Speaking of Extinction: A Comparative Corpus-assisted Analysis of Metaphorical Framing in Climate Change Fiction and British Newspapers

The present study brings a new perspective to climate fiction (cli-fi) studies, addressing two previously unexplored aspects. First, by focusing on how cli-fi writers frame climate change in their works, it extends the findings in earlier studies through corpus analysis of 20 works of cli-fi written after 1990. Second, by comparing the frames of climate change in the works of cli-fi and newspapers, it seeks to validate whether fiction writers frame climate change differently. To achieve this double objective, the study draws on Lakoff’s views on metaphors as linguistic manifestations of cognitive frames. Lakoff’s conceptual model investigates assumptions about the impact of reading cli-fi, emphasising language’s role. The analysis of the cli-fi and newspaper corpora offers key findings about how climate change is portrayed in cli-fi works and newspapers. The findings reveal that cli-fi writers frequently use personification and negative language in metaphorical framing. Additionally, the study highlights cli-fi writers’ reliance on figurative language compared to nonfiction writers. Despite the genre’s creative nature, the number of identified metaphors in cli-fi works appears relatively limited.