Business going green: critical discourse analysis of corporate green responsibility

The present thesis introduces an analysis of a part of public corporate communication through which large international companies present a positive image of their brands, technologies, operations and, above all, their values vis-à-vis the issue of environmental protection. It would likely not provoke much dispute, shall it be stated that environmental protection has over the several past decades climbed to the top of the list of the world's priority agenda. Yet whether an ecological crisis is or is not a real threat, or whether the parties involved really do or do not take the proclaimed steps necessary for the improvement of the state of the natural environment, is not a matter of importance here. The important thing is that people (companies) are talking about the environment. In the context of a global ecological threat companies are on one hand pressured into accepting green responsibilities, on the other hand in building their green image they actively adopt certain aspects of green discourse and articulate their own environmental diagnoses and propose possible remedies. Using critical discourse analysis this thesis tries to uncover the ways of construction of corporate green responsibility discourse aiming to answer questions regarding the selection of discourse strategies and use of language,..