Differences in Sociolinguistics between Pro- and Anti-Climate Action Actors on Facebook

The next speaker in this AoIR 2024 conference session is Luigi Arminio, whose interest is in the sociolinguistic patterns of polarisation on climate change on Facebook (this approach carries on from the previous presentation). Such patterns may also represent socioeconomic differences: people with lower socioeconomic status tend to be more open to climate change-denialist rhetoric, and such groups also differ from others in their overall communication styles. Can such differences be identified in climate discourse, marking the proponents and opponents of climate activism? Do they influence audience responses?

The project compiled some 10,000 posts from 250 public pro- and anti-climate action pages and groups on Facebook; it filtered these for concrete discussion on climate change, and assessed these posts for their language styles (readability, concreteness, subjectivity, and scientificity), their topic of discussion, and the audience reactions they generated (engagement, emotional polarisation, and emotional diversity).

As it turns out, pro-climate action actors posted more readable and concrete posts; pro-climate actors covered climate action and sustainable development topics, while anti-climate actors also covered political communication topics (including claims of censorship and reflections on media and political systems). Reactions to pro-climate posts were mostly influenced by language styles; reactions to anti-climate posts more strongly by post topics.

This points to distinct sociolinguistic dynamics, though not necessarily those that had been expected. Notably, both groups respond negatively to overly scientific language: if the discussion gets too complex and technical, this generally puts off audiences.