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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 21:4 (2022) ► pp.589–612

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Fighting talk

The use of the conceptual metaphor climate change is conflict in the UK Houses of Parliament, 2015–2019

 | Østfold University College | University of Gothenburg
ORCiD logo with link | University of Gothenburg
Published online: 31 January 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21052.cur
Abstract
Analyses on news media data in Conceptual Metaphor Theory have highlighted several frequent metaphors used to understand climate change including climate change is conflict. This article analyses the frequency of that conceptual metaphor in a corpus of UK parliamentary debates on climate change. The language of political decision-makers is important to scrutinise because this group have the social and legislative power needed to deal with the issue. Our analysis shows the conceptual metaphor itself, and all three of its most frequent linguistic realisations (‘challenge,’ ‘impact,’ ‘tackle’), increased in use between 2015 and 2019. Additionally, three notable semantic and pragmatic trends were observed: first, apparently little recognition of human behaviour as a cause of climate change; second, a narrative of Us/People vs Climate Change; and third, that political decision-makers are taking climate change increasingly seriously. Some of these findings challenge existing knowledge and thus beg questions that require future research efforts.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Frequency of occurrence across time
    • 4.2More nuanced trends
      • 4.2.1climate change is conflict: Ignoring human agency in climate change
      • 4.2.2climate change is conflict: The opposition of People and Climate Change
      • 4.2.3climate change is conflict: Increasing acknowledgment of the need to address climate change
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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