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Full-Text Articles in Meteorology
“It’S Hard To Get Your Head Around Something Like This”: Figurative And Intense Language For Sensegiving During Severe Weather Coverage, Robert W. Prestley
“It’S Hard To Get Your Head Around Something Like This”: Figurative And Intense Language For Sensegiving During Severe Weather Coverage, Robert W. Prestley
Theses and Dissertations--Communication
During high-impact weather events like Hurricane Harvey, broadcast meteorologists take on the role of sensegiver, as they develop frameworks to help their viewers make sense of the storm. These frameworks are communicated through rhetorical choices evident in the language the meteorologists use to describe the storm’s threat and impact. This study investigates the rhetorical choices of KHOU broadcast meteorologists during Hurricane Harvey in order to make sense of the disaster, using an inductive thematic analysis. The results indicate that the KHOU broadcasters framed Harvey figuratively as an all-encompassing monster and a heat-seeking machine. The meteorologists used emotionally intense language to …