Revealing the ideology underpinning the European Union notion of resilient societies: A multimodal CDA approach

In recent years, the concept of resilience has emerged as a flagship ideal in European Union policy discourse, especially in the context of environmental and social sustainability. Drawing on Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), this article examines how resilience is constructed in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) of EU member states (2021, 2023). We argue that resilience appears as highly positive term, yet has shifting meanings enablining it to both unify disparate policy objectives and at the same time conceal structural tensions between economic growth, climate action, and social equity. Through a dual-layered analysis—of both the technologization of language and its semiotic framing—we show how resilience is discursively shaped through standardized bullet lists, color-coded graphics, and abstract noun phrases that depoliticize and decontextualize environmental governance. This study foregrounds how EU policy discourse enacts and legitimizes neoliberal forms of sustainability governance.