A Corpus-based Study on Speeches about Climate Change: Using TED Talks as a Case Study

• Main Authors: Sheng-Wen Su, 蘇勝文
• Other Authors: Pei-yu Ku
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/33200046274275956761

碩士 === 銘傳大學 === 應用英語學系碩士在職專班 === 102 === This study analyzes climate change speeches on the website of TED Talks, a nonprofit conference devoted to “ideas worth spreading.” Three aspects are investigated: the word frequency list, the most frequently used 3-word lexical bundles in all speeches, and the patterns of how speakers began their speeches. The topic of climate change was selected because awareness of climate change has become much more widespread. According to Curriculum Syllabus of the Ministry of Education in 2011, developers of teaching materials and curricular designers are now adding the topics of climate change to their curricula to help students consider and discuss how to save the earth. A corpus based on 30 speeches from TED Talks on climate change was compiled as the data for this research. The climate change transcripts were collected and analyzed by the corpus access software, AntConc 3.2.4w. The results show as follows: First, the 20 most frequent content words in the 30 speeches— year(s), world, very, get, people, climate, know, see, change, go, where, time, ice/think, energy, earth, water, global, carbon, warming, and emissions— express a cause-and-effect relationship. Second, the 14 collocations of climate— change, crisis, system, protection, engineering, warming, stabilize, history, impacts, global, CSI, changing, and causing— indicate that climate change influences the natural environment and people’s surroundings. People should be aware of the crisis happening. Third, a comparison of the climate change corpus compiled from TED Talks and the COCA Spoken corpus reveals that frequent collocations of climate— change, crisis, system, warming, stabilized, history, impacts, global, changing and causing— are associated with climate change. These words make people conscious of harmful phenomena, such as rising temperatures, food shortages, and iceberg melting. Fourth, twenty-six bundles were categorized into three structural patterns. The prepositional phrases— in the world, on the planet, and out of the— convey information about disastrous events and environmental problems which people are facing. Speakers use the verb + infinitive we have to, I want to, and we need to for offering some solutions for climate change. Finally, among the types of patterns the speakers used to begin their speeches, “straight to the theme” is the most frequently used pattern in the speeches. This study provides some pedagogical implications for EFL learners and instructors. Some applications, such as teaching wording and speech openings, are also implied by this research.