Framing Sustainability, Development, and Growth
Corpus-based Discourse Analysis of Narratives in The Conversation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2026.i28.1765Keywords:
Sustainability discourse, The Conversation, Framing analysis, Corpora and discourse studies, Public-oriented research communicationAbstract
The concept of sustainability is understood as a dynamic, context-specific process that emphasises the interconnectedness and balanced interaction of environmental protection, social equity, and economic development to ensure long-term viability and equity across time and space (Zappettini and Unerman 2016). Scholarly work within Corpora and Discourse Studies in recent years has sought to explore its discursive dimension, analysing how sustainability is conceptualised across domains, with a particular focus on corporate reporting practices (e.g., Fuoli and Beelitz 2024). However, more attention should be paid to how academics frame sustainability and related concepts such as development and growth when translating knowledge outside academic genres. For this reason, this paper investigates how sustainability and its related concepts of development and growth are framed (Entman 1993) within a specialised corpus of 234 research-based articles covering the 2011-2024 timespan from The Conversation – an independent, nonprofit news organisation that provides news and analysis co-produced by academics and journalists. A focus on forms of public-oriented research communication may enrich the understanding of how knowledge about sustainability is (re)contextualised across domains and communities, reproducing mainstream business-as-usual discourse or challenging it (Stibbe 2021). To do so, we employ a corpus-assisted approach to framing analysis, investigating how narratives of sustainability, development, and growth feature within climate discourse in research-based news. The analysis examines how the discursive framing of sustainability may reflect societal norms and ideologies, and more broadly, contribute to the construction of social realities that can contribute to reproducing ecocidal approaches or put forward alternative perspectives on socio-environmental assemblages.
References
Ahmed, Masood and Manzoor A. Khalidi. “Critical Discourse Analysis: A Critical Approach to Expose Hidden Realities in the Discourse of Sustainable Development.” IBT Journal of Business Studies 15.2 (2019): 1-13.
Alexander, Richard. Framing Discourse on the Environment: A Critical Discourse Approach. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Bortoluzzi, Maria. “Ecolinguistics.” Live Handbook Environmental Humanities. Edited by Evi Zemanek and Timo Müller. Berlin: J.B. Metzler, 2026. 1-7.
Brezina, Vaclav. Statistics in Corpus Linguistics: A Practical Guide. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Brundtland, Gro Harlem. Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Christen, Marius and Stephan Schmidt. “A Formal Framework for Conceptions of Sustainability: A Theoretical Contribution to the Discourse in Sustainable Development.” Sustainable Development 20.6 (2012): 400-410.
Clingerman, Forrest, et al., edited by. Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013.
Curry, Niall. “Questioning the Climate Crisis: A Contrastive Analysis of Parascientific Discourses.” Nordic Journal of English Studies 23.2 (2024): 235-267.
Curry, Niall and Gavin Brookes. “The Discursive Framing of the Climate and Health Polycrisis in English, French, and Spanish.” Critical Approaches to Polycrisis. Edited by Tamsin Parnell, et al. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. 309-334.
Curry, Niall and Pascual Pérez-Paredes. “Exploring Public-Oriented Research Communication: A Register Perspective.” Register Studies 7.1 (2025): 99-129.
Dahl, Trine. “Global Villain, but Local Hero? A Linguistic Analysis of Climate Narratives from the Fossil Fuel Sector.” Applied Linguistics 43.1 (2022): 1-20.
Del Gaudio, Arianna. “Climate Change as Threat or an Opportunity to Foster Sustainable Business Behaviours: The Representation of Climate Change in Corporate Environmental Reporting.” English Studies in Italy: New Directions and Perspectives. Edited by Manuela D’Amore, et al. Rome: Carocci Editore, 2024. 53-69.
Entman, Robert M. “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm.” Journal of Communication 43.4 (1993): 51-58.
Fuoli, Matteo and Annika Beelitz. “Framing the Path to Net Zero: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis of Sustainability Disclosures by Major Corporate Emitters, 2011-2020.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 29.3 (2024): 361-388.
Gabrielatos, Costas. “Keyness Analysis: Nature, Metrics and Techniques.” Corpus Approaches to Discourse: A Critical Review. Edited by Charlotte Taylor and Anna Marchi. New York: Routledge, 2018. 225-258.
Gillings, Mathew and Gerlinde Mautner. “Concordancing for CADS.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 29.1 (2023): 34-58.
Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1986.
Guenther, Lars, et al. “Framing as a Bridging Concept for Climate Change Communication: A Systematic Review Based on 25 Years of Literature.” Communication Research 51.4 (2024): 367-391.
Hardie, Andrew. “Log Ratio: An Informal Introduction.” CASS 2012. https://cass.lancs.ac.uk/log-ratio-an-informal-introduction/. Last visited 09/07/2026.
Harris, Adam J. L., et al. “Lost in Translation? Interpretations of the Probability Phrases Used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in China and the UK.” Climatic Change 121.2 (2013): 415-425.
Hopwood, Bill, Mary Mellor and Geoff O’Brien. “Sustainable Development: Mapping Different Approaches.” Sustainable Development 13.1 (2005): 38-52.
Horton, Peter and Benjamin P. Horton. “Re-Defining Sustainability: Living in Harmony with Life on Earth.” One Earth 1.1 (2019): 86-94.
Hyland, Ken and Feng (Kevin) Jiang. Academic Discourse and Global Publishing: Disciplinary Persuasion in Changing Times. New York: Routledge, 2019.
Kilgarriff, Adam, et al. “The Sketch Engine.” Lexicography 1.1 (2014): 7-36.
Krieg, C. Parker and Reetta Toivanen, edited by. Situating Sustainability: A Handbook of Contexts and Concepts. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2021.
Lakoff, George. “Why It Matters How We Frame the Environment.” Environmental Communication 4.1 (2010): 70-81.
Lischinsky, Alon and Annika Egan Sjölander. “Talking Green in the Public Sphere: Press Releases, Corporate Voices and the Environment.” Nordicom Review 35.s1 (2014): 125-140.
Martínez-Alier, Joan, et al. “Sustainable De-Growth: Mapping the Context, Criticisms and Future Prospects of an Emergent Paradigm.” Ecological Economics 69.9 (2010): 1741-1747.
Meadows, Donella H., et al. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books, 1972.
Mignolo, Walter. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.
Niceforo, Marina. The Language(s) of Sustainability: A Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Study between ESP and Popularisation. Naples: Paolo Loffredo Editore, 2024.
Penz, Hermine. “Communicating Climate Change: How (Not) to Touch a Cord with People and Promote Action.” Text & Talk 42.4 (2022): 571-590.
Poole, Robert and Nicholas Hayes. “Stance in Climate Science: A Diachronic Analysis of Epistemic Stance Features in IPCC Physical Science Reports.” Journal of Corpora and Discourse Studies 5 (2022): 37-60.
Purvis, Ben, Yong Mao and Darren Robinson. “Three Pillars of Sustainability: In Search of Conceptual Origins.” Sustainability Science 14.3 (2019): 681-695.
Sachs, Wolfgang, edited by. The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2010.
Scott, Mike. “PC Analysis of Key Words – and Key Key Words.” System 25.2 (1997): 233-245.
Song, Xu, et al. “A Systematic Literature Review on Ecological Discourse Analysis (2014-2023).” Journal of World Languages 11.1 (2025): 50-74.
Stemler, Steven E. “A Comparison of Consensus, Consistency, and Measurement Approaches to Estimating Interrater Reliability.” Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation 9.4 (2004): 1-19.
Stibbe, Arran. Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By. New York: Routledge, 2021.
Stibbe, Arran, edited by. The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy. Dartington: Green Books, 2009.
Sullivan, Karen. “Three Levels of Framing.” WIREs Cognitive Science 14.5 (2023): e1651.
Van Dijk, Teun A. “Analyzing Frame Analysis: A Critical Review of Framing Studies in Social Movement Research.” Discourse Studies 25.2 (2023): 153-178.
Zannini, Lorenzo and Niall Curry. “Climate Adaptation in Public-Oriented Research Communication.” Critical Discourse Studies (2025): 1-20.
Zappettini, Franco and Jeffrey Unerman. “‘Mixing’ and ‘Bending’: The Recontextualisation of Discourses of Sustainability in Integrated Reporting.” Discourse & Communication 10.5 (2016): 521-542.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Lorenzo Zannini, Martina Russo
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Iperstoria is an Open Access journal.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 BY License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of their work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. We kindly ask authors to inform us of any instances of re-publication.
