Journal of Language and Politics - Volume 8, Issue 3, 2009

This paper explores how speakers manage the dilemmatic tension between competing demands for accountability in mundane explanations of humanitarian assistance in settings of armed conflict. Taking as analytic data talk recorded in interviews with the personnel of aid agencies and various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who work in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), we examine how demands for both non-partisan impartiality, on the one hand, and sympathetic alignment with the victims (or losing parties) of armed conflict, on the other, feature in the explanations that humanitarian aid workers formulate to account for their professional activities. While non-partisanship features as a source of legitimacy given that humanitarian assistance is regarded as a response to universal human suffering, the source of that suffering in armed conflict necessitates recognition of the antagonist-protagonist and victim relationship in order for aid recipients to be identified. Everyday accounts of aid work function to mitigate the otherwise mutually exclusive relationship between competing assumptions that inform the logic of humanitarian assistance.

The present paper aims, first, at analysing how and why parliamentary debates are transformed into newspaper articles with a narrative-like format; and, second, at proposing a model for integrating this kind of material and analysis into a literacy-based language teaching programme. Our data consists of Greek parliamentary proceedings and newspaper articles on parliamentary debates. Based on the critical discourse analysis framework and the social constructionist paradigm, we support the claim that the linguistic construction of social events in the press aims at creating and/or maintaining a bond between the newspapers and the readers sharing the same political and ideological standpoints. In this context, we suggest that getting familiar with the linguistic resources and discourse practices used in parliamentary and media discourse is crucial for developing a critical awareness of these genres. Finally, specific tasks are proposed aiming at reinforcing students’ critical awareness of newspaper articles on parliamentary debates.

Presidential press conference is an enduring form for public interrogations. Interaction in this context regulates and symbolizes relations of power, autonomy and affiliation between the President and the journalists. A general argument is that we have to study sequences of interaction in order to understand the roles and relations established in press conferences. The article investigates interruptions, and jokes and laughter. The study is based on Conversation Analysis and the data encompasses 19 press conferences held by George W Bush from 2005–2007. The analysis shows how the President uses interruptions in order to control the allocation of turns, disagree and reject criticism, demonstrate certainty and conviction, and makes joke with the journalists. Sequences of jokes and laughter strengthen the interactive power of the President, create affiliations, and questioning the expected neutrality of journalism.

Figurative language is used in all domains of communication, including political discourse. And since figurative language is largely socio-culturally constructed it presents a significant locus for misinterpretation or even manipulation when it collides with the realm of international politics. This paper presents an analysis of several cases of the use of figurative language in Iranian political discourse. For example, it shows how transposing a Persian metaphor onto an English metaphor has led to a conceptual shift. Given the potential risks involved in misconstruing political discourse internationally, the paper concludes by calling for additional systematic comparative studies with respect to other languages.

This paper discusses a document produced in 2006 by church leaders which claimed to present a “vision” of “a way forward” in the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe. We suggest that the document served rather to reinforce the status quo, specifically the hegemony of Mugabe’s government. We argue that, by insisting that the greatest problem in Zimbabwe is “lack of a national vision”, the document promoted consensus, which resonated with Mugabe’s own position. We suggest that four major strategies were used to achieve this: assertion of the primarily spiritual nature of Zimbabwe’s crisis; insistence on the shared responsibility of all Zimbabweans; obfuscation of agency for the crisis and delegitimization of political opposition as a route to change. Finally, we point out that these strategies failed, as the document in its original form was censored before its launch, illustrating the tendency for President Mugabe to give the impression of opening democratic space, only to close it off.

Avian influenza outbreaks in Southeast Asia have focused an intense global spotlight on the entire region, specifically on China’s role in an adequate global health network which would be able to prevent or to contain a severe outbreak of the disease. Highly-publicized and politically-charged battles over samples of the H5N1 virus, transparency, timely case reporting, and China’s contribution to and cooperation with global institutions like the World Health Organization (WHO), have all emphasized the mounting political positioning of public health prevention measures. The language surrounding viral samples of avian influenza highlights the increasingly overlapping worlds of politics and public health. In an age of popularized discourses about national biosecurities, risk, and the growing threat of globalized, contagious disease, bird flu has been recast as a focal point of contention, a figurative space where the stakes are high — both for public health systems and the political structures which support them.