Journal of Language and Politics - Volume 24, Issue 2, 2025

Abstract

Do Democrats and Republicans appeal to different sets of moral foundations in their national convention speeches? Do they make efforts to frame their messages so that it is attractive to their base and moderate voters? This study examines the moral appeals that political elites use to communicate to their supporters. I analyze speeches starting from the 2008 to the 2020 Republican and Democrat National Conventions to see if there are differences in appeals to Harm, Fairness, Ingroup, Authority and Purity, which are tenets of the Moral Foundations Theory. I find that Republicans are more likely to appeal to Authority, and in 2020, Purity, while Democrats appeal mostly to Harm. Using qualitative content analyses, we see that both parties apply the moral language favored by the other side in their convention speeches on top of making appeals to moral foundations that are favored by their own base.

Abstract

The term dogwhistle refers to an expression conveying a message to a subset of an audience which is not perceived by the rest of the group, in addition to a primary meaning directed at the group at large. We follow up on previous work in linguistics and political communication on defining dogwhistles, taking into account how they likely function in real-life political contexts. We consider the utility of dogwhistles in terms of their sensitivity and their specificity, which allows us to consider dogwhistles in terms of an idealized “life cycle”, whose phases we describe in terms of a multi-dimensional utility tradeoff, described in terms of dogwhistle users, the benefit they expect to receive from dogwhistling, and the deniability of controversial dogwhistle meanings. We propose an approach for the longitudinal study of dogwhistles, and describe the first stages of an experiment to characterize dogwhistles in terms of their lexical properties.

Abstract

What explains the convergence and divergence of states’ interests related to global human rights? This study examines the dyadic similarity of the language used in the multilateral dialogue focusing on the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). The joint activities of NGOs influence states, and human rights norms are transmitted through IGOs. Using text analysis methods, the similarity between state recommendations during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is systematically quantified. Analyses suggest that a pair of states are more likely to use similar language in UPR recommendations as the number of joint activities of NGOs, shared memberships in IGOs, and shared experience in the UNHRC increases. The effects are robust even after controlling for different types of political relationships between states.

Abstract

This article explores the ideological controversies around Spanish liberalism through the story of the Citizens party – from its rise in 2006 through 2023, after a sequence of electoral defeats that almost certified its demise. Born as a regional party in Catalonia with an anti-nationalist platform focused on linguistic policies, in national politics it fostered a liberal agenda. The article examines Citizens’ politics of language hiding the party’s liberal identity because of its association to right-wing outlooks. At its founding documents there was an amalgam of liberal and social democratic constitutional values inspiring the party’s political approach. No earnest question was made of their difficult accommodation, given their disparity at the policy level. In 2017 an internal debate arouse, and from 2019 a number of electoral setbacks accelerated it. By then the liberal language legitimizing its passage from regional into a national party had lost its civic appeal.

Abstract

This study provides an account of how the representation of China has changed diachronically in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the leading liberal English-language broadsheet in Hong Kong, since the sovereignty transfer in 1997. Adopting a corpus-based approach to critical discourse studies, we analyse two corpora of news reports about China in the newspaper, one for 1997–2000 and the other one for 2015–2018. It is found that the representation of China has changed from very negative representations focusing on human right problems in the first period to largely positive representations centring upon China’s global and economic power in the second period. The changes may suggest that the SCMP has to a certain extent shifted its positioning of China from “them” to “us”, though an ambivalent stance is observed. The ambivalence is discussed in relation to the economic convergence and political divergence between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.

Abstract

This paper analyses unauthorised turns – namely, interruptions – in parliamentary debates, by focusing on their lesser-studied interactional characteristics, that is, reactions. Drawing upon cross-cultural pragmatics, we compare reactions in Finnish (Eduskunta of Finland), French (Assemblée nationale of France) and German (Bundestag of Germany) parliamentary debates. In doing so, we applied conversation analysis in the sequential analysis of reactions to interruptions while considering restrictions related to written transcriptions. While most interruptions passed without reaction in all three languages, the reactions came from different sources: from unauthorised speakers in French, from authorised speakers in German and from both in Finnish. Our study demonstrates that interruptions serve as resources for micro-interactions within official speaking turns in parliamentary debates, revealing cross-cultural differences in speech styles.

Abstract

This study examines several Nigerians’ resistance to the two major political parties and their presidential candidates using positive discourse analysis. Additionally, the study critically investigates Nigerians’ support for the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) during the build-up to the 2023 Nigeria’s general elections. Data for the study comprise 1000 tweets with the hashtags #Obidients, #Atikulated, #Tinubu and tweets that mentioned Peter Obi, Atiku, Atikulated, Jagaban, Tinubu, Emilokan, PDP, APC and LP between June and October 2022. The analysis reveals that tweeps construct resistance via three discursive strategies: critiquing and resisting the APC and PDP, portraying Peter Obi of the Labour Party as a political saviour, and positioning Nigerians as politically wiser. This study provides a fresh perspective on analysing Nigeria’s electoral rhetoric by identifying social media as sites for atypical resistance, social change, and revolution.

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