"CLAIMING THE GREEN AGENDA: FACTICITY PATTERNS IN IMRAN KHAN AND SHEHBAZ SHARIF'S ENVIRONMENTAL SPEECHES"

Abstract

This study comparatively examines the facticity patterns and credibility construction strategies in the environmental speeches of two prominent Pakistani political leaders  Imran Khan (2018–2022) and Shehbaz Sharif (2022–2025). The study builds on Stibbe's (2021) theoretical model of ecolinguistic convictions and facticity patterns and Potter's (1996) model of repertoire of empiricism and stake management to analyse a corpus of ten purposively selected speeches delivered by the leaders during various climate change forums and conferences such as COP, Geneva Climate Resilient Pakistan Conference, and the United Nations General Assembly. The two research questions for this study concern the contrasting facticity patterns found in the environmental speeches of both leaders, and how they use linguistic strategies for stake management and the empiricist repertoire in building their credibility as environmental advocates. The analysis of the discourse reveals that both the leaders continuously use high-facticity devices (unmodalised assertions, precise statistical quantification, deontic modals, and institution authority references) to assert the reality of Pakistan's vulnerability to climate change as an undeniable and documented reality on international platform. However, their rhetorical identities are quite distinct: Khan presents Pakistan as an active environmental leader via government achievement rhetoric and the references to science as his main stake management strategies, whereas Sharif presents Pakistan as a morally authoritative climate victim through presuppositional architecture and procedural authority references as his main stake management strategies. The study concludes that the divergent facticity orientations emerge as two authentic political ideologies and rhetorical contexts and that both leaders' rhetorical construction of environmental conviction have helped in the process of Pakistan's rising engagement in international climate justice discourse. The results help to advance the field of ecolinguistic research by extending Stibbe's (2021) facticity taxonomy to the political environmental discourses in South Asia while illustrating the fruitful synergy of ecolinguistics and discursive psychology as complementary analytical methods.