Journal of Language and Politics - Volume 23, Issue 6, 2024

Abstract

Roma communities remain Europe’s most marginalized and disadvantaged population, facing increasing discrimination, especially after the 2015 refugee crisis. European media often portrays them as criminals or anti-social, furthering misunderstanding and social exclusion. This article examines Swedish news media’s representation of Roma, which, at a surface level, appears much less negative. Using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, we analyze two Swedish newspapers’ coverage of the controversial law which sought to criminalize begging, which targeted Eastern European Roma migrants. Our findings reveal that ‘Swedish exceptionalism’–a discourse of human rights, equality, colorblindness, characterized by limited racial literacy–serves to obscure and act as a disclaimer for anti-Roma sentiment and government actions which in fact resemble those criticized in other EU countries.

Abstract

This article comparatively analyses the rise of anti-LGBT rhetoric in Indonesia and Turkey in the 2010s and early 2020s. In both countries, periods of greater public visibility of LGBTQ+ people in the early 2000s were followed by waves of severe anti-LGBT rhetoric, violence, and legal measures. This analysis focusses on the rhetoric that conservative state and non-state actors use to other non-heteronormative people and to exclude them from the nation or “the people”. My main argument is that state and non-state actors conduct othering of LGBTQ+ people and construct them as dangerous threats to the nation and to the structure of the family. The anti-LGBT narratives are integrated into larger conspiracy narratives of foreign powers undermining the nation.

Abstract

This article discusses the problem of evaluating socio-political interventions in language at the case of Croatian. From a theoretical point of view, definitions of such interventions, often called purism, are first analyzed and placed in the context of the ‘one standard axiom’ thesis. To determine why only some historical periods of intervention are labeled as purist, a brief comparative overview is provided of conflicting perspectives on interventions in the Croatian language made between 1918 and 1990. The author argues that partial historical analyses will always find that a particular regime pursued a policy of purism. Moreover, proponents of the Yugoslav period as normal adhere to the thesis of the existence of the ‘One Standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian Axiom,’ while their counterparts argue for the distinctiveness of the Croatian language from related South Slavic languages.

Abstract

This article addresses the narrative and discursive structures underlying popular Peruvian political phrases disseminated through social media, word-of-mouth communication and mainstream media between 2016 and 2022. One goal is to reveal how these constructions suggest patterns of interaction and societal weaknesses. Another goal is to propose a qualitative approach using a narrative semiotics perspective to analyze the structure of these types of objects of study. Four relevant interconnected structures were distinguished: (1) structures of generalized and (2) compartmentalized distrust and (3) structures of vertical and (4) horizontal shame. They all serve to understand how the generalization of distrust and the rise of horizontal shaming in Peru expose the incoherence between a publicized democratic image and a reality characterized by deep social fractures.

Abstract

“One country, two systems” (OCTS) is the constitutional principle that established Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy after the city’s handover from Britain to China in 1997. This study conducts the first systemic, diachronic analysis of the discursive construction of OCTS in Chinese news media, focusing on Beijing’s mouthpiece and public diplomacy newspaper, China Daily. After reviewing the tripartite representation of the principle in the literature, we identify a refocus from the economic to the legal-political aspect of OCTS and an increasing emphasis on the socio-cultural dimension of OCTS in China Daily’s news discourses from 1997 to 2020. These patterns indicated OCTS’s changing status from a ‘legitimating ideology’ to a political principle struggling to be ‘legitimate’ in Beijing’s political discourses. Despite disputes about OCTS, we anticipate that Beijing and Hong Kong’s opposition will continue to abide by this principle in their future interactions.

Abstract

The field of the linguistic landscape has been examined as an arena of negotiation, struggle, and contestation, where individuals and communities play roles in the symbolic construction of the public sphere. Transitory linguistic landscapes show the power struggle between different communities or how individuals claim their rights in the public sphere. Specifically, political demonstrations can influence public opinion and change policies and law. The mass protest analyzed in the present study aimed to inform public opinion about a public healthcare problem and to push the regional government to take action to resolve the issue. Following the frameworks of geosemiotics, interpellation, and dialogism, the focus of the present study is to examine qualitatively how the political and social action of a mass demonstration is mediated and created through multimodal resources.

Abstract

Drawing from televised COVID-19 press briefings, this study explicates how the interplay between verbal and visual resources help policy makers restore public trust following organization-level failures by neutralizing unfavorable discourses that threaten the public’s perceptions of their competence, integrity and benevolence and by emphasizing positive aspects associated with these factors. The findings reveal that these mediated multimodal speeches not only prioritize the political interests of the government by apportioning blame for the surveillance failures, while aggrandizing their ad hoc responses without addressing the causes. This trust repair practice serves to frame the pandemic – initially as an external biosecurity threat and subsequently as a natural and expectable characteristic of an infectious disease that can be handled – hinging largely on the creation of “us-them,” which undermines equitable public health objectives and transmission mitigation in the long run.

This article reviews Social movement discourse: An introduction978103259624297810325962359781003455486

This article reviews Voices of Supporters: Populist Parties, Social Media and the 2019 European Elections978-90-272-1388-4

This article reviews Research Handbook on Populism978 1 80037 968 8