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A Sociolinguistic Study of Register in Ecological Texts
Summary
This study isn't about health effects of plastic pollution directly, it's about language, looking at how international agreements (like the one following the 2019 G20 Summit) use formal wording and specialized terms to talk about ocean plastic pollution. The takeaway is more about communication than science: understanding how officials describe environmental problems can help us see whether these agreements are built for real action or just formal paperwork, which matters because clear, actionable language often leads to stronger policies that actually reduce plastic pollution (and the microplastics that end up in our food and water).
This qualitative study employs register analysis to examine lexical expansion in environmental discourse and how institutional language codifies new terminology to represent ecological phenomena. It investigates emerging nouns, verbs, adjectives, abbreviations, and noun phrases in the online cooperative agreement on ocean plastic pollution established following the 2019 G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan. The study focuses on linguistic developments resulting from international efforts to address ocean plastic pollution. Adopting a Hallidayan approach, the analysis operates on two levels: a linguistic level that identifies lexical features and a contextual level examining field, tenor, and mode. The findings reveal that noun phrases are the most frequent linguistic feature in the selected text. Contextual analysis further demonstrates that the agreement centers on ocean pollution and is written in a formal institutional register. The study highlights the role of environmental discourse in generating and institutionalizing specialized terminology.