Contrastive Ideology Research: Aspects of a Pragmatic Methodology

This article investigates some methodological problems involved in a discourse-centered exploration of societal ideologies, and in particular in an ongoing research program studying publicly accessible discourse in a number of European countries related to interethnic conflicts, the construction of ethnic or national identities, and nation-building processes. The proposal is made that a pragmatic concept of contrastiveness should be handled which captures forms of variability that are not only to be found between languages, but also within a single language, within one language variety, within one text, and even in one single sentence.