Recontextualising scientific discourse in European politics: The role of IPCC reports in EU parliament debates 2019-2024.

The present work stems from previous research by the same author (Brancaccio, 2023) on the IPCC Synthesis Reports 1990-2023 and the language there employed to frame issues related to sustainability. The objectives, mainly aimed at uncovering strategies of human and non-human agency representation, are here extended to the investigation of how the valuable scientific information supplied by the IPCC to global stakeholders is then recontextualised in politics and, in the specific, within the EU parliamentary debates between 2019-2023. A Modern Diachronic Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (MD-CADS) approach is applied to the analysis of the language employed in all texts, of parallel structure and content but from different contemporary periods (Alessi and Partington, 2020). A quantitative analysis highlights the predominant linguistic patterns over time, while a complementary qualitative analysis focuses on the inclusive/exclusive linguistic behaviour of politicians, uncovering their potentially ideological biases. The wider scope is raising awareness on how efficaciously environmental issues are communicated by scientists and politicians, respectively, both negotiating measures for a more sustainable present and future. Further developments might include other political genres besides the debate at an even more local (country/city) level, as well as a comparison of European parliamentary debates with those happening at the global level, including low-power countries and communities more directly affected by the consequences of climate change.