DECOUPLING AS RHETORICAL STRATEGY IN GOOGLE’S GREEN DISCOURSE

This paper examines Google’s green discourse in relation to the ecomodernist movement and $2 . In recent years, tech companies such as Google have taken a more explicit position as actors in the ‘fight’ against the climate crisis. Tech companies often suggest technological innovation as a necessity to deal with the climate crisis, thereby attempting to develop a form of ‘green platform capitalism’ that presents us with a better, greener version of its business model. This paper presents a rhetorical analysis of a selection of the corporate discourse (2019-now) in which Google presents its environmental efforts, in order to understand how the company frames the relation between technology and nature. It argues that technology-nature relations are framed through ‘decoupling’, a term derived from the ecomodernist movement that functions as a rhetorical strategy to highlight positive connections between technology and nature and obscure uneasy connections. Through decoupling, Google is able to present its wish to save ‘nature’ without discussing its use of nature, thus legitimating green platform capitalism. Decoupling, the paper concludes, thus allows Google to create a narrative of green growth as the only logical way for humanity to move forward. While this narrative might be attractive, it does not question the feasibility of decoupling and conflicts with resolutions that centralize degrowth as answer to the climate crisis.

Communication Analysis on Environmental Sustainability in the Imaginary of the Spanish Energy Sector

Nowadays it is common to hear the terms climate change, sustainable development and green consumption in the advertisements of different brands or in social networks. In fact, organizations and individuals continuously express a concern for the protection of the planet, so that citizens also demand a commitment to sustainability from companies. Therefore, starting from the dimension of environmental sustainability, this research analyzes the corporate discourse of Spanish traditional energy companies in order to know how they express their environmental sustainability and commitment to climate change mitigation. It also seeks to know the factors that influence customers when contracting their services. To achieve the objectives, a content analysis of the corporate discourse is applied through a review of sustainability reports and websites; as well as an analysis of advertising spots; the selected sample corresponds to 2019. In addition, an online survey was applied in Spain in order to know the vision of users. With these data, the imaginary that exists about environmental sustainability is constructed. The study considered three companies: Iberdrola, Endesa and Naturgy, which are of Spanish origin, are part of the IBEX 35 and, according to the Brand Finance ranking (2020), represent 5% of global investment in the energy sector.

Virtual Bodies Inc.

As a response to contemporary discourse that declaims the transformative potential of virtual reality (VR), I examine corporate discourse that literally and figuratively objectifies bodies, framing technological mediations as natural and necessary. I argue that these corporate ambitions for bodies in VR have physical, raced, gendered, and political implications, reproducing unequal relations while normalizing an understanding of bodies and worlds as commodifiable data.

I and We in Corporate Discourse: The Realization of Sociocultural and Linguopragmatic Characteristics of Communication

The paper outlines the significance of the opposition I : : We within corporate discourse, the study of which claims to become one of the main areas of studying professional communication in the age of globalization. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to establish common and different forms of expressing personal and collective aspects in social communicative content in the genre of congratulatory speech. The research material is represented with the texts of congratulatory speeches in the German, Russian and Czech languages. The authors focus on the implementation of the current social and cultural status of a person in the texts, belonging to the genre of corporate discourse, which is defined in the paper as a type of institutional business communication, realized both in special, documentary texts of a given professional sphere, and in a complex of ritual, etiquette and ceremonial texts. In selected language versions, the authors reveal the common rigid structure of speech and the insignificant linguopragmatic and stylistic variability of language means caused by the general positive perlocutivity of this performative genre. The revealed features include, in particular, the self-orientation of congratulatory speeches in German as an explication of active self-presentation, that expresses rationality and individualism of the German collective style; reflection of the collective consciousness of the Russian society in the forms of deixis associated with the expression of intentions We : : I+everyone; as well as obligatory explication of close friendly relations of the sender and the recipient of congratulations in the Czech linguistic culture.The uniformity of linguistic means, noted in the acts of congratulatory speech, is explained as an intention to follow common discourse rules and universal commandments of global professional communication, shared by all discourse participants.