Energy Discourses in Switzerland
Discourse about energy is a key factor in the successful implementation of the Swiss energy strategy. The large-scale interdisciplinary research project Energy Discourses in Switzerland focuses on the patterns of language related to changes in energy policy that serve as the basis for democratic dialogue and innovation.
Issues surrounding the production, supply, and use of energy will be of concern to Switzerland in the next few years and in the decades to come. In the project Energy Discourses in Switzerland, researchers at the ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics are investigating the communicative prerequisites for the anticipated changes. The objective of the project is to identify how patterns of language use about energy issues in the three official Swiss languages (German, French, and Italian) develop across institutions, media, and societal sectors. The findings will be actively conveyed to various actors involved in the transition to sustainable energy systems and in the democratic dialogue about energy.
Project information
The project, which lasts three years from 2016-2019, will receive substantial support from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) under the Energy - Economy - Society (EES) research programme. The research is based on a large multilingual corpus of texts relevant to Swiss discourses on energy since before 2011.
Details
Project financing: Swiss Federal Office of Energy SFOE
Grant: CHF 284,825
Project start: 1/11/2016
Project end: 31/10/2019
Media release (in German)
Methods
- analysis of and comparison between discourses in the Swiss national languages
- large and growing corpus (500 million tokens as of 1/01/2017)
- computer-based corpus linguistics (data-driven turn)
- mixed methods approach (guided by and combined with qualitative methods such as theoretical sampling and text analysis)
- use of richly-annotated text data
- visualisations of complex analyses
Publications
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Stücheli-Herlach, Peter; Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen,
2018.
The common sense of energy transition.
In:
BEHAVE 2018 - 5th European Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency, Zurich, 5-7 September 2018.
-
Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen; Stücheli-Herlach, Peter,
2018.
Energy discourses in Switzerland – hints of the future.
In:
Swiss-US Energy Innovation Days 2018, Sion, 19-22 August 2018.
-
Stücheli-Herlach, Peter; Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen,
2018.
Energiediskurs in der Schweiz.
In:
PowerTage 2018, Zürich, 05.-07. Juni 2018.
-
Stücheli-Herlach, Peter; Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen,
2018.
Energiediskurse in der Schweiz – wie wir uns über Zukunft verständigen.
In:
EnergyCom 2018, Rüschlikon, 17. Mai 2018.
-
Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen; Stücheli-Herlach, Peter; Krasselt, Julia; Dreesen, Philipp; Batz, Dominik,
2018.
In:
Annual conference of the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research (SACM-SGKM), Lugano, 12-13 April 2018.
-
2018.
Analyzing multilingual energy discourses in Switzerland.
In:
Behave 2018 : book of abstracts.
Behave 2018 : 5th European Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency, Zurich, 5-7 September 2018.
ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften.
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Stücheli-Herlach, Peter; Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen; Dreesen, Philipp,
2018.
Working Papers in Applied Linguistics
; 16.
Winterthur:
ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-7106
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Stücheli-Herlach, Peter; Tanner, Pascal; Batz, Dominik,
2017.
"Wenn Fukushima gar nicht gewesen wäre ..." : Diskursanalytische Zugänge zur Energiepolitik
.
In:
Kleinberger, Ulla; Rosenberger Staub, Nicole, eds.,
Energiediskurs : Perspektiven auf Sprache und Kommunikation im Kontext der Energiewende.
Bern:
Peter Lang.
pp. 21-40.
Sprache in Kommunikation und Medien ; 10.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0343-2581-3
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Perrin, Daniel; Whitehouse, Marlies; Zampa, Marta,
2017.
Vom Ringen um den guten Text : kommunikatives Potenzial im Energiediskurs
.
In:
Rosenberger Staub, Nicole; Kleinberger, Ulla, eds.,
Energiediskurs : Perspektiven auf Sprache und Kommunikation im Kontext der Energiewende.
Bern:
Peter Lang.
pp. 79-95.
Sprache in Kommunikation und Medien ; 10.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0343-2581-3
-
2015.
Von nationalem Interesse. Sprachmanagement im Energiediskurs.
In:
Tagung Energiediskurs in der Schweiz, Winterthur, 29.6.2015.
Tagung Energiediskurs in der Schweiz (29.6.2015).
Transfer
Research reports
Research report 2019 (in German)
(PDF 1,6 MB)
Summary English 2019 (PDF 55,7 KB)
Summary German 2019 (PDF 78,1 KB)
Summary French 2019 (PDF 79,2 KB)
Summary Italian 2019 (PDF 58,4 KB)
Research report 2018 (in German)
(PDF 2,6 MB)
Summary English 2018 (PDF 63,9 KB)
Summary German 2018 (PDF 78,3 KB)
Dissemination 2019
- Presentation, IAM live 2019, Winterthur, 26 June 2019:
#Wortwahl - Die Politik der Schlagworte - Blog, ZHAW Language matters: Politische Schlagworte sind besser als ihr Ruf
- Presentation, Swiss-US Energy Innovation Days 2019, Austin/San Antonio, 6-9 August 2019:
Programme (PDF 977,3 KB)
The common grounds of energy transition. How public discourses shape our democratic future (PDF 977,3 KB) - Transfer workshop, Energiediskurse in der Schweiz, Käfigturm, Bern, 2 December 2019:
Transfer workshop
Contributions to academic conferences
"Wer Energie spart, schont die Umwelt und senkt die Kosten – Analyse von vager Lexik mit quantitativen Methoden im multilingualen Energiediskurs der Schweiz". Digitalität – Medialität – Diskursivität. Darmstadt, 14-16 February 2019.
"Vergleichende Diskurslinguistik mit Wordembeddings: Analyse semantischer Felder im multilingualen Energiediskurs der Schweiz". Methoden kontrastiver Medienlinguistik, Stockholm, 6-8 March 2019.
Dissemination 2018
- Presentation, Energy Innovation Days, Sion, 19-22 August 2018: Energy discourses in Switzerland – Hints of change
- Presentation + Workshop with communications professionals, Communication Forum Powertage 2018, Zurich, 6 June 2018 (in German): Energiediskurs in der Schweiz
- Presentation, EnergyCom 2018, Rüschlikon, 17 May 2018: Energiediskurse in der Schweiz – wie wir uns über die Zukunft verständigen
- Article, ZHAW Annual Report 2017, April 2018 (in German): Annual Report
- Article, ZHAW-Impact, March 2018 (in German): Die Sprachen der Energiewende (PDF 15,0 MB)
Contributions to academic conferences
- "Diskurslinguistik in Anwendung. Forschungsdesign für Korpusanalysen zu öffentlicher Kommunikation am Beispiel der 'Energiestrategie 2050'" GAL 2018 Sprachen, Kommunikation, Öffentlichkeit, Essen, 11-14 September 2018.
- "Linguistik für die Öffentlichkeit: Diskurse messen, erklären und deuten" GAL 2018 Sprachen, Kommunikation, Öffentlichkeit (Symposium V), Essen, 11-14 September 2018.
- "Analyzing multilingual energy discourses in Switzerland" 5th European Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency (BEHAVE), Zurich, 6-7 September 2018.
- "The common sense of energy transition" 5th European Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency (BEHAVE), Zurich, 6-7 September 2018.
- "Exploring Swiss multilingual discourses: methodological considerations and preliminary findings in the case of national energy policy" Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research (SACM-SGKM), Lugano, 12-13 April 2018.
Dissemination 2017
- Presentation, New York, 21-23 August 2017: Swiss-US Energy Innovation Days 2017
- Presentation, Astana (Kasakhstan), 14 June 2017: International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development (UNECE), Expo 2017
Contributions to academic conferences
- "Tracking multilingual energy discourses: The Swiss Applied Linguistics Corpus" XXIst World Congress of the International Federation of Translators (FIT 2017), Brisbane, 3-5 August 2017.
- "Smart Governance embedded in multilingual discourses" Nasarbajev University, Astana, 15-16 June 2017.
- "Multilingual political issues in translation: The Swiss Energy Discourse" Aston University, Birmingham, 6 June 2017.
- "Energiediskurse in der Schweiz" University of Augsburg, 12-13 May 2017.
