
Speaking of Europe : Approaches to Complexity in European Political Discourse.
Title:
Speaking of Europe : Approaches to Complexity in European Political Discourse.
Author:
Fløttum, Kjersti.
ISBN:
9789027272034
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (199 pages)
Series:
Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture ; v.49
Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture
Contents:
Speaking of Europe -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Table of contents -- Acknowledgements -- Speaking of and within the EU - Introduction -- 1. Acknowledging the complexities of EU discourse -- 2. Aims -- 3. Empirical support -- 4. The Eurling Group -- 5. The three levels of complexity -- 5.1 Historical-political contextual complexities -- 5.2 Situational and rhetorical complexity -- 5.3 Linguistic-textual complexities (language use) -- 6. Sources of inspiration -- 7. The structure of the book -- References -- Speaking to Europe -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Speech making in our time: From delimited rhetorical situation to complex situationality -- 3. Textual-contextual analysis of Prime Minister Blair's speech -- 3.1 The dramatism of Kenneth Burke -- 3.2 The Prime Minister's dramatisation of Europe -- 4. The press coverage of Prime Minister Blair's speech -- 4.1 The British, German and French Press Coverage -- 4.2 The Danish and Norwegian Reception -- 4.3 Headlines and comments, descriptions and adjectives characterising the speaker and speech -- 4.4 Characterisation of the rhetorical situation and direct quotes -- 5. Political rhetoric in a complex, fragmented, and mediated world -- References -- Doing politics or doing media? A linguistic approach to European parliamentary debate -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Background -- 2.1 Parliamentary discourse -- 2.2 European political discourse and the media -- 2.3 The European Parliament's website: Europarl -- 3. Definitions-mediated, mediatised, or simply online? -- 4. Main data -- 5. In the eye of the beholder - method -- 6. Results -- 6.1 Internet audience as addressee -- 6.2 Topicalisation of the media event -- 6.3 Abbreviations -- 7. French specific or general phenomenon -- 8. Discussion -- 9. Concluding remarks -- References -- Quantitative approaches to political discourse.
1. Political corpora: Multidisciplinary perspectives -- 1.1 Digital corpora: A revolution in Discourse Analysis, Linguistic Studies, Corpus Linguistics, Political Discourse -- 1.2 Corpora as artefacts -- 2. Tools and paths to explore Europe -- 2.1 Text statistics -- 2.2 Corpus linguistics -- 3. Conclusion -- References -- On what is not said and who said it -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Argumentative connectives -- 2.1 Models of argumentative connectives -- 2.2 Linguistic polyphony / ScaPoLine -- 2.3 The ScaPoLine model of argumentative connectives -- 3. Argumentative connectives in political discourse -- 3.1 The contrastive connective mais -- 3.2 The conclusive connective donc -- 3.3 The causal connective parce que -- 4. Final remarks -- References -- Voices and identities -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Theoretical and methodological approach: A modular analysis of polyphony -- 2.1 The praxematical theory of dialogism -- 2.2 The notion of discursive polyphony -- 2.3 The Geneva model of discourse analysis -- 3. Analysis: Tony Blair and Nicolas Sarkozy at the European Parliament -- 3.1 Analysing linguistic markers of polyphony -- 3.1.1 The linguistic polyphony of Blair's speech -- 3.1.2 The linguistic polyphony of Sarkozy's speech -- 3.2 Analysis of discursive polyphony -- 3.2.1 The discursive polyphony of Blair's speech -- 3.2.2 The discursive polyphony of Sarkozy's speech -- 4. Concluding remarks -- References -- The heart of Europe -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The heart-of-Europe metaphor in British public discourse, 1991-2010 -- 3. The heartbeat of a metaphor "of long duration" -- 4. Implications for Cognitive Metaphor Research -- References -- Images and roles of the European Union in the climate change debate -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Theoretical framework, corpus and method of analysis -- 2.1 Theoretical framework: The conceptual metaphor theory.
2.2 Method of analysis -- 2.3 The corpus -- 3. Roles of the European Union in the climate change debate -- 3.1 Getting partners on board and showing the way -- 3.2 Negotiation of a climate change agreement -- 3.3 Implementation of an ambitious and binding agreement -- 4. The EU, a united institution? -- 5. Is the EU a leader in climate change negotiations? -- 5.1 The EU is leading the race -- 5.2 The other superpowers are players -- 6. Conclusion -- References -- Websites -- Risky Readings -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Too much, too wild: Two analytical sins in discourse analysis -- 2.1 The overinterpretation -- 2.2 The speculation -- 3. Over and beyond: A call for overinterpretations and speculations in studies of political discourse -- 3.1 More than moderate: Why "over" is a good place to be -- 3.2 Risks and revenues: Why speculating is a good thing to do -- 3.3 Breaking the rules in political discourse analysis -- 4. The interpretation of silence in political discourse -- 5. Concluding remarks: Distorted sound, radicalism and the politization of political discourse analysis -- References -- Index.
Abstract:
In this chapter we take issue with the widespread view that overinterpretations and speculations are signs of weak research and tendentious treatment of data. This view is damaging to the study of political discourse as it encourages the reproduction of common sense and normalcy. In this chapter we therefore argue for the necessity of speculative readings and overinterpretations in studies of political discourse. Extreme and speculative readings of political language - readings that do too much to the data and that read too much into the texts - are crucial for the fine-grained analysis of the intricate ways in which soft power is exercised through discourse. Overinterpretations and speculations are, we suggest, essential for the political analysis of political discourse.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
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