Open AccessEnvironmental Discourse in Moroccan Eco-documentary: The decryption of Scientists’ Narratives
Author(s) -
Mohamed Mliless,
Lamiae Azzouzi
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
international journal of language and literary studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2704-7156
pISSN - 2704-5528
DOI - 10.36892/ijlls.v2i1.201
Subject(s) - argumentation theory , argumentative , narrative , documentary film , damages , deforestation (computer science) , political science , psychology , sociology , social psychology , media studies , law , epistemology , linguistics , philosophy , computer science , programming language
Eco-documentary is a media genre that aims to raise environmental awareness among the general public. It exposes environmental degradations and presents alternatives for environmental issues such as pollution, global warming, and deforestation among others. For this aim, the language of scientific experts contributes a lot to the making of the argumentative flow of the documentary. Within the framework of ecolinguistics, this article examines fear and threat expressions used by scientists to reinforce argumentation in Faouzi’s (2012) entitled /الزرقاء المرجة انين: Whining of the Blue Lagoon/. In this direction, Witte, Cameron, McKeon, & Berkowitz's (1996) model of "perceived severity" and "perceived susceptibility" was adopted to explain the use of fear and threat appeals in the film. The results show that ‘perceived severity’ and ‘perceived susceptibility’ expressions are preponderant in experts’ discourse. This study has many implications for eco-documentary producers, governmental and non-governmental organs, and future research in Morocco to explore other facets of films that report about man’s damages perpetrated to environmental settings and resources.