revealing this phenomenon.
Originality/value: The article is among the first syntheses of IR and ecolinguistics, which may prove relevant to many fields of international studies, with the most obvious one being political ecology. The proposed methodology will be useful to scholars representing critical, constructivist, “green” and ecofeminist approaches to studying IR.
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