Journal of Language and Politics - Current Issue

Abstract

This paper offers an account of the co-constitutive interaction between spatial and discursive dynamics in present-day politics. I focus on Podemos, a recently established party in Spain that was able to secure 20% of votes in the 2016 general election. Building on critical geography’s political understanding of space, together with cultural and discourse studies’ insights on place representation, formulation, and embodiment, I examine Podemos’ parliamentary performances, as well as their different moral evaluations by opposing parties. Throughout my analysis, I show, first, that the transgressive nature of certain acts is intrinsically linked to the particular spatial relations enforced in institutional contexts, and second, how, in their discursive struggles over common sense, different actors consistently mobilize space as a moralizing agent. The different strategies adopted reveal a tension between dominant and emergent ways of ‘doing politics’ that parallels competing visions of the relationship, in contemporary Spain, between civic and institutional spaces.

Abstract

This study investigates the ideological composition of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign on Instagram, a popular but little researched platform, and attempts to situate it within his broader campaign. To account for the multimodality of Instagram posts, an analytical framework combining methods of the discourse-historical approach and visual grammar is proposed. 330 posts were subjected to a semantic analysis, resulting in a network of discourse topics which defined the Instagram campaign. Trump’s Instagram posts, in contrast to his tweets, are shown to be mostly positive, refraining from nativist attacks on minorities and limiting personal attacks on Hillary Clinton. Trump methodically constructed the positive, populist ‘Man of the People’ image, although in-depth analysis of selected posts reveals his populism to be only superficially inclusive. These findings prompt a reflection on the existence of an internal cordon sanitaire in social media campaigns, a possibly detrimental phenomenon for right-wing populists.

Abstract

Brexit, i.e. the withdrawal of the uk from the eu, is an event, which, regardless of its course and destination, has had a lasting impact on international politics. This paper offers a cognitive linguistic perspective on Brexit and investigates its conceptual metaphorizations on the first days after the uk referendum. The paper compares data from uk and non-uk eu media. The perspective adopted is that of Socio-Cognitive Studies in combination with quantitative analysis. The findings suggest there are significant differences between uk source domains and continental eu ones, e.g. overall metaphor use throughout the period is more pronounced in the uk sub-dataset; in the uk sub-dataset, divorce metaphorizations characterize either a ‘break-up’ between ‘two Britains’ or an uk-eu ‘break-up’; journey, disaster and war are more frequently used in the uk, while mechanical failure is more prominent in the continental sub-dataset. Overall, a preference for inanimate source domains characterizes both sub-datasets.

Abstract

Conflicts and their discursive representations involve, apart from the spacio-temporal dimension, also the socio-ideological and axiological positions. These prompt the desired emotional response from the audience in a form of authorization for the intended action. All these dimensions are mainly construed by presenting series of assertions by creating the dichotomy self-other and by triggering implicatures that contribute to the preferred interpretations of the presented representations. This paper aims to examine the role of quotes and historical analogies triggered by quotes in discourse, concretely, it focuses on the way the Ukrainian conflict is proximized in the US and the Czech political discourse, namely in the parliamentary debates and governmental statements (November 2013–December 2014). The theoretical framework applied is the proximization approach (Cap 2008, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017) which is complemented by the studies that explore the pragmatic functions of quoting in discourse.

Abstract

This paper draws on Pratt’s (2009) description of the key linguistic operations in war-making: exhortation, offense, deception and mediation. The study postulates that ISIS enacts the four operations in the radicalization of Muslims in Arabic and Western countries. Using FrameNet, the four concepts are mapped to four frames: Attempt_suasion, Cause_emotion, Intentional_deception and Translating. Frame-based analysis of a comparable corpus representing bilingual publications of ISIS is carried out to explore these operations. Corpus tools complemented the analysis with detecting contrastive rhetorical tactics and chronological changes ISIS imposes to radicalize followers. Findings highlight the destructive effect of transliterated words in the English corpus and refer to the significance of exhortation in the studied Arabic corpus.

Abstract

This article investigates the image portrayed of Islam and Muslims in official speeches of the former US President, Barack Obama during his two terms in office. Applying qualitative data coding procedures and based on a Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) approach, we examine 377 speeches delivered in the period of 2009–2016 within the macro context of US involvements in contemporary international politics to uncover the discursive image of Islam and Islamic attributes projected and subtly reproduced over time by Obama during his presidency. The outcome comprises four major themes shaped around the notions of America’s fundamental values; Dialogue with Muslim communities; Defining good Islam; and Defining bad Muslims. Through a detailed discussion of the discursive construction of these themes and specifically referring to their lexical highlights, we illustrate aspects of Islam-related issues in the view of an American president.

This article reviews Language and citizenship: Broadening the agenda978-9-027-24279-2£85

This article reviews The Language of Brexit978-1-3500-4796-9£55£17.99

This article reviews Political Metaphor Analysis Discourse and Scenarios9781441198174$148.00

This article reviews Talking with the President: The Pragmatics of Presidential Language978-0-19-985879-8$35

This article reviews Popular Music and Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis. Ideology, Control and Resistance in Turkey Since 2002978-1-3500-1644-6978-1-3500-1645-3978-1-3500-1646-0

This article reviews Representing the Other in European Media Discourses9789027206657Euro 99.00

This article reviews Discourses of Ideology and Identity: Social Media and the Iranian Election Protests978-1-138-82558-1$ 242.00