A Study Of EU's Climate Governance Discourse

With the exacerbation of the global climate crisis,the climate issue has become one of the hot spots that the international community continues to pay close attention to.The climate issue not only concerns the well-being and future of mankind,but also concerns the national security and overall economic and social development of a country.Therefore,it has always been the focus of international competition and big-power game as well as the main front of the contest of discourse power in international public opinion.In the battle for international climate discourse power,by making use of its first-mover advantages,the EU has developed and popularized a large number of international climate discourse rules and made them the mainstream discourse in the field of global climate governance,thus establishing its discourse power over climate change.The acquisition of international discourse power doesn't only depend on a country's strength status and relevant policies,but also on its discourse construction strategies and effects.Therefore,by adopting Fairclough's three-dimensional framework of CDA,this dissertation analyzes the official discourses of EU climate governance from multiple perspectives including the dimensions of text,discursive practice and social practice in order to obtain the formal features of EU climate governance discourse and explore how the discourse subjects construct the concepts,meanings and rules related to the issues of climate change and how they convey their true views or intentions through specific discourse strategies so as to influence or dominate public opinion in the international community and then to implement their discourse power in global climate governance.On the basis of interpreting and revealing the ideologies and power,control and dominance in the EU climate discourse as well as its constructive nature of social reality,the dissertation also seeks for the limitations and shortcomings of Chinese climate discourse construction and explores the promotion space of China's climate discourse power.Firstly,in the dimension of "discourse as text",the formal features of the representative data of the EU climate discourse are described systematically from the lexical,grammatical and textual levels.It is found that through the use of strategies such as wording,classification,re-lexicalization and metaphor at the lexical level,and the choice of transitivity and modality at the grammatical level,and the construction of thematic structure at the textual level,the EU lays the foundation for the acceptance and promotion of its climate policies by exporting its standards and norms of climate governance,highlighting the harmfulness of climate change,maintaining the rationality of its positions and claims in climate issues and building a good international image and the identity of the leader of global climate governance.Secondly,in the dimension of discursive practice,the intertextuality as well as the production and promotion of the EU climate governance discourse are examined.The findings show that the EU establishes the rationality and legitimacy of its climate policy through the intertextual verification of authoritative discourse.And the use of neutral and positive reporting verbs helps to show the EU's objective and neutral position and attitudes in climate issues and enhance public confidence in its policies.The recurrence of some multi-word structures representing the core concepts and policies of the EU climate governance makes them become fixed expressions related to climate issues and be accepted and popularized in the international community.In terms of discourse production,the characteristics of discourse production in the EU are mainly manifested in the production of professional knowledge discourse,agenda setting and institutional construction.As to the promotion of the discourse,The EU takes advantage of international cooperation platforms at multiple levels both within and outside the negotiations,public diplomacy activities and new internet media to promote its climate discourse concepts and standards to the international community and lead international public opinion.Thirdly,in the dimension of social practice,it is found that in the social context of the evolution and development of the EU climate policies,the EU official discourse reflects and constructs certain ideological meanings and values including the precautionary principle,sustainable development,low-carbon ideology,multilateralism and sense of responsibility sharing.In addition,the EU discourse also demonstrates its soft power by shaping the international image of normative power actor and the identity of global climate leader,which lays a good foundation for the EU to obtain the discourse power in international climate politics.Lastly,On the basis of summarizing the constructive features and pragmatic strategies of the EU discourse on climate governance in terms of the above-mentioned three different dimensions,and from the perspective of the three import aspects of generation of discourse power(i.e.discourse production,dissemination and acceptance),the dissertation puts forward several aspects that should be paid attention to in enhancing China's international climate discourse power,including enhancing China's climate discourse production capacity and building a climate discourse system with Chinese characteristics;establishing a diversified climate discourse external communication mechanism and improving discourse communication ability;focusing on discourse strategies and improving climate discourse recognition.