Chapter 2. Personal conviction against general knowledge

Abstract

This study analyses the functions of I know and we know in online discussions of climate change. These phrases locate the writer through the first-person pronouns and indicate epistemic certainty through the private verb know. The constructions are analysed in a corpus of climate change-related posts on the social media sites Twitter (currently X) and Reddit. As the writers discuss and argue for or against climate change being an environmental threat, I know and we know mark the writer’s subjective evaluation and how they position themselves with a like-minded audience: I know has interpersonal functions and we know is used to emphasise certainty by attributing knowledge to a larger epistemic community. This construction of knowledge situates the writer in the broader ideological climate debate.