Shades of green

Discursive interaction involves the co-construction of meaning between interlocutor/s and intended audience, a process which involves both explicit and implicit meanings (Kecskes 2016). However, since language is at best an imprecise tool for describing reality, even so-called explicit meanings are found to require effort to disambiguate, and true precision may not be attainable, despite sincerity on the part of the speaker/s. These aspects are especially relevant in considering public discourse on the environment, which represents a macro topic whose component discursive features are frequently big words in the sense originally identified by George Orwell (2013), i.e. nature, pollution, fossil fuels, conservation, green energy, global warming, climate change, etc. That is to say, their use signals the presence of ideologies (Fairclough 2003), deontologies (Roderick 2013), presuppositions (Levinson 1983) and naturalisations (Barthes 1957) which imply the use of meanings that are seldom self-evident, though they are presented as such. This paper explores interactions in the public domain about the current environmental crisis, showing how a pragmatic perspective that focuses on situated understandings of shared dialogue can illuminate these issues.