UNRAVELING GRETA THUNBERG'S DISCURSIVE  STRATEGIES OF BLAMING  REGARDING THE ISSUE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Authors

  • Nurhadianty Rahayu Universitas Jember Author
  • Riskia Setiarini Universitas Jember Author
  • Dewianti Khazanah Universitas Jember Author
  • Siti Lela Atika Universitas Jember Author
  • Almira Tania Khairani Universitas Jember Author
  • Anisa Cahyani Maulida Universitas Jember Author
  • Hosnil Khotimah Universitas Jember Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32682/jeell.v13i3.173

Keywords:

climate crisis, discursive of blaming, Greta Thunberg, metafunctions, SFL

Abstract

Greta Thunberg’s environmental crisis speech at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019 was publicly and widely recognized. In relation to that, this research addresses three research objectives: 1) to reveal the construction of discursive strategies of blaming; 2) to identify the focus of blaming, which includes characters, behavior, and outcome; and 3) eventually, to discover the purpose of Thunberg’s speech. Accordingly, these are all answered through the application of Hansson et al.’s discursive strategies of blaming and the focus of blaming, along with the purpose of Thunberg’s speech, which are discerned from the three metafunctions of Halliday and Matthiessen’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The findings show that SFL provides a useful analytical framework for identifying the blaming strategies in Greta Thunberg’s speech, including what is blamed and how the blame is expressed. Furthermore, the formula of these metafunctions facilitates a comprehensive understanding of the speech's overall communicative purpose. The analysis reveals that her speech conveys judgments of veracity, propriety, capacity, and tenacity, with the focus of blaming realized through lexicogrammatical choices operating across the three metafunctions.

References

Bhatia, A. (2008). Discursive illusions in the American national strategy for combating terrorism. Journal of Language and Politics, 7(2), 201–227.

Borzenko et al., (2026). Framing youth activism in global education policy: how international organisations construct narratives of participation and reform. Journal of Education Policy, 1-32.

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). SAGE.

Darong, H. C. (2021). Interpersonal Function of Joe Biden’s Victory Speech (Systemic Functional Linguistics View). Journal of Education Research and Evaluation, 5(1), 57. https://doi.org/10.23887/jere.v5i1.31420.

García-Guitián,E. & Bouza Garcia, L. 2026. Discursive strategies for citizen participation in the EU: a normative assessment of the Conference on the Future of Europe. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 34(3), 720-734.

Gerot, L., & Wignell, P. (1995). Making Sense of Functional Grammar: An Introductory Workbook. Antipodean Educational Enterprises.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Mathiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar Third Edition (Third). Arnold.

Hansson, S., Page, R., & Fuoli, M. (2022). Discursive Strategies of Blaming: The Language of Judgment and Political Protest Online. Social Media + Society, 8(4). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305122113875

Harahap, R. S., Tifani Angrayani, Rafli Firmansyah Putra, & Edi Suprayetno. (2024). A Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Analysis on Short story Cindelaras by Cerita Rakyat from East Java. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(2), 34–43. https://doi.org/10.52622/joal.v3i2.187

He, Q., & Yang, B. (2015). Absolute clauses in English from the systemic functional perspective. Springer.

Larrondo-Ureta, A., & Meso-Ayerdi, K. (2022). Political Communication Evolution in the Digital Hybrid Media System: Innovation and Experimentation as Strategies Towards a New Paradigm. In Digital Political Communication Strategies (pp. 43–58). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81568-4_3

Malkawi, R. J., & Fareh, S. (2023). The role of language in advocacy: An SFL analysis of Hanan Ashrawi’s speech on Palestinian rights. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2023.2276554

Marback, R. (2009). A Meditation on Vulnerability in Rhetoric. Rhetoric Review, 29(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/07350190903415149

Martin, J. & White, P, (2005). Language of Evaluation. Palgrave Macmillan.

Shree, S., & Singh, K. (2025). Reframing genderlect: how vulnerability in public speeches builds emotional capital. International Journal of Organizational Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-03-2025-5360

Tallapessy, A. (2015). The discourse of corruption: Appraisal in Indonesian media. Sino-US English Teaching, 12(6), 457-463.

The Telegraph. (2019, September 24). “How dare you?”—Emotional Greta Thunberg attacks world leaders [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlRompc1yE

Tsilia, A. (2026). The Grammar of Defeated Expectations: the case of wh-exclamatives (Doctoral dissertation, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY).

Wilhelmy, R., Anders, I., Ćurić, M., & d’Avis, F. (2025). Not all exclamatives behave the same. Theoretical Linguistics, 51(1-2), 143-151.

Xuan, W. W., Matthiessen, C. M., & Arús-Hita, J. (2025). Broadening the appliability of systemic functional linguistics. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 63(1), 1-18.

Downloads

Published

2026-10-27

How to Cite

UNRAVELING GRETA THUNBERG’S DISCURSIVE  STRATEGIES OF BLAMING  REGARDING THE ISSUE OF CLIMATE CHANGE. (2026). JEELL (Journal of English Education, Linguistics and Literature) , 13(3), 327-347. https://doi.org/10.32682/jeell.v13i3.173