Participation in the Being SEA-EU Conference 2026 in Gdańsk

Prof. Anne-Marie Bezzina Busuttil, Associate Professor in French Linguistics in the Department of French within the UM’s Faculty of Arts, recently participated in the third edition of the Being SEA-EU Conference, held at the University of Gdańsk from 15 to 17 September 2026. The conference brought together researchers from the nine universities forming the SEA-EU Alliance and provided a forum for presenting research, exchanging expertise and developing new avenues for international collaboration. The 2026 edition focused particularly on the Alliance's research potential, sustainability and European goals, educational innovation, institutional transformation and the future development of SEA-EU.

Prof. Bezzina Busuttil presented her ongoing research project, “Voices of the Climate: (De-)Humanisation, Animalisation and the Politics of Nature in Maltese and French Online Discourse”, which forms part of a SEA-EU-funded research collaboration with Prof. Liana Ermakova of the University of Western Brittany (UBO), Brest. The study investigates how environmental and climate-related issues are discussed by readers in online newspaper comment sections in Malta and France, with particular attention to the linguistic choices through which commenters construct relationships between humans, animals and the natural environment.

A central orientation of the research is the analysis of metaphor and its potential discursive impact. Rather than treating metaphor merely as a stylistic device, the project examines how metaphorical expressions can frame environmental issues, attribute agency and responsibility, and reveal underlying assumptions about the relationship between human beings and the more-than-human world. Particular attention is being given to animalisation, anthropomorphisation and infra-/de-humanisation.

Animalisation may attribute animal characteristics to human beings or use animals as conceptual reference points, while anthropomorphisation attributes human qualities, intentions or emotions to non-human entities. Infra- or de-humanising expressions, meanwhile, can position particular human groups below an implicitly human normative standard.

The analysis considers what these linguistic choices may reveal about lay beliefs and conceptualisations of nature. Metaphors can, for example, construct animals as subjects with agency and interests, as objects of human management, or as threats to human interests. Similarly, references to nature may frame it as something autonomous and deserving of protection, or as a resource to be controlled, developed or economically exploited. These patterns therefore provide a way of investigating how environmental values, assumptions and conflicts are expressed in everyday online discourse.

The comparative dimension of the research has identified differences in tone, thematic emphasis and discourse patterns between the Maltese and French datasets. The Maltese comments tend to contain a more direct and sometimes confrontational style, with environmental questions frequently intersecting with local political, economic and development-related concerns. The French corpus displays more frequent personifying formulations, with commenters engaging more deeply with ecological concepts.
These findings are preliminary and relate to the specific online corpora analysed; they should therefore not be interpreted as representative of Maltese or French society as a whole. Rather, the comparison demonstrates how online newspaper comments constitute a valuable source for examining spontaneous lay discourse, particularly the linguistic strategies through which environmental controversies are negotiated.

Participation in Being SEA-EU 2026 provided an opportunity to discuss the project with researchers from different disciplinary and national backgrounds and to explore possibilities for further collaboration within the SEA-EU network. The conference featured presentations addressing areas including climate and coastal research, digital education, green finance and the blue economy. The presentation thus contributed to the conference's broader objective of strengthening collaboration across the SEA-EU Alliance.