A linguistic interpretation of Welford's hijack hypothesis

This paper makes a linguistic reinterpretation of Welford's 1997 hijack hypothesis, arguing that the hijack of the discourse of the radical environment is simply a process of appropriation, i.e., the adoption of particular words in order to make use of them within the green corporations' own frames of experience. Results are presented from an empirical study using two large ‘databases’ of language. These are electronic collections of texts taken from British environmental organizations – the radical non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) , and UK corporations that wish to be environmentally friendly – green business . The results show that there are very marked differences in the physical contextualization of a selection of words which are used by both the radical NGOs and green business. The paper concludes by noting the need to take the analysis a stage further by comparing the usage of particular words by the two discourse communities.