Different contexts, different “stories”? A linguistic comparison of two development reports on climate change

This paper describes some linguistic features related to the textual interaction taking place between different voices in two development reports focusing on climate change challenges, and discuss how these features function in an argumentative perspective. Given the different institutional contexts they are produced in (the UN Development Program and the World Bank), our hypothesis is that the reports tell different “stories”. This is confirmed through a comparative analysis undertaken in an overarching polyphonic perspective, revealing a mix of different explicit and implicit voices, and different use of devices such as epistemic, deontic and axiological markers.

► Different strategies in World Development Report (WDR) and Human Dev. Report (HDR). ► WDR assumes a spokesperson role for technology solutions and climate smart policies. ► HDR assumes a spokesperson role for human beings, and for the poor in particular. ► Frequent use of the modal verb can in WDR emphasises action-oriented policies in WDR. ► Frequent use of the pronoun we in HDR points to inclusion of all of humanity.