Conférencière invitée
Jane Helen Johnson, Researcher in English Language and Translation, member of the Dis4Change scientific committee – Università di Bologna (Italy) (janehelen.johnson@unibo.it)
Dis-4Change: Promoting research and public engagement on climate change and environmental discourse
The talk will introduce “Dis-4Change: Studies on Climate and Environmental Discourse”, an Inter- University Research Centre founded by a group of leading Italian universities in 2023. The presentation will explore the Centre’s mission to advance interdisciplinary research on the analysis of climate and environmental discourse, from multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives including ecolinguistics and ecocriticism.
The Centre aims to provide a space for debate on the communication of risks related to climate change and the environment, so as to identify its linguistic, discursive, narrative and multimodal strategies, based on the fundamental assumption that the expression and representation of climate and environmental phenomena in texts and genres of scientific, media and socio-media, literary, filmic, institutional, and political communication not only reflect how they are valued within society, but may also influence its habits and attitudes.
The Centre’s objectives are to advance discourse analysis, narrative, and communication studies related to climate change across genres and disciplines. It fosters national and international collaborations, promotes science outreach, and supports interdisciplinary initiatives. Key objectives include facilitating information exchange among universities, agencies, and organizations, organizing symposia and conferences, and enhancing the visibility of national research internationally. The Centre is developing tools for disseminating research, promotes young researcher training and plans to participate in European projects. Additionally, it aims to engage with the public to address communication needs in climate and environmental care, aligning research with practical solutions for sustainability challenges.
Outcomes include strengthening theoretical frameworks, enhancing global research networks, and improving communication strategies for public and private stakeholders. By bridging the gap between discourse studies and societal impact, Dis-4Change positions itself as a vital platform for understanding and addressing climate challenges through language.
Jane Helen Johnson is a Researcher in English Language and Linguistics at the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures of the University of Bologna. Her main research interests include Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS), English for Specific Purposes, and English as Medium of Instruction. Her current research projects include CADS analyses of climate change in different linguistic genres. Her recent publications in this area, working with Cinzia Bevitori, appear in Text and Talk (2022) and the Journal of Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (2024). She is a member of the Scientific Board of Dis-4Change: Studies on Climate Change and Environmental Discourse, an Interuniversity Research Centre which promotes research and public engagement on climate change and environmental discourse.
Margaux Coutherut – Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis, TransCrit (margaux.coutherut@univ- paris8.fr)
Transition du LMD4 au LMD5 : vers moins de spécialisé en filière LEA à l’Université Paris 8 ?
Une transition est le passage d’un état à un autre (Larousse). Passer d’une offre de formation à une autre peut donc être considéré comme une transition. À l’Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis, les maquettes des formations changent tous les cinq ans environ. Ainsi, la maquette LMD4 a été mise en place en septembre 2020, la maquette LMD5 sera appliquée à partir de septembre 2026. Dans la maquette actuelle (LMD4) de la licence en Langues Étrangères Appliquées (LEA), les étudiants doivent choisir une spécialisation, « Commerce » ou « Communication Multilingue/Traduction » à partir de la deuxième année de la licence, ce qui complexifie la gestion de la formation et la constitution de l’emploi du temps. Pour faciliter sa gestion, certaines combinaisons de langues ont été supprimées au fil de l’existence de cette maquette (il y avait 22 combinaisons au départ, 14 aujourd’hui) et il a été décidé de fusionner les deux spécialisations pour le LMD5.
La maquette actuelle comporte de nombreux cours disciplinaires enseignés en anglais : management, relations commerciales internationales, marketing, etc. Cependant, trouver des enseignants anglicistes spécialistes d’autres disciplines s’est avéré problématique. En effet, comme l’expliquent Braud et al. (2015), très peu d’enseignants sont formés à l’anglais de spécialité.
La création des maquettes LEA est particulièrement complexe dans ce contexte : doit-on y inclure des cours de langue de spécialité alors que le potentiel enseignant est insuffisant pour les assurer, ou des cours portant sur des thématiques littéraires ou de civilisation, pour lesquels les enseignants sont disponibles mais qui sont loin de correspondre aux objectifs de la formation, tels qu’ils sont définis au niveau national ? À l’Université Paris 8, la transition vers le LMD5 propose davantage de cours de langue générale et les matières spécialisées liées au commerce seront enseignées uniquement en français. Le contenu en langue spécialisée de la maquette LMD4 était intéressant mais difficile à mettre en œuvre et la maquette LMD5 sera moins spécialisée mais plus facile à mettre en place. Cette transition est-elle souhaitable ? Inévitable ?
À partir d’une revue de la littérature portant sur les formations LEA (Clauzure 1998, Crosnier 2002, Isani 2004, McAllister & Belan 2014, Gaillard & Peynaud 2023, Oury & Wilson 2024) et grâce à une expérience de quatre ans à la direction de cette formation, nous allons étudier la transition du LMD4 au LMD5, ses enjeux et ses limites. La maquette LMD5 sera finalisée au moment du congrès puisqu’elle doit être soumise en avril 2025.
Références bibliographiques
BRAUD, V., P. MILLOT, C. SARRÉ & S. WOZNIAK. (2015). Pour une formation de tous les anglicistes à la langue de spécialité. Les Langues Modernes 3, 67-76.
CLAUZURE, E. (1998). Du marché unique à la monnaie unique LEA : une formation pratique. ASp 19-22, 261-281. DOI : 10.4000/asp.2858.
CROSNIER, E. (2002). De la contradiction dans la formation en anglais Langue Étrangère Appliquée (LEA). ASp 35-36, 157-166. DOI : 10.4000/asp.1565.
GAILLARD, M & C. PEYNAUD. (2023). Spécialiser la LEA ? De l’intérêt de l’étude des discours, milieux et cultures spécialisés pour concevoir les enseignements en Langues étrangères appliquées. ASp 81, 29-
43. DOI : 10.4000/asp.7749.
ISANI, S. (2004). Compétence de culture professionnelle : définition, degrés et didactisation. ASp 43-44, 5-21.
MCALLISTER, J. & S. BELAN. (2014). L’anglais de spécialité en LEA à la croisée des domaines : étude de l’acquisition du lexique spécialisé. ASp 66, 41-59. DOI : 10.4000/asp.4564.
OURY, S. & A. ILSON. (2024). Enseigner la langue dans sa diversité : variation sociolinguistique et professionnalisation en Langues Étrangères Appliquées. Les Langues Modernes 4, 39-47.
Margaux Coutherut est maîtresse de conférences à l’Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis. Elle travaille sur les genres textuels, en particulier les genres procéduraux, aux niveaux structurels et linguistiques. Par ailleurs, elle y a dirigé la formation LEA de 2019 à 2023.
Muriel Grosbois – Conservatoire national des arts et métiers Paris, FoAP (muriel.grosbois@lecnam.net)
Naouel Zoghlami – Conservatoire national des arts et métiers Paris, FoAP (naouel.zoghlamiterrien@lecnam.net)
Professionnalisation des formations en langues dans le secteur LANSAD : enjeux d’une transition nécessaire
Pour les établissements d’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche (ESR) français, la professionnalisation à l’ère de la globalisation est une question vive qui interroge la mise en place de curricula adaptés. La « part langagière du travail » (Boutet 2001) et les compétences à communiquer en langues étrangères (LE) sont aujourd’hui considérées comme indispensables à l’employabilité (OCDE 2023) et au processus de professionnalisation (Filliettaz 2022). Toutefois, dans le secteur LANSAD, un décalage entre offre de formations en LE et besoins du monde professionnel subsiste (Dupuy & Grosbois 2020). Ce décalage est dû en partie à l’absence d’une véritable politique des langues qui intègre les objectifs spécifiques des formations tout en prenant appui sur la recherche (Braud et al. 2015, Brudermann 2024). Quelle transition envisager alors pour la conception de curricula professionnalisants en LE ? Quels rôles des différents acteurs (chercheurs, enseignants, apprenants, administrateurs et professionnels) entrevoir pour renforcer les liens entre diplômes, compétences et monde du travail ?
Nous proposons de contribuer à cette réflexion en adoptant ici une approche holistique – s’inscrivant dans ce que l’on peut considérer être un système dynamique complexe (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron 2008) – qui repose sur l’articulation entre trois niveaux : macro (politique), méso (conception du curriculum) et micro (pratique pédagogique), les départements de langues pouvant servir de catalyseur de transformation dans l’enseignement supérieur. En ancrant notre réflexion à des fondements théoriques relatifs à la conception d’environnements d’apprentissage flexibles, centrés sur l’apprenant (différences individuelles, analyse de besoins, etc.), nous présenterons la restructuration de l’offre de formation en anglais LANSAD au Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. Nous illustrerons comment recherche, pédagogie, administration et monde du travail s’y influencent mutuellement pour répondre aux enjeux de professionnalisation durable. Nous conclurons par une discussion sur la pertinence du dispositif pour d’autres contextes de formation.
Références bibliographiques
BOUTET, J. (2001). La part langagière du travail : bilan et évolutions. Langage et Société 98, 17-42.
BRAUD, V., P. MILLOT, C. SARRE & S. WOZNIAK, S. (2015). “You say you want a revolution…” Contribution à la réflexion pour une politique des langues adaptée au secteur LANSAD. Recherche et pratiques pédagogiques en langues de spécialité – Cahiers de l’APLIUT, 34(1). https://doi.org/10.4000/apliut.5020.
BRUDERMANN, C. (2024). Entre dynamiques institutionnelles et spécificités sectorielles : cartographier les tensions socioéducatives à l’œuvre dans le domaine LANSAD. Mélanges CRAPEL 44(2). https://www.atilf.fr/wp- content/uploads/publications/MelangesCrapel/Melanges_44_2_1_Brudermann.pdf
DUPUY, B. & M. GROSBOIS. (2020). Language Learning and Professionalization in Higher Education: Pathways to Preparing Learners and Teachers in/for the 21st Century. Research Publishing.net.
FILLIETTAZ, L. (2022). Langage et travail. In JORRO, A. (dir.), Dictionnaire des concepts de la profession- nalisation. De Boecq Supérieur, 265-269.
LARSEN-FREEMAN, D. & L. CAMERON. (2008). Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press.
OCDE (2023). « The Demand for Language Skills in the European Labour Market: Evidence from Online Job Vacancies ». https://www.oecd.org/employment/the-demand-for-language-skills-in-the- european-labour-market-e1a5abe0-en.htm.
Muriel Grosbois est Professeure des universités en anglais au Cnam et membre du laboratoire FoAP (Formation et apprentissages professionnels, EA7529). Elle est Directrice de la structure CLÉ (Communication en Langues Étrangères) du Cnam et responsable de la thématique 1 (Conceptions de la formation, savoirs et compétences des sujets apprenants) du FoAP. Ses travaux de recherche et ceux qu’elle encadre portent principalement sur le développement de compétences langagières dans un contexte numérique de formation, en lien avec les situations professionnelles, pour un public d’adultes.
Naouel Zoghlami est Maîtresse de Conférences en acquisition et didactique de l’anglais au Cnam et membre du laboratoire FoAP. Elle s’intéresse aux apports de la psychologie cognitive à l’enseignement/apprentissage des langues étrangères. Plus précisément, ses axes de recherche concernent la professionnalisation des curricula de langues, le développement des compétences langagières et transverses médiatisé par les technologies numériques, et la didactique cognitive de la compréhension de l’oral en L2.
Moa Hagafors – École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay & ICAR (Université Lumière Lyon 2) (beatrice.hagafors@ens-paris-saclay.fr)
Transitions and proposals in clothing alteration shops
Highly routinised institutional interactions, such as those between salespeople and customers in shops, are determined by particular inferential frameworks (Drew & Heritage 1992) which affect how participants perform and interpret different social actions. The range of interactional practices are typically reduced and undergo a process of specialisation and respecification (Heritage 2005), which means that formulations that would seem ambiguous in other contexts are stripped of any ambiguity thanks to the institutional expectations of the involved parties (Fox & Heinemann 2021). In the case of clothing alteration shops, interactions generally follow a sequential pattern where the customer’s request to have a piece of clothing altered is followed by the tailor’s proposal to produce a specific alteration, which is then accepted or rejected by the customer. In many cases, the service provider asks the customer to try on the garment, and makes the proposal by pinning it in place and asking the customer to evaluate the outcome. During the pinning process, the customer acts as a support for the tailor’s proposal, while they afterwards become an active participant accepting or refusing it. The aim of this presentation is to describe how the tailor constructs the proposal multimodally and linguistically to provoke this transition in the customer. Which of the different phases constitutes the core of the proposal: the actual pinning of the garment, the multimodal display of the pinning’s completion or the explicit, linguistic request to evaluate the alteration? A multimodal conversation analysis of a corpus of 29 video recorded interactions in a clothing alteration shop in England, collected in 2023, shows that singling out any of these steps as the motivating factor for the customer’s reaction is a complex matter. Instead, the tailor’s transition between the different steps is integral to what can be seen as an extended proposal form.
References
DREW, P., & HERITAGE, J. (1992). Analyzing talk at work: An introduction. In DREW, P. & J. HERITAGE (eds.),
Talk at Work : Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge University Press, 3-65.
FOX, B. A., & HEINEMANN, T. (2021). Are they requests? An exploration of declaratives of trouble in service encounters. Research on Language and Social Interaction 54(1), 20-38. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2020.1864154.
HERITAGE, J. (2005). Conversation analysis and institutional talk: Analyzing data. In SANDERS, R. & K. FITCH (eds.), Handbook of Language and Social Interaction. Erlbaum, 103-146.
Moa Hagafors is an ATER in English for specific purposes at ENS Paris-Saclay and a PhD student in Linguistics at the Interactions Corpus Apprentissages Représentations (ICAR) laboratory at Université Lumière Lyon 2. She is also a member of the research team Langues, Enseignement et Anglais De Spécialité (LEADS). She specialises in Conversation Analysis and Syntax. Her dissertation, which is supervised by Véronique Traverso and Nathalie Rossi-Gensane, focuses on proposals in medical consultations and shop interactions in English, French and Swedish.
William Kelleher – Université Rennes 2, LIDILE (william.kelleher@univ-rennes2.fr) Evgueniya Lyu – Université Grenoble Alpes, ILCEA4 (evgueniya.lyu@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr) Lily Schofield – Université Rennes 2, LIDILE (lily.schofield@univ-rennes2.fr)
Evaluating critical role plays and creativity-based pedagogy in the context of AI societal, ethical and technological transitions in an ESP context
This paper explores the transitions and transformations wrought by artificial intelligence (AI) and how they are perceived by undergraduate students. In a teaching sequence based on a case study and critical role-play approach (Shapiro and Leopold 2012), we seek to raise Applied Foreign Languages students’ awareness of decision-making processes and societal, ethical and technological issues, situated within a professional context.
Our paper will begin with a very brief recap of our pedagogical stance for this unit, its main principles being the use of: i) case studies for discovering cultural content and connecting language and disciplinary/professional knowledge; ii) critical role plays to engage with social issues; iii) tools to assess creativity in an ESP context. Our teaching materials are designed to allow students to explore the ethics of Sam Altman and the reasons for his initial dismissal from Silicon Valley’s Open AI. The aims of our teaching sequence as a whole are to promote students’ creativity in technology-mediated language tasks (Tin 2022, Jones & Richards 2016) and encourage them to reflect on the transitions engendered by AI, in and beyond the classroom.
The main objective of this paper is to present our findings as to student productions and perceptions using data collected before, during, and after the teaching of the sequence. We will explore evolutions in students’ disciplinary and linguistic knowledge on the topic of AI (Jiang et al. 2022) and their creativity (evaluation grid in Kelleher & Lyu, in press, Jordanous & Keller 2016). Pre-sequence evaluation will consist of a Limesurvey review of students’ perceptions and skills with regards to AI, the competences needed to use AI, and their perceptions of ethical issues. In-sequence evaluation will consist of qualitative and quantitative analysis of student productions. Post-sequence evaluation will return to students’ productions and perceptions in order to measure their development, learning and creativity with respect to AI tools, as well as the efficacy and creativity of the sequence itself.
References
JIANG, Y., X. LI, H. LUO, S. YIN, & O. KAYNAK. (2022). Quo vadis artificial intelligence? Discover Artificial Intelligence 2(4). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44163-022-00022-8.
JONES, R. H. & J. C. RICHARDS. (2016). Creativity in Language Teaching: Perspectives from Research and Practice. Routledge.
JORDANOUS, A. & B. KELLER. (2016). Modelling creativity: Identifying key components through a corpus- based approach. PLOS ONE. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0162959.
KELLEHER, W. & E. LYU. (forthcoming). Assessing creativity in technology-mediated language tasks. In MCCALLUM, L. & D. TAFAZOLI (eds.), Palgrave Encyclopedia of Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Palgrave Macmillan.
SHAPIRO, S. & L. LEOPOLD. (2012). A critical role for role-playing pedagogy. TESL Canada Journal 29(2), 120-130. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v29i2.1104.
TIN, T.B. (2022). Unpacking Creativity for Language Teaching. Routledge.
William Kelleher is Associate Professor in English with the department of Applied Foreign Languages at Rennes 2 University, attached to the LIDILE laboratory (Linguistics – Engineering – Didactics of Languages). He completed his doctoral and post-doctoral projects as ‘Innovation’ fellow with the South African National Research Foundation. His research interests are linguistic ethnography and the links between narrative and place, focusing on interaction, pragmatics and small stories. He is currently heading up the ‘What matters to us’ project that collects and curates small stories from Rennes’ civil society. His interests in linguistics and pragmatics extends to pedagogic applications of natural language processing. He is active in the LEA special interest group of GERAS.
Evgueniya Lyu is Associate Professor at the University of Grenoble (France), where she teaches English in the Department of Applied Languages. Her research focuses on the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), with a particular emphasis on its teaching and learning. She is an active member of GERAS (Groupe d’étude et de recherche en anglais de spécialité), where she serves as General Secretary and Co-Chair of the special interest group, DidASP.
Lily Schofield is Associate Professor in English with the department of Applied Foreign Languages at Rennes 2 University. Her research interests include the mediation competence, as it is described in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages’ Companion Volume, and its tangible implementation in the ESP classroom. More specifically, she is interested in how this competence can translate as valuing learners’ informal practices and personal experience when choosing resources, and as designing tasks around professional ethics questions, particularly in Business English.
Philippe Millot – Université Lumière Lyon 2, CeRLA (philippe.millot@univ-lyon2.fr)
Transition écologique et discours organisationnels : quelques caractéristiques du style spécialisé des rapports d’impact
Cette communication se situe dans le champ de l’analyse des discours organisationnels, en particulier celui de la communication officielle des grandes entreprises. Dans ce champ, les rapports d’impact constituent un exemple emblématique de genre organisationnel dont la fonction sociale consiste à valoriser les actions en matière de transition écologique et, plus largement, en matière de performance non financière. Alors que les caractéristiques du discours des rapports de performance financière sont bien connues (Hyland 1998, David 2001, Ditlevsen 2012), celles qui concernent la manière dont les entreprises articulent un discours de responsabilité environnementale avec la performance restent à explorer, en dépit de certaines avancées (Domenec 2012).
Notre étude stylistique se fonde sur un petit corpus de rapports d’impact que nous abordons dans une perspective phraséologique. Après une brève présentation de la structure des rapports et un aperçu des normes de rédaction internationales qui les régissent, nous proposons une analyse des schémas collocationnels de quelques mots liés à la transition écologique. Notre analyse met en évidence un phénomène de « sloganisation » du discours (Charaudeau & Maingueneau 2002, 537), où les résultats de la performance environnementale des entreprises se trouvent encapsulés dans un ensemble de clichés et de formules figées, qui constituerait le style typique des rapports. L’étude phraséologique éclairerait donc une facette du verdissement d’image de certaines entreprises.
Références bibliographiques
CHARAUDEAU, P. & D. MAINGUENEAU. (2002). Dictionnaire d’analyse du discours. Seuil.
DAVID, C. (2001). Mythmaking in annual reports. Journal of Business and Technical Communication
15 (2), 195–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/105065190101500203.
DITLEVSEN, M. G. (2012). Telling the story of Danisco’s annual reports (1935 through 2007-2008) from a communicative perspective. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 26 (1), 92–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651911421132.
DOMENEC, F. (2012). The ‘greening’ of the annual letters published by Exxon, Chevron and BP between 2003 and 2009. Journal of Communication Management 16 (3), 296–311. https://doi.org/10.1108/13632541211245767.
HYLAND, K. (1998). Exploring corporate rhetoric : Metadiscourse in the CEO’s letter. The Journal of Business Communication 35 (2), 224–44.
Philippe Millot est professeur des universités en anglais de spécialité et en linguistique appliquée à l’Université Lumière Lyon 2. Il effectue ses recherches au sein du Centre de recherche en linguistique appliquée (CeRLA). Ses travaux portent sur l’analyse des discours professionnels et organisationnels et la linguistique de corpus. Rédacteur en chef de la revue ASp, il est également l’auteur d’un ouvrage à paraître en 2025 aux éditions Lambert-Lucas, Anglais de spécialité, discipline empirique.
Lindsey Paek – Institut Villebon – Georges Charpak / Université Paris-Saclay, LEADS (lindsey.paek@universite-paris-saclay.fr)
English for Specific Purposes in professional identity development: Preliminary insights from ENS Paris-Saclay alumni transitioning between academic and professional life
This paper presents a case study examining the professional journeys of three alumni from École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay and their engagement with English for Specific Purposes (ESP). More precisely, it explores how their evolving professional identity (PI) (Dubar 1991, Tomlinson & Jackson 2019, Trede 2011) is shaped by ESP as they transition between academic and professional life. While much of the existing literature on ESP focuses on linguistic and cultural proficiency, there is limited exploration of how ESP facilitates learners’ development, particularly in relation to shaping their agency and PI (Weyreter & Viebrock 2014). In this research, PI development is conceptualized and contextualized as a gradual, evolving process shaped by transitional experiences during which individuals engage with ESP in both academic and professional settings.
Through a close examination of the participants’ reflective and reflexive narratives, the study investigates how their engagement with ESP informs their PI and self-positioning within professional communities. The preliminary findings, based on individual semi-structured interviews, will be presented, exploring how the participants perceive ESP’s role in their PI development. Interview findings will be analyzed both inter- and intra-case to identify common themes and individual variations and will be linked to earlier insights from a questionnaire survey that captured graduate students’ reflections on ESP’s impact on their PI.
By framing ESP within the lenses of transition and PI development, this research emphasizes how ESP training can support students in navigating shifting identities and roles between academia and professional practice. The study aims to offer evidence-based recommendations for enhancing ESP programs in higher education, advocating for an integrated approach that connects linguistic proficiency with PI development and support.
References
DUBAR, C. (2010). La socialisation: Construction des identités sociales et professionnelles (4th ed.). Armand Colin.
TOMLINSON, M. & D. JACKSON. (2019). Professional identity formation in contemporary higher education students. Studies in Higher Education 44(5), 885-900.
TREDE, F. (2012). Role of work-integrated learning in developing professionalism and professional identity. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education 13(3), 159–167.
WEYRETER, M. & B. VIEBROCK. (2020). Identity construction in adult learners of English for specific purposes (ESP): Exploring a complex phenomenon. In ABENDROTH-TIMMER, D. & E.-M. HENNIG (eds.), Plurilingualism and Multiliteracies: International Research on Identity Construction in Language Education. Peter Lang, 145-158. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2t4b81.11
Lindsey Paek is a postdoctoral researcher at the Action Research Chair in Pedagogical Innovation at the Institut Villebon – Georges Charpak. She specializes in identity studies, with a particular focus on exploring hybrid identities, such as Korean Canadian identity, in relation to the national identity of Canada. In the field of education, she investigates the professional identity development of students in higher education, particularly through ESP training, using needs analysis, curriculum design, assessment, and e-learning strategies.
Caroline Peynaud – Université Grenoble Alpes, ILCEA4 (caroline.peynaud@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr)
Mediating climate change knowledge: Transitions across digital platforms
Mediation discourses are those that allow specialized knowledge to be communicated to a non- specialist audience, that is to say, outside of its initial discursive community (Cartellier 2010). This process involves recontextualizing specialized information (Calsamiglia & Van Dijk 2004). Traditional media have long played a vital role in informing the public about complex issues, although journalists are generally not specialists of the issues they write about (Beacco & Moirand 1995). The climate crisis is a prime example of such an issue, for which mediation is particularly crucial given the importance of raising awareness about the issue among the general public and encouraging behavioral change (Kahan 2017). However, climate-related knowledge is particularly challenging to convey to the public due to its very nature, especially its slow temporality and the uncertainty that characterizes its scenarios, that is not in line with media values.
Today, an increasing number of digital media outlets have taken on this mediation role, making these dissemination discourses evolve to meet the demands of digital communication, namely to adapt to the constraints of the medium (Paveau 2017), to the conventions of digital communication as well as to a younger audience with different expectations. Consequently, the process of recontextualization is applied in a different way, deeply altering the conventions of these mediation discourses.
This paper aims to explore the multiple transitions that this process implies: discourses about environmental transition, transitioning from traditional to digital media, from specialized to mediated knowledge and to younger audiences. It examines the different forms of digital mediation of climate change and proposes a framework for analyzing these discourses within the theoretical framework of English for Specific Purposes (ESP).
References
BEACCO, Jean-Claude & Sophie MOIRAND. (1995). Autour des discours de transmission des connaissances. Langages 29 (117), 32-53. https://doi.org/10.3406/lgge.1995.1704.
CALSAMIGLIA, Helena & Teun VAN DIJK. (2004). Popularization discourse and knowledge about the genome. Discourse & Society 15 (4), 369-389. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926504043705.
CARTELLIER, Dominique. (2010). La vulgarisation scientifique à l’heure de libre accessibilité des savoirs. Quelle place pour les médiateurs? Mémoires du livre 1 (2). https://doi.org/10.7202/044212ar.
KAHAN, Dan M. (2017). Misconceptions, misinformation, and the logic of identity-protective cognition.
SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2973067.
PAVEAU, Marie-Anne. (2017). L’analyse du discours numérique: dictionnaire des formes et des pratiques. Hermann, “Cultures numériques” Series.
Caroline Peynaud is an Assistant Professor in English for Specific Purposes in the Applied Foreign Languages department (SOCLE) at Grenoble Alpes University where she teaches economic English, translation and terminology. She is a member of the ILCEA4-GREMUTS research center. Her research focuses on the US press as a specialized domain, more particularly on journalists’ culture, the types of discourses they produce, and their role as disseminators of specialized knowledge.
Caroline Rossi– Université Grenoble Alpes, ILCEA4 (caroline.rossi@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr)
FORESEE: Can ecolinguists ease the transition to living with the consequences of climate change?
After decades of accumulating scientific knowledge, the consequences of climate change are now being felt intimately and on a large scale. While this experiential aspect has only started recently to attract the attention of researchers, the FORESEE project starts from the premise that understanding the diversity of reactions and emotional responses to climate change is an essential step in adjusting to the current climate crisis and achieving sustainable change. Funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), FORESEE is a 7-year multidisciplinary research programme bringing together researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences, with a strong focus on narratives and discourse analysis.
Indeed, research conducted over the past decade has evidenced that “[s]tories used to communicate climate change knowledge shape opinions and preferences, and analyzing such narratives can help explain how they are constructed and how they influence us on personal and societal scales” (Fløttum & Gjerstad 2017), and such renewed focus on narratives has helped develop “Climate Labs” (Pigott et al. 2024) or “Learning Labs” involving local stakeholders (O’Shea et al. 2025). Against this background, the aim of our talk is to offer a critical discussion of the part ecolinguists can play in this programme. We will start by introducing FORESEE’s main aims and overall plan of action, before explaining the proposed contribution of ecolinguists. Using examples from a pilot study contrasting metaphors and frames used in IPCC reports with individual testimonies and climate stories (Biros, Terry & Rossi 2025), we will go on to discuss the possible impacts and applications of the new insights brought by this study on the characteristics of specialised vs. non-specialised narratives.
References
BIROS, C., A. TERRY & C. ROSSI. (2025). “Raconter les conséquences du changement climatique”. Paper accepted for presentation at the GERAS 2025 conference – Narratives in ESP: Past, present & future (Lyon, March 2025).
FLØTTUM, K., & Ø. GJERSTAD. (2017). Narratives in climate change discourse. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 8 (1), e429.
O’SHEA, T. E., L. C. GROBUSCH, M. ZHANG, J. NEAL, J. DARON, R. G. JONES, C. JACK, A. MCCLURE, G. SIAME,
D. NDHLOVU, S. BHARWANI. (2025). Integrating social narratives of flood events into a text network analysis-based decision support framework to reduce vulnerability to climate change in Africa. Climate Services 27. <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2024.100538>.
PIGOTT A., H. NUUTTILA, M. THOMAS, F. SMITH, K. BOHATA, T. MURRAY, M. PALSER, E. HOLMES & O. ELIAS.
(2024). “No one talks about it”: Using emotional methodologies to overcome climate silence and inertia in Higher Education. Frontiers in Sociology 9. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2024.1456393
Caroline Rossi is a professor of Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies at Université Grenoble Alpes (ILCEA4), where she teaches in the Applied Foreign Languages (LEA) programme and trains specialised translators. A psycholinguist with a PhD on language acquisition, she is passionate about cognition and was president of the French Association of Cognitive Linguistics from 2019 to 2024 (AFLiCo http://aflico.fr/). In recent work, she has applied usage-based approaches to language, situated discourse and conceptual metaphor analysis to the study environmental issues. Within UGA’s FORESEE programme, her project aims to show that ecolinguistics can bring insights to help us understand and live with the consequences of climate change.
Linda Terrier – Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, CAS (linda.terrier@univ-tlse2.fr)
Perspective actionnelle et anglais de spécialité à l’épreuve de l’IA générative : transition numérique ou transition didactique ? Étude de cas en Master Économie Écologique et Développement Durable
La transposition didactique (Chevallard 1985) et sa modélisation pour l’intégration des outils numériques (Toma 1997) offrent des cadres pertinents pour analyser et penser les situations d’enseignement/apprentissage en LANSAD, qu’elles soient créées volontairement ou imposées par le contexte institutionnel. L’émergence des outils d’IA générative illustre une de ces situations subies : ces outils permettent de produire instantanément des textes en anglais de spécialité (ASP), sans effort cognitif dans la langue cible. Le savoir-savant, traditionnellement transposé en savoir à enseigner, puis en savoir à apprendre, peut désormais être directement généré par les apprenant·es. Ce raccourci questionne les fondements de l’apprentissage linguistique, notamment l’effort de construction active et réflexive dans la langue cible.
À travers l’analyse d’un cas vécu en mars 2022 – avant la généralisation de ChatGPT –, cette communication explore les opportunités et défis posés par l’IA générative à la perspective actionnelle et au principe de transposition didactique. Un étudiant avait produit une présentation orale en s’appuyant sur un texte traduit par DeepL, parfaitement adapté mais sans engagement cognitif réel. Cet exemple illustre les risques de mésusage des outils d’IA, mais surtout la nécessité de repenser leur intégration dans les pratiques pédagogiques, à une époque où ces outils sont omniprésents, qu’on le veuille ou non (Grondin 2024).
Deux tâches repensées à la suite de cet incident seront présentées : une présentation orale avec support diaporama proposée dans le cadre de la théorie de la charge cognitive (Sweller 2010), où l’usage des outils d’IA a été découragé, et la production d’un poster scientifique de type #betterposter (Morrison 2019), où leur utilisation a été guidée. Ces exemples montrent que l’intégration des outils d’IA dans les pratiques pédagogiques requiert nuance et adaptation, afin de préserver des espaces pour une construction active des compétences en ASP. En conclusion, bien que l’IA bouscule les pratiques traditionnelles, le paradigme de la transposition didactique semble rester adéquat pour concevoir des situations d’enseignement/ apprentissage.
Références bibliographiques
CHEVALLARD, Y. (1985). La Transposition didactique : du savoir savant au savoir enseigné. La Pensée Sauvage
GRONDIN, M. (2024). « L’IA, accélérateur de transition économique. Élargir le débat sur les valeurs républicaines », Conférence avec l’Invité Capitole ⋅ Toulouse Mairie Métropole, 3 décembre, Toulouse.
MORRISON, M. A. (2019). #betterposter. OSF HOME. osf.io/ef53g, 8 mai.
SWELLER, J. (2010). Cognitive load theory : Recent theoretical advances. In PLASS, J. L., R. MORENO, &
R. BRÜNKEN (dir.), Cognitive Load Theory. Cambridge University Press, 29-47. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511844744.004.
TOMA, T. (1997). Du multimédia et des hommes : l’enseignant face au multimédia. Martorana éditeur.
Linda Terrier est maîtresse de conférences en linguistique et didactique de l’anglais LANSAD à l’Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès (UT2J). En didactique des langues, elle s’intéresse en particulier aux questions de transposition didactique multi-médiée, pensées dans le cadre de la théorie de la charge cognitive de John Sweller. Ses travaux en linguistique sont centrés sur les questions de compréhension de l’anglais oral et d’intelligibilité en production orale de l’anglais dans les discours spécialisés. Elle est Directrice des études LANSAD à l’UFR LLCE de l’UT2J.
Marie Thévenon – Université Grenoble Alpes, ILCEA4 (marie.thevenon@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr)
Analysing the discourse of transition and climate change in climate fiction
The discourse pertaining to the issue of climate change has changed considerably over the course of the last few years. Since IPCC’s 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, the idea of “time running out” has led to an apocalyptic discourse, often used by new political actors and social movements (Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion). This transition from a state of relative passivity to a sudden “sense of emergency” (Hulme 2020) to which “panic is an appropriate response” (cf. Thunberg) appears not only in media discourse but also in what has come to be named “climate fiction” or “cli-fi” (term coined by Bloom in 2007), in other words, fictional depictions of climate change, which are mostly dystopian.
In the context of a research project focusing on representations of climate change for young adults, this paper aims to analyse the discourse of transition and climate change in climate fiction and to propose a framework for analysing these discourses within the theoretical framework of English for Specific Purposes (ESP).
We will start by drawing a parallel between media discourse and climate fiction discourse in this transitional period. Based on Global Warming’s Six Americas theory (Leiserowitz, Roser-Renouf, Marlon & Maibach 2021), we will attempt to see in what way climate fiction spans a variety of different opinions by analysing two main works: The Ministry for the Future (2020) and State of Fear (2004). We will focus in particular on the science and specialised terminology present in these works of climate fiction, as well as on the different forms of science popularisation which are used to make the scientific content more accessible to the general public, whom it seeks to convince.
References
CRICHTON, M. (2004). State of Fear. Harper Collins Publishers.
HULME, M. (2020). “Is it too late (to stop dangerous climate change)? An editorial”. WIREs Climate Change 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.619.
IPCC. (2018). Summary for Policymakers. In MASSON-DELMOTTE, V. et al. (eds.), Global Warming of
1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C Above Pre-industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways. Cambridge University Press, 3-24. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157940.001.
LEISEROWITZ, A., C. ROSER-RENOUF, J. MARLON and E. MAIBACH. (2021). Global Warming’s Six Americas: a
review and recommendations for climate change communication. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 42, 97–103.
ROBINSON, K. S. (2020). The Ministry for the Future. Orbit Books.
Marie Thévenon is a Senior Lecturer in Anglophone studies at the Faculty of Economics of Grenoble Alpes University where she teaches English for Specific Purposes for economics students. She is a member of the ILCEA4 research centre. Her research focuses on science fiction and speculative fiction, and more particularly environmental dystopia and climate fiction / “cli fi”.