Cover not available
Part of
Dynamism in Metaphor and Beyond
Edited by Herbert L. Colston, Teenie Matlock and Gerard J. Steen
[Metaphor in Language, Cognition, and Communication 9] 2022
► pp. 191–204

Metaphors and meaning-making in young people’s talk about climate change

| University of Leeds
| Lancaster University

Climate change is of especial relevance to young people, yet studies have found that there is no consistent approach to teaching about it in terms of either scientific facts or societal implications. In the UK, it is taught in different elements of the curriculum, but as knowledge to be tested, and rarely if ever as perhaps the most urgent issue facing our species. We explored young people’s understandings of climate change through a metaphor analysis of 41 group interviews with school students in the north of England. Our analysis supports Gibbs’ view of metaphor as dynamic, embodied and hugely powerful in thought and language, and also highlights its potential for spreading misinformation.

Keywords: climate change, science education, socio-scientific issues, metaphor
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Metaphor in science and education
    • Metaphor and the discourse of climate change
    • Analysing metaphor in discourse
  • Data and method
  • Analysis
    • Greenhouses and high/constant temperatures
    • Human beings as plants
    • Greenhouses, blankets and layers
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 9 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/milcc.9.10dei
References (25)
Armstrong, Anne, Krasny, Marianne & Jonathon Schuldt
(2018) Communicating climate change: A guide for educators. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R.
(1993) Metaphor and theory change: What’s ‘metaphor’ a metaphor for? in A. Ortony (ed.), 481–532 Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Theodore
(2003) Making Truth: Metaphor in Science. Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, L.
(2003) Metaphor in Educational Discourse. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Chang, Chew-Hung & Pascua, Liberty
(2015) Singapore students’ misconceptions of climate change. International research in geographical and environmental education, 25/1, pp. 84–96.Google Scholar
Christidou, Vasilia, Dimopoulos, Kostas, & Vasilis Koulaidis
(2004) Constructing social representations of science and technology: the role of metaphors in the press and popular science magazines. Public Understanding of Science, 13, pp. 347–362. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deignan, Alice
(2017) Metaphor in texts about climate change. Ibérica, 34, pp. 45–65.Google Scholar
Deignan, Alice, Semino, Elena & Shirley-Anne Paul
(2019) Metaphors of climate science in three genres: research articles, educational texts, and secondary school student talk. Applied Linguistics. 40/2, pp. 379–403. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, RaymondJr.
(2019) Metaphor as dynamical-ecological performance. Metaphor and Symbol, 34: 33–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, RaymondJr. & Cameron, Lynne
(2008) The socio-cognitive dynamics of metaphor performance. Cognitive Systems Research, 9, pp. 64–75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grady, Joseph
(2017) Using metaphor to influence public perceptions and policy: How metaphors can save the world. In Semino, Elena and Zsófia Demjén (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Metaphor and Language. London: Routledge. Pp. 443–454.Google Scholar
Jensen, Thomas Wiben
(2017) Doing metaphor: An ecological perspective on metaphor in discourse. In Hampe, Beate (ed), Metaphor: Embodied cognition and discourse, pp. 257–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jensen, Thomas Wiben & Linda Greve
(2019) Ecological cognition and metaphor. Metaphor and Symbol, 34/1, 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Knudsen, Susanne
(2003) Scientific metaphors going public. Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1247–1263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George
(1993) The contemporary theory of metaphor. In Ortony, Andrew (ed) Metaphor and Thought. (2nd edition) New York: Cambridge University Press, Pp 202–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mukherjee, Siddhartha
(2010) The Emperor of all Maladies: a biography of cancer. New York, HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Nerlich, Brigitte
(2012) Metaphors we die by: Geoengineering, metaphors and the argument from catastrophe. Metaphor and Symbol, 27/2, pp. 131–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nerlich, Brigitte and Iana Hellsten
(2014) The greenhouse metaphor and the footprint metaphor: Climate change risk assessment and risk management seen through the lens of two prominent metaphors, Technikfolgenabschätzung – Theorie und Praxis 23, 2, pp. 27–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Niebert, Kai & Harald Gropengeisser
(2014) Understanding the greenhouse effect by embodiment: Analysing and using students’ and scientists’ conceptual resources. International Journal of science education, 36/2, pp. 277–303. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nerlich, Brigitte, Dingwall, Robert & David Clarke
(2002) The book of life: How the Human Genome Project was revealed to the public. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 6/4, pp. 445–469. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pragglejaz Group
(2007) MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol 22: 1–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Semino, E.
(2008) Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stubbs, Edmund
(2019) ‘School curriculum fails to reflect the urgency of the climate crisis’, The Guardian 22nd February 2019.Google Scholar
Taylor, Cynthia & Bryan Dewsbury
(2018) On the problem and promise of metaphor use in science and science communication. Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education, 19/1, pp 1–5. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Walsh, Elizabeth & Blakeley Tsurusaki
(2014) Social controversy belongs in the climate science classroom. Nature Climate Change, 4/4, pp 259–263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar