The Oxford English Dictionary has awarded “climate emergency” the title of 2019 word of the year, as it best conveys the sense of urgency surrounding climate-related measures.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "climate emergency" defines "a situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it", best reflecting the concerns of English speakers in 2019. For this reason, it has been named word of the year.
As can be read on the Oxford Dictionaries website, the word of the year title is given to "a word or expression that reflects not only the concerns and mood of the past year but also has a potential to be of lasting cultural significance".
According to data collected by the Oxford corpus, a database containing billions of English words, the use of the term "climate emergency" increased a hundredfold in a single year, going from being almost never used to being one of the most widely used.
Statistically speaking, this analysis shows a new way of using the word "emergency", as until 2018 it was almost never associated with the word "climate".
"When we analysed the various words, it was immediately clear to us that climate-related issues recurred across every field we were examining," explained Katherine Connor Martin, editor of the Oxford dictionary.
The panel responsible also considered other environment-related terms such as climate crisis, climate action, climate denial, solastalgia, ecocide and extinction. But "climate emergency" outpaced them all, also highlighting a surge in debate around the topic.
That climate emergency was talked about more during 2019 is beyond question. Ever since Swedish activist Greta Thunberg launched her climate movement in August 2018, the climate issue has firmly entered global debate.
The point, however, is how it has been talked about. The Oxford choice is part of a series of lexical changes recorded at multiple levels. The Collins Dictionary, the British equivalent of the Treccani, named "climate strike" its word of 2019, and here too the choice was driven by a rise in its usage.
It is no coincidence that numerous outlets have sought to adopt a new vocabulary, trying to best convey the urgency and need for concrete action against climate change. Among them is the British newspaper the Guardian, which decided to use the words "climate emergency" or "climate crisis" in place of "climate change".
When it comes to communication in the environmental field, the choice of words makes all the difference. It is an intangible and complex subject that is often difficult to communicate. This is why the choice of linguistic register proves to be of vital importance.