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Volume 21, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1569-2159
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Abstract

Abstract

This article illuminates the far-right populist Alternative for Germany's (AfD) performances of delegitmisation vis-à-vis EUrope and legitmisation of itself/the nation by articulating two paradigmatic, transnational crises: climate change and COVID-19. It asks: ‘how does the far-right AfD perform these two crises to legitimise itself and delegitimize others?’ and ‘what similarities/differences exist between the performance of these two crises in terms of topics, narrative (genres) and their linguistic realisations?’. To explore AfD’s de/legitimisation efforts, written texts and videos by AfD representatives through which they intervene in discourses about climate change in 2019 and COVID-19 in 2020 are analysed. The analysis identifies a two-dimensional process of narrative delegitimization, vilifying national and backgrounding EUropean ‘others’, and illustrates that a comic-romantic emplotment of ethno-national rebirth pre-configures the largely same topics and . In so doing, the article, furthermore, takes another step towards the conceptual integration of narrative (genre) into the Discourse-Historical Approach in Critical Discourse Studies.

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2022-01-26
2025-03-22

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/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.21064.for
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De/legitimising EUrope through the performance of crises
Journal of Language and Politics 21, 208 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21064.for
/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.21064.for
/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.21064.for
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): climate change; COVID-19; Critical Discourse Analysis; Critical Discourse Studies; European Union; far right; global warming; narrative; nationalism; radical right

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