Title: What does 'clean energy' refer to?

Authors: Géraldine La Corte

Addresses: Praxiling – UMR 5267 CNRS, Université Paul Valéry – Montpellier III, Route de Mende, 34090 Montpellier, France

Abstract: This research paper investigates the meaning of the lexical item 'clean energy' in two different study corpora. The objective is to analyse and understand the differences of use, meaning and reception of this lexical unit in two different linguistic and cultural communities. The first study corpus is composed of 32 speeches given by Barack Obama on the environmental issue from 2008 to 2013 while the second one is composed of 125 French-speaking European newspaper articles that reported some parts of the speeches from the first study corpus. The results come from a combination of a linguistic textual analysis and of a quantitative analysis led thanks to TXM software. The first part deals with the use of the lexical item 'clean energy' in the American presidential speeches to distinguish its particular features. The second part is about the reception and the report of this lexical unit in the French-speaking European press.

Keywords: clean energy; Barack Obama speeches; French-speaking press; European press; textual analysis; quantitative analysis; systems of thinking; worldviews; newspaper articles; environmental protection.

DOI: 10.1504/PIE.2016.082155

Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal, 2016 Vol.10 No.2/3, pp.117 - 138

Received: 17 Feb 2016
Accepted: 04 Oct 2016
Published online: 08 Feb 2017 *

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