Fossil-fueled stories: an ecolinguistic critical discourse analysis of the South African government’s naturalisation of fossil fuels in the context of the climate crisis

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of all texts and text categories in the corpus.

Text categories	Number of texts
Blogs	5
International speeches	26
Local speeches	52
Media advisories	21
Media statements	89
Statements by politicians	3
Informational pamphlets	3

Table 2. The word types under analysis and their number of tokens and texts appeared in.

Fossil fuel word types	No. of tokens	No. of texts
Energy	1001	83
Gas	265	60
Coal	118	26

Table 3. Texts for qualitative analysis and the number of tokens for each word type they include.

Texts chosen for qualitative analysis	Energy	Gas	Coal
Minister Gwede Mantashe Approval of Integrated Resource Plan	28	13	9
Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane Mineral Resources and Energy Dept Budget Vote 2020–2021	35	15	6
Minister Jeff Redebe Energy efficiency walk about in-store activation	44	0	0
Minister Jeff Radebe Women in Energy dialogue	58	2	0
Minister Jeff Radebe South African National Energy Development Institute Energy Breakfast	65	0	0
Minister Jeff Radebe South Africa Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Systems Conference	58	2	2
Minister Jeff Radebe SADC Ministerial Workshop on Regional Gas Infrastructure and Market Development	21	75	3
Minister Jeff Radebe Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme Bid Windows 3.5 and 4 contractual close signing ceremony	41	1	1
Minister Jeff Radebe Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement programme	78	1	24
Minister Jeff Radebe Links between energy and mining sectors	46	3	10
Minister Jeff Radebe Launch of Black Energy Professionals Association	35	17	1
Minister Jeff Radebe Energy Dept Budget Vote 2018–2019	39	32	2
Minister Gwede Mantashe Approval of Integrated Resource Plan 2019	28	13	9
From the desk of the President 28 September 2020	23	2	4
Environment, Forestry and Fisheries publishes Geographical areas for development	12	7	1

Table 4. Most frequent collocates for ‘energy'.

Collocational phrases for ‘energy'	No. of occurrences
Renewable energy	206
Energy sector/s	74
Energy efficiency	41
Energy storage	25
Energy mix	24
Energy technology/ies	21
Energy supply	19
National energy	18
Department of Energy	18
Energy system/s	18

Table 5. Most frequent collocates for ‘gas'.

Collocational phrases for ‘gas'	No. of occurrences
Greenhouse gas	72
Natural gas	30
Shale gas	13
Gas reserves	9
Gas pipeline/s	8
Gas market/s	7
Regional gas	7
Gas to power	6
Oil and gas	6
Use of gas	5

Table 6. Most frequent collocates for ‘coal'.

Collocational phrases for ‘coal'	No. of occurrences
Coal-fired	14
From coal	5
Coal power	4
Coal technology/ies	4
Coal bed methane	3
Coal for energy	3
Clean/er coal	3
Coal resources	3