Note: This activity may require some familiarity with corpus analysis — visit our Intro to Corpus Analysis page for an introduction if needed.

Doublespeak in Environmental Communication

As defined previously, doublespeak is language use that makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, and the unpleasant appear attractive. Such language use enables speakers to avoid, shift, or diffuse responsibility as the agents for actions and even the actions themselves become lost in euphemism and jargon.  If we were to brainstorm discourse domains where such doublespeak seems common, we would likely list political speeches, public relations statements by an individual or group involved in some sort of problematic incident, or press conferences in which individuals are asked probing questions. For example, in a 2014 press conference, Uruguayan soccer player Luiz Suarez stated, “…the truth is that my colleague suffered the physical result of a bite on the collision he suffered with me” rather than the clearer and objectively more accurate statement “I bit him”. What does Suarez’ original statement even mean? In a sense, the blame is pushed to the other individual for initiating a collision. And “suffered the effects of a bite” is certainly not the same as admitting that you actually bit a person.

A. Taking jaguars

In an example from environmental communication, we can consider the use of take from the Environmental Protection Agency in texts discussing jaguars in the Santa Rita Mountains of southern Arizona and how they will be affected by the development of a large open-pit copper mine. First, using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), complete a Collocates search for take. To do so, click the Collocates function, enter take in the search bar, enter NOUN in the second search bar, and set the collocation window at 0L-2R. Answer the following questions:

1. Are there any collocates in the first 25 or so collocates that indicate meanings or contexts related to animals?
2. What are some of the most frequent collocates with take?
3. Would you characterize take + NOUN collocates as generally positive or negative? In other words, do the contexts and actions indicated by take + NOUN patterns seem good or bad?
4. In consideration of your corpus findings, what do you think it means to “take a jaguar” when used by the Environmental Protection Agency? While perhaps you can guess the meaning of take in this context, is the meaning retrievable from the corpus data?

When applied linguists critique euphemism in language use, they are generally doing so because the use of a certain word is creating a disconnect and producing an incongruence between reality and the words used to describe it. With the instance of take, the typical use appears in positive contexts such as take care, take a nap, take a break, take a photo etc.; however, in the case of ‘take a jaguar’, it means a person can harass, displace, and potentially kill an endangered species. That meaning is not clearly conveyed, and perhaps people would feel differently about the mine if the consequences of its impact were not obscured through euphemism.

B. Greenwashing incidents

An additional space where doublespeak seems the norm rather than the exception is in corporate communication regarding the environment and sustainability. In recent years, it has become common practice for corporations to present themselves as defenders of the environment, as contributors to environmental wellbeing and sustainability, as champions for all sorts of environmental causes. Indeed, the discursive work corporations produce would have us believe that they are indispensable partners for environmental protection and conservation. However, though institutions project a concerned environmental ethic, quite often their statements do not match reality. In fact, this disconnect between word and deed is so common that it has its own term: greenwashing. Think gaslighting but for polluters!

To illustrate greenwashing in action, take the case of multinational oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. According to Client Earth, an environmental advocacy group that monitors the environmental actions of corporations and governments, ExxonMobil reported revenue exceeding $250 billion in 2020, yet in the preceding decade, it spent less than 1% of its expenditures on low-carbon energy. Meanwhile, the corporation proclaims that it is in alignment with Paris Agreement goals, but its actions have been repeatedly criticized for falling well short of Paris Agreement targets and its own 2025 goals. Nonetheless, each year the corporation releases a sustainability report extolling its efforts to address climate change and its plans to invest in and develop more sustainable energy solutions. The messaging presents the company as an environmental steward; however, their actions demonstrate otherwise. That’s greenwashing.

Let’s consider a more concrete example of doublespeak and greenwashing in environmental communication. In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon disaster released 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in immeasurable death of marine life and immense devastation of marine and coastal ecosystems. During the period when the oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico and in the months following (April 21-July 23), British Petroleum (BP), the corporation responsible for the disaster, released scores of press releases. These press releases were later compiled into a corpus (35,624 words) and analyzed by Richard Alexander in his article, “Shaping and Misrepresenting Public Perceptions of Ecological Catastrophes: The BP Gulf Oil Spill” (2013).

Let’s test our intuition about word use in this context.

1. Imagine you were a public relations representative for BP speaking in regard to the Deepwater Horizon event. Which of the following terms would you most likely use to characterize the event. Rank from most likely (1) to least likely to use (4). Why would you use them in that order?

• • Spill
  • Incident
  • Accident
  • Disaster

2. Answer the same question but with new parameters. In this case, rank the words that you—as an individual citizen, not as a BP representative—would likely use to characterize the event. Again, rank from most likely (1) to least likely to use (4). Why would you use them in that order?

• • Spill
  • Incident
  • Accident
  • Disaster

It seems fair to assume there was some divergence in your two rankings. This reflects your knowledge that word choice can have significant effects on how an event is framed and ultimately perceived by the public. Of course, we are all aware of this, but we rarely reflect on variation in our selections, the meanings conveyed, and the effects we aim to achieve.

Revisiting the four choices from above, we can begin with the use and frequency of spill in BP press releases. For Alexander, the use of spill in this context is doublespeak employed to obscure the true ecological devastation of these events. In the BP press releases, spill occurs 208 times and is the 4th most frequent content word (i.e., not a function word such as a, the, in, at, etc.) and the 20th most frequent word overall. While we may not cry over spilled milk, as the saying goes, it does seem the release of greater than 100 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico should be cause for immense concern.

3. In the COCA, let’s explore the collocational networks of oil and spill. First, we will complete a Collocates search for spill: click the Collocates search function, enter spill in the search box, set the collocation window 1L-0R, and click Find Collocates. What are the common collocates of spill? Would you characterize theirs contexts as major and severe or minor and insignificant?

4. Next, let’s look at the collocates of oil. Repeat the steps above but place oil in the search box and set the collocation window at 0L-1R. What are the top three collocates with oil by frequency? Let’s consider the data under the column MI; this stands for mutual information. Which collocate has the highest MI score? When this number is high, it means that the appearance of one word, e.g., oil, likely predicts another word will appear alongside, e.g., spill. In this case, we can see that while oil and prices appear frequently together, prices is also used in many other ways, so the appearance of one does not strongly predict the other. However, spill is more closely attached with oil, meaning when spill does occur, it is often with oil.

This data indicate that it is not altogether surprising that BP employs the term spill with such frequency. Yes, we may characterize the term as doublespeak, but it is quite common in prevailing discourse. Perhaps the critique lies not with BP specifically but with the use of the term spill in these contexts more broadly. If language users did not commonly frame such events as spills, maybe the public would display greater outrage when they occur.

BP also uses the words incident and accident; both occur 23 times in the corpus of press releases. However the word disaster occurs only once in the 35,000-word corpus! It seems fair to characterize the event as a disaster, but BP is clearly careful not to do so.  In the COCA, search for the common collocates of incident, accident, and disaster.

5. What are the top 5 most frequent collocates with these words? How would you characterize the contexts in which they are used? Considering the contexts in which these words typically appear, what conclusions might you reach about BP’s language use in the press releases?

Clearly, the manner through which an event is framed and the term by which it is named has consequences on how listeners/readers perceive an event. Through the use of certain lexis, BP is able to frame how we understand the event. As these word frequencies indicate, BP prefers terms that downplay the event rather than terms such as disaster that more accurately characterize what occurred. This is doublespeak in action, as BP carefully selects lexis that minimizes the tragic reality of the event, thereby reducing public outrage, mitigating potential harm to their corporate brand, and limiting possible litigation and penalties. Ah, do not worry, divert your eyes, nothing to see here! It’s only a spill, just an incident, a minor accident!

References

Alexander, R. J. (2013). Shaping and Misrepresenting Public Perceptions of Ecological Catastrophes: The BP Gulf Oil Spill. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines, 7(1).

Module author: Robert Poole

Last updated: 15 December 2022

This module is part of Critical Language Awareness: Language Power Techniques and English Grammar, an open educational resource offered by the Clarify Initiative, a privately funded project with the goal of raising critical language awareness and media literacy among students of language and throughout society.