Capitalist Discourse framing of environmental issues

Abstract

The article discusses the issue of framing of Environmental Issues from an ideological perspective(s). We will try to show how the main ideological paradigms identify, frame and present the basic issues of ecology, in general. The theoretical basis for our deliberation is a concept of discourse analysis, where specific issues are being examined though a language use. For this purpose, we mainly focus on a specific type of discourse – a Capitalist Discourse and try to show how it manages to frame all important environmental issues in a specific manner in terms of justifying the current status quo, that is – economic necessity/utility/profitability principles. The notion of Capitalist Discourse is borrowed from J. Lacan’s Theory of Four Discourses, where the notion under discussion is being identified as an additional, fifth type of discourse which is a variation of discourse of the master, which takes a hysterical position in order to create an impression that it stands on the side of those who are subject to the discourse of the master, when in fact, it secretly serves and pursues the interests of the later. Another endeavor in examining the subject is to focus/identify specific linguistic strategies intended to frame/re-frame the environmental issues using various euphemisms