Journal of Language and Politics - Volume 22, Issue 2, 2023

Abstract

The relationship between time and politics is complex and multilayered, especially in issues such as global warming. This facilitates political playing with and about time; political actors use and frame time in various ways. Drawing upon the work of Reinhart Koselleck, this article examines temporal statements about the environment and the climate in Swedish election campaigns 1988 to 2018 and shows how political rhetoric has been constituted by several competing modalities of time. However, these modalities can become problematic for political thinking about the future. To resolve the climate crisis, we need a politics that acknowledges both historical and political contingency. Engaging with the past, without seeking to extrapolate a unified narrative of historical progress, explores the past from various perspectives and shows how the present is contingent. This could enable a renegotiation of possible futures and a politics for the future that facilitates both understanding and action.

Abstract

The notion of shameless normalization is applied in the paper to argue that the Serbian ruling party’s press releases introduce shameless normalization of expressing sycophancy toward the leader. Within the framework of critical (political) discourse analysis postulating that social actors’ use of language is vested with interests that need to be linguistically managed, the paper focuses on how the proposed strategies in political discourse – coercion, legitimisation and (mis)representation – manage the interest of the authors of press releases in realization of sycophancy. The analysis shows that the shameless normalization of sycophancy is realized by coercing the recipients to accept the exclusive right of the leader to represent the homogenized people of Serbia (the ingroup). This exclusive right is legitimized through positive representation of the leader as the self of the ingroup. Such legitimisation is enabled by misrepresentation both in terms of quality and quantity of the information conveyed.

Abstract

Using Systemic Functional Grammar and conceptual framework in the argumentation-oriented approach to discourse, this study analyzes Chinese central government’s “ Report on the Work of the Government” in 2020 (henceforth the Report) to explore the “interpersonal-function topoi” in the political discourse. The Report was delivered and issued against the backdrop of the surging covid-19 epidemic. This study first calculated the frequency of mood, modality and persons in the Report. The statistics were qualitatively analyzed in relation to various topoi-imagery of the crisis vis-à-vis representing the agency-reflected in the interpersonal metafunction of the language in the Report. These topoi play a vital role in winning popular support for the Chinese central government’s anti-epidemic measures and mobilizing the widest public into actions against the covid-19 pandemic. The analysis demonstrates how the analysis of interpersonal metafunction from an argumentation-oriented perspective can shed light on dealing with crisis discourse, especially in the pandemic settings.

Abstract

Online activism can be expressed through many forms. While advocates claim that it is a fully-fledged form of activism, opponents state that it is no more than vain ‘slacktivism’. Against this background, this work analyses the ‘#ChallengeAccepted’ movement, which went ‘viral’ in July 2020 to raise awareness about femi(ni)cides in Turkey, in the aftermath of the murder of the female student Pinar Gültekin. Focusing on the use of the hashtag via Twitter, the work embraces the perspective of online activism as a “continuum of participation”, composed of several levels. The results show how hashtag activism has worked as a means of knowledge dissemination and action, and that also slacktivism has contributed to the cause, thanks to the “oxygen of amplification” effect, which made users inform and get informed, refocus the campaign towards its original purpose when it digressed, and distribute its message.

Abstract

Discourse-focused analyses of political communication show a complex interplay between narration and argumentation. Yet, current analytical tools fall short of accounting for the multifarious ways in which narratives perform as arguments. This paper adopts the notion narrative argument, developed in argumentation theory, to examine the ways the ‘hero-protector’ narrative serves as argument. The paper analyzes four speeches given by Donald Trump and Joe Biden, whereby the use of force on foreign grounds is justified via the ‘hero-protector’ narrative. The analytical framework combines the argumentation strategies of the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) with pragma-dialectics’ argumentation schemes. The analysis shows that each narrative sequence constituting the ‘hero-protector’ narrative constructs specific argument schemes, and the logical connections between these sequences link arguments in chains to collectively justify the rightness of claims. The paper, thus, seeks to illustrate the possibility of conceptualizing narrative discourse as an effective way to argue for or against a claim.

Abstract

This article has two main objectives. One, to advance methodological development in both discourse theory and media and communications research by proposing an eclectic, replicable methodology. Two, to demonstrate how to apply that methodology to furnish both ontic and ontological explanations for the contingent origins of a discourse using the editorials of the Pakistani newspaper The Nation on the Pakistan Steel Mills privatization case as a case study. An earlier study had identified the surprising conclusion that this traditionally conservative paper had from the outset fully endorsed the radical opposition to the government’s suspension of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan which led to an uprising known as the Lawyers’ Movement. This article locates the origins of that shift in the newspaper’s reaction to the Pakistan Steel Mills privatization issue. The article has implications for the fields of discourse theory, media and communication studies, and political science.

This article reviews Discursive Approaches to Sociopolitical Polarization and Conflict978-0-367-52925-3

This article reviews Discourse and Conflict: Analysing Text and Talk of Conflict, Hate and Peace-building978-3-030-76484-5€ 139.99

This article reviews Metonymies and Metaphors for Death Around the World978-1-00-318376-1

This article reviews The Language of Political Incorporation: Chinese Migrants in Europe9781439920121$ 110.5