The purpose of this article is to investigate how ecology and environment-related matters are discussed within science comic books. In the present-day society, climate change represents an unavoidable reality whose consequences affect all living beings. However, the unlimited and uncontrolled flow of information shared online, together with the rapid growth of fake news and misinformation channels, is now compelling practitioners, scholars and institutions alike to find alternative routes for the communication of such specialized issues: they thus work towards the improvement of people’s awareness and engagement with scientific matters, in order to enable them to develop opinions, understand the related risks and gain reliable knowledge for their own decision-making processes. What is more, science comics have only recently started to be employed for scientific popularization purposes, and academic research on this matter is still scarce. In this light, the aim of this contribution is to explore, from a linguistic and discursive point of view, the potentialities that comic books offer to the communication of climate and ecology-related issues. To this end, the present study employs both a rhetorical and a linguistic approach, harnessing corpus linguistic tools such as wordlists, keyword lists and concordance lines to analyse the techniques employed for discourse framing and information tailoring purposes. Under scrutiny are two popular science comic books specifically devoted to the issues of climate change and global warming, namely Wild Weather: Storms, Meteorology and Climate, published in 2019 by First Second Publishers, and Understanding Global Warming with Max Axiom Super Scientist, published that same year by Capstone Press. The findings derived from the joint analyses of the retrieved list of words and of the observed frequencies, contribute, above all, to the dismantling of the still widely held misconception that sees comics as a “dubious” form of art distorting scientific content. What is more, the study also sheds light onto the linguistic and rhetorical strategies that are employed to popularize science within this specific medium.
Il presente articolo si propone di esaminare come l'ecologia e le questioni di carattere ambientale vengano trattate all’interno dei fumetti di divulgazione scientifica. Nella società attuale, il cambiamento climatico rappresenta una realtà ormai ineludibile, le cui conseguenze toccano da vicino tutti gli esseri viventi. In questo contesto, la quantità illimitata e incontrollata di informazioni in rete, insieme alla rapida crescita del fenomeno delle fake news e della misinformazione, spinge scienziati, studiosi e istituzioni a ricercare percorsi alternativi per la corretta divulgazione di questi temi. Il mondo della scienza scende in campo per stimolare la sensibilità delle persone nei confronti di tali argomenti, al fine di consentire l’acquisizione di conoscenze scientificamente fondate, la comprensione delle relative problematiche e la maturazione di opinioni per affrontare in modo consapevole i processi decisionali individuali. I fumetti di scienza sono stati utilizzati solo recentemente per scopi divulgativi, e la ricerca accademica in materia è ancora scarsa. L'obiettivo di questo contributo è, quindi, quello di esplorare, da un punto di vista linguistico e discorsivo, le potenzialità che i fumetti di scienza offrono alla divulgazione delle tematiche legate al clima e all'ecologia. A tal fine, il presente studio utilizza un approccio retorico e linguistico, e sfrutta gli strumenti della linguistica dei corpora, quali liste di parole (wordlist), liste di parole chiave (keywordlists) e concordanze (concordance lines), per analizzare le tecniche impiegate per organizzare il discorso e trasmettere le informazioni. Vengono qui presi in esame due fumetti di divulgazione scientifica dedicati specificamente ai temi del cambiamento climatico e del surriscaldamento globale, ovvero Wild weather: Storms, Meteorology and Climate, pubblicato nel 2019 da First Second Publishers, e Understanding Global Warming with Max Axiom Super Scientist, pubblicato nello stesso anno da Capstone Press. I risultati derivanti dall’analisi congiunta delle liste di parole e delle frequenze osservate contribuiscono, in primo luogo, ad abbattere il pregiudizio, ancora molto diffuso, che considererebbe i fumetti come una discutibile forma d'arte, la quale “distorce” i contenuti scientifici. Inoltre, lo studio mette in luce le strategie linguistiche e retoriche impiegate per divulgare i concetti scientifici all'interno di questo specifico genere.
Scientific popularization for ecological awareness: when climate science meets comic art / Giordano, Ilaria. - In: LA TORRE DI BABELE. - ISSN 1724-3114. - (In corso di stampa).
Scientific popularization for ecological awareness: when climate science meets comic art
Ilaria Giordano
In corso di stampa
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to investigate how ecology and environment-related matters are discussed within science comic books. In the present-day society, climate change represents an unavoidable reality whose consequences affect all living beings. However, the unlimited and uncontrolled flow of information shared online, together with the rapid growth of fake news and misinformation channels, is now compelling practitioners, scholars and institutions alike to find alternative routes for the communication of such specialized issues: they thus work towards the improvement of people’s awareness and engagement with scientific matters, in order to enable them to develop opinions, understand the related risks and gain reliable knowledge for their own decision-making processes. What is more, science comics have only recently started to be employed for scientific popularization purposes, and academic research on this matter is still scarce. In this light, the aim of this contribution is to explore, from a linguistic and discursive point of view, the potentialities that comic books offer to the communication of climate and ecology-related issues. To this end, the present study employs both a rhetorical and a linguistic approach, harnessing corpus linguistic tools such as wordlists, keyword lists and concordance lines to analyse the techniques employed for discourse framing and information tailoring purposes. Under scrutiny are two popular science comic books specifically devoted to the issues of climate change and global warming, namely Wild Weather: Storms, Meteorology and Climate, published in 2019 by First Second Publishers, and Understanding Global Warming with Max Axiom Super Scientist, published that same year by Capstone Press. The findings derived from the joint analyses of the retrieved list of words and of the observed frequencies, contribute, above all, to the dismantling of the still widely held misconception that sees comics as a “dubious” form of art distorting scientific content. What is more, the study also sheds light onto the linguistic and rhetorical strategies that are employed to popularize science within this specific medium.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.