- Home
- e-Journals
- Journal of Language and Politics
- Fast Track Listing
Journal of Language and Politics - Online First
Online First articles are the published Version of Record, made available as soon as they are finalized and formatted. They are in general accessible to current subscribers, until they have been included in an issue, which is accessible to subscribers to the relevant volume
1 - 20 of 27 results
-
-
Discursive (re)construction of populist sovereignism by right-wing hard Eurosceptic parties in the 2019 European parliament elections
Author(s): Monika Brusenbauch Meislova and Steve BuckledeeAvailable online: 05 January 2021More LessAbstractThe overarching aim of the article is to investigate the discourse of populist sovereignism as articulated by the leaders and/or leading candidates of four right-wing hard Eurosceptic populist parties in the following countries during the 2019 elections to the European Parliament: the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. The political parties investigated are Freedom and Direct Democracy, League, People’s Party Our Slovakia and Brexit Party. Using the analytical tools of Critical Discourse Analysis and drawing on the concept of populist sovereignism, the study investigates how right-wing Eurosceptic populist sovereignism was discursively (re)constructed by right-wing hard Eurosceptic parties during the 2019 EP elections across the four cases. As such, the inquiry brings fresh insights as it looks at right-wing populist discourse through the sovereignism perspective, thus complementing the literature on populist mobilization that focuses on grasping the linkage between populism and sovereignism.
-
-
-
Protest graffiti, social movements and changing participation frameworks
Author(s): Hong Zhang and Brian Hok-Shing ChanAvailable online: 21 December 2020More LessAbstractAs a type of written discourse without guaranteed readership and response, protest graffiti nonetheless projects a participation framework in which protesters address different participants, including not only the government but also other potential ‘participants’ in the social/cultural/political context. This paper studies a dataset of graffiti associated with a protest movement in Macao, China. A survey of the longitudinal data reveals that the contents and visual representation of the graffiti have changed to reflect evolving participation frameworks which are in response to different stages of social movements. While graffiti in earlier stages tends to be more accusatory and anti-governmental, graffiti in later stages shows a shift of protesters’ position more in alignment with patriotism and allegiance to authority. Instead of presenting views competing with mainstream political discourse, our data, with their multimodal resources, draw heavily on Chinese cultural discourses which are supposedly shared among the protesters and addressees in this context.
-
-
-
Review of Zappettini (2019): European Identities in Discourse: A Transnational Citizens’ Perspective
Author(s): Katarzyna Molek-KozakowskaAvailable online: 14 December 2020More Less
-
-
-
How is structural inequality made fair in a meritocratic education system?
Author(s): Nadira TalibAvailable online: 04 December 2020More LessAbstractThis paper examines how, within the context of meritocracy, a highly differentiated education system can coexist with assertions of equal opportunity. Drawing on the example of Singapore’s education policy texts from 1991 to 2012, the paper exemplifies and expands the analytical potential of a micro-meso-macro movements framework with which to critically engage the discursive role of neo-liberal metaphors in ameliorating the tension of providing ‘equal opportunities’ between students who will undertake the university pathway and those who will have to undergo vocational training. Based on the interconnected discourses of opportunity-choice and opportunity-skills through a more flexible system, the analytical development of these two simultaneous sub micro-meso-macro movements demonstrates how the playing field is levelled, and competition for society’s occupations and academic progression is fair even for Vocational and Industrial Training Board Act (VITB) trainees.
-
-
-
Review of Pennycook & Makoni (2020): Innovations and challenges in applied linguistics from the Global South
Author(s): Huan Yik LeeAvailable online: 04 December 2020More Less
-
-
-
Review of Fuchs (2020): Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory
Author(s): Marcos Engelken-JorgeAvailable online: 04 December 2020More Less
-
-
-
Narratives of dialogue in parliamentary discourse
Author(s): Naomi TruanAvailable online: 01 December 2020More LessAbstractThis paper puts forward an argument about the relation between narratives and constructed dialogue in political discourse. Narratives of dialogue are special cases of constructed dialogue that emphasize the embeddedness of the speaker, displayed as a discourse participant engaging in a conversation with an ordinary citizen or a public figure. Close analysis of British, German, and French parliamentary debates reveals how narratives of dialogue shape an image of the speaker involved in a dialogue. While being engaged in the activity of debating, parliamentarians simultaneously perform the act of debating. I argue that the main point of narratives of dialogue is not so much to report on a prior or hypothetical situation, but to create the ethos of a Member of Parliament receptive to their interlocutors.
-
-
-
The Twittering Presidents
Author(s): Peter Wignell, Sabine Tan, Kay L. O’Halloran and Kevin ChaiAvailable online: 18 November 2020More LessAbstractThis paper uses a Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) approach to analyse tweets from the Twitter accounts of Presidents Barack Obama (@Barack Obama) and Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump). The tweets were posted during the last nine months of President Obama’s effective presidency and the first nine months of President Trump’s presidency. The tweets are analysed using automated text analysis which is interpreted through an SF-MDA lens, supplemented by manual analysis. The analysis examines ideational and interpersonal emphasis in the tweets with the aim of showing how the composition and content construct a view of how each president and his presidency are presented to the public. The findings suggest marked contrasts in presidential style with President Trump foregrounding the interpersonal while President Obama foregrounds the ideational. Where President Trump presents as self-promoting, autocratic, opinionated and igniting discord in his tweets, President Obama presents as democratic, moderate, restrained and seeking social harmony.
-
-
-
Balancing the ideals of public participation
Author(s): Maria SjögrenAvailable online: 13 November 2020More LessAbstractLocal authorities in western societies increasingly initiate public participation processes despite criticism of these methods. To understand this development calls for in-depth studies of how the goals and values of public participation are articulated in practice. This paper analyzes the discursive legitimation strategies deployed by civil servants in twelve planning meetings for a participatory process aimed at mitigating violence in a Swedish suburb. The study draws on previous research on discursive legitimation, and presents the context-specific strategies of authorization, de-legitimation, cosmology and addressing of values. The analysis highlights that a core discursive tension in this practice arises from its need to seek mandate in the municipal structure, while the value discourses used to legitimize public participation build on a break from traditional bureaucracy. The study contributes to the broader literature on discursive legitimation in contemporary political contexts, with detailed empirical accounts of how a disputed practice is legitimized in interaction.
-
-
-
The Bangkok Blast as a finger-pointing blame game
Author(s): Changpeng Huan, Menghan Deng and Napak-on SritrakarnAvailable online: 13 November 2020More LessAbstractThis article sets out to explore the potential of journalistic attitudinal positioning in dis/aligning readers into different feeling and moral communities in traumatic news event. To do so, it utilises the appraisal framework to examine how the Bangkok Post and the New York Times present and represent ‘attitude’ of different news actors in the coverage of the Bangkok Blast. Analytical findings show that while journalistic attitudinal positioning constitutes a means of political empowerment through bringing in otherwise marginal and silenced voices, it also opens up a space for journalists to evaluate risks and negotiate responsibilities. News reports of the Bangkok Blast eventually construe the Thai society as divided by representing the event as a blame game. The findings also extend the conceptual scope of symbolic codes of victims, villain and hero by resorting to attitudinal resources.
-
-
-
The language of exclusion
Author(s): Louis TalayAvailable online: 10 November 2020More LessAbstractIt has been argued that far-right populist parties (FRPP) distinguish themselves from other parties on the right of the political spectrum through their strong association with nationalism, anti-elitism, authoritarianism and historical mythologizing. These features typically manifest in discourse that attempts to justify exclusionist immigration and asylum policies by presenting Islam as an existential threat to predominantly white societies. This paper seeks to establish whether a conservative party that has never been considered populist could possess the same features as an FRPP by comparing three selected discursive texts – one from mainstream conservative party leader John Howard and two from prominent European FRPP leaders. The analysis revealed that the key difference between the three leaders was Howard’s failure to satisfy the authoritarianism criterion, which was interpreted as a decisive factor in his party’s moderate guise. This suggests that some mainstream parties may be more ideologically extremist than they are perceived to be.
-
-
-
The tabloidization of the Brexit campaign
Author(s): Franco ZappettiniAvailable online: 10 November 2020More LessAbstractConsistent with a populist script, evoking the people has been a nodal point in the discursive unfolding of Brexit and its legitimation. This paper focuses on the mediatization of the Brexit referendum campaign in a corpus of online British tabloids to address the critical question of how the people in whose name Brexit was (de)legitimised were discursively constructed and mobilized. The argument put forward is that the legitimation of Brexit was achieved through exclusionary definitions of the people and through strategies of fear, resentment and empowerment. This discursive framing points to the wider question of the instrumental role that a large section of the British tabloid press has had not simply in the contingency of referendum but also in the longer-term legitimation chain of Brexit and in its institutionalization and more generally in the historical priming of their readership with negative coverage of the UK/EU relationship.
-
-
-
The legitimization of the use of sweat shops by H&M in the Swedish press
Author(s): Vladimir Cotal San Martin and David MachinAvailable online: 10 November 2020More LessAbstractIn the Swedish news-media we find sporadic critical, or reflective, reporting on the production conditions of Swedish ‘sweat-shop’ factories in the Global South, used to supply Transnational Corporations (TNCs). In this paper we carry out a critical discourse analysis, in particular using Van Leeuwen’s social actor and social action analysis, to look at examples from a larger corpus of 88 news reports and editorials from the Swedish press, between 2012–2017, which report and comment on activities of the Swedish company H&M in relation to its production chains. Analysis reveals how these recontextualize events, processes and motives, to represent Sweden and Swedish TNCs as characterized by a benevolent, democratic, humane, form of capitalism, drawing on discourses of a former social democratic Sweden of the 1960s before it became highly neo-liberalized. This nationalism converges with other discourses promoting the exploitation of the Global South.
-
-
-
Working Royals, Megxit and Prince Andrew’s disastrous BBC interview
Author(s): Jagon P. ChichonAvailable online: 10 November 2020More LessAbstractThis research incorporates Corpus Linguistic techniques with the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) to Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) to analyse the discursive representation of the British Monarchy (BM) through the categorisation of its individual members within the Now Corpus from 2010–2020. Analysis concentrated on their categorisation around key events over the ten-year period, most notably the accusations that Prince Andrew had sexual relations with a minor and Prince Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s decision to relinquish their roles within the Monarchy. Significantly, the Royals were positively represented through the affixation of agency and active form to attach them to positive actions, for instance, performing work and charity related duties. Negativity was deemphasised via the removal of agency, passive use and a refocus onto less serious acts which distanced them, particularly the Queen and Prince Andrew, from scandal.
-
-
-
Animals vs. armies
Author(s): Christopher HartAvailable online: 10 November 2020More LessAbstractWithin the emerging paradigm of experimental Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper investigates the framing effects of dehumanising vs militarising metaphors in anti-immigration discourses. These metaphors are characterised as ‘extreme metaphors’ in so far as they are manifestly metaphorical and obviously inflammatory. Attested examples of these metaphors in political and media discourses are identified and critically analysed before their potential framing effects are investigated experimentally.
Contrary to predictions, alternative metaphors did not increase support for actions and evaluations consistent with the unique framings that they present. In fact, extreme metaphors decreased support for anti-immigration sentiments and hostile immigration policies compared to literal framings. It seems that extreme metaphors alert readers to the metaphorical framing being presented so that, among certain groups of people, the framing is more readily scrutinised and rejected, prompting readers adopt more sympathetic attitudes toward immigration. The implications of these findings for Critical Discourse Analysis are discussed.
-
-
-
The Far Right and the Environment: Politics, Discourse and Communication. Edited by Bernhard Forchtner
Author(s): Daniel JonesAvailable online: 10 November 2020More Less
-
-
-
National construction and popular erasure in Colombia
Author(s): Gregory Joseph LoboAvailable online: 02 November 2020More LessAbstractThis article analyses the diachronic symbolic struggle (1810–1991) waged in Colombia’s foundational documents over the legitimation and delegitimation of social relations through the concepts “people” and “nation.” Following the introduction, the method and theory are explained: concept analysis and language-based social ontology. The analysis of the foundational documents follows. These are analysed as extended status function declarations that attempt to legitimate and delegitimate the concepts “people” and “nation”, in order to authorize/deauthorize possible social relations. On the basis of the analysis, the conclusion briefly specifies the discourse of nationism as the ontologisation and wielding of the idea of the nation against internal dissent/opposition, and points up the fundamental importance of symbolic practice in the struggle to change social reality.
-
-
-
Strongman, patronage and fake news
Author(s): Jefferson Lyndon D. RagragioAvailable online: 02 November 2020More LessAbstractHuman rights are essential pillars of democracies. But under populism, they are a proclaimed nemesis of political leaders who claim to represent the common people. This article argues that the discourses of strongman, patronage and fake news constitute three prominent right-wing populist ploys that erode human rights in Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines. It interrogates the communicative power of populism as a means of disfiguring free expression and press freedom. Drawing from human rights and media reports and interviews, the pro-human rights current is reformatted by strongman pronouncement in the war on drugs, unity of long-established blocs of power through patronage, and belligerent charge of fake news.
-
-
-
Šarić Ljiljana, and Mateusz-Milan Stanojević (eds). 2019. Metaphor, Nation and Discourse
Author(s): Aleksandra SalamurovićAvailable online: 23 October 2020More Less
-
-
-
Review of Perrez, Reuchamps & Thibodeau (2019): Variation in political metaphor
Author(s): Michael KranertAvailable online: 05 October 2020More Less
-
Most Read This Month Most Read RSS feed
-
-
Right-wing populism in Europe & USA
Author(s): Ruth Wodak and Michał Krzyżanowski
-
-
-
Radical right-wing parties in Europe
Author(s): Jens Rydgren
-
- More Less