GREEN BEYOND THE GLOSS: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF AI- MEDIATED ETHICAL RETAILING AND GREEN MARKETING FOR ECO-CONSCIOUS CONSUMERS

Siame Pethias

doi:10.60078/2026-vol5-iss3-pp448-458

Mualliflar

Siame Pethias

Kwame Nkrumah University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60078/2026-vol5-iss3-pp448-458

Annotasiya

This article analyzes the linguistic and discursive strategies used in AI- mediated green marketing and ethical retailing communications, examining how they construct and persuade eco-conscious consumers. The analysis is grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Persuasion Theory, employing a mixed-methods approach of corpus linguistics to analyze large datasets of digital advertising copy, product descriptions, and chatbot interactions, combined with multimodal analysis of branding materials. The research identifies a prevalent use of "green" and "ethical" lexical clusters that are often semantically vague, leading to potential greenwashing. AI-generated consumer-facing texts frequently employ persuasive frames of "empowerment," "transparency," and "collective action," but lack substantive, verifiable detail. A key finding is the dissonance between the personalized, empathetic tone crafted by AI for marketing and the standardized, technical language used in backend sustainability reports, which can erode consumer trust. The study recommends that retailers implement AI ethics guidelines for communicative transparency, mandating clear, substantiated definitions for sustainability claims. Furthermore, developing consumer literacy tools that critically decode marketing language can empower informed choices. Ethical retailing must align AI's persuasive language with verifiable, circular economy practices.

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