This book presents a new approach to comparative politico-linguistic discourse analysis. It takes a transdisciplinary stance and combines analytical tools from linguistic discourse analysis (keywords, metaphors, argumentation, genre) and political science (political culture, comparative politics, ideologies). It is comprehensive in its introduction of approaches from the German tradition of politico-linguistics. This tradition has not, thus far, been accessible to a non-German speaking readership and hence the volume adds insights into the mechanics of political discourse from a diverse set of viewpoints. The book analyses the modernisation discourses in social democratic parties in Britain and Germany between 1994 and 2003, a project that was named ‘Third Way’. It demonstrates how political language and political culture are related and how politicians will adapt a global ideology to local political circumstances in order to convince the electorate. At the same time, the book presents new insights into the German political culture and the version of Third Way discourses in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) under the leadership of Gerhard Schröder which have played a key role in shaping current political discourse in Germany. It concludes with a model for the study of political discourse which makes the work relevant to scholars in Social Sciences and beyond.

"Even if political actors try to align their political efforts because they think they share a common goal, they will adapt a global ideology to local political circumstances in order to convince the local electorate. Local contexts are reflected in political discourse on the level of genre, lexis, argumentation, and metaphor. In order to understand the relation between the political contexts and political language use, this book presents a new approach to comparative politico-linguistic discourse analysis. The developed methodology stands in the tradition of transdisciplinarity and combines analytical tools from linguistic discourse analysis (catch term analysis, metaphor analysis, argumentation analysis, genre analysis) and political science (political culture, comparative politics, morphology of ideologies, identity of party-political ideologies). It is comprehensive in its introduction of approaches from the German tradition of politico-linguistics that have so far not been accessible to a non-German speaking readership and that add valuable insights into the mechanics of political discourse. Using the example of the modernisation discourses in social democratic parties in Britain and Germany, a project that was named 'Third Way', this study demonstrates how political language and political culture are related. At the same time, it presents new insights into the German political culture and the version of Third Way discourses in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) under the leadership of Gerhard Schröder which have played a key role in shaping current political discourse in Germany"--

The volume explores the vast and heterogeneous territory of Political Linguistics, structuring and developing its concepts, themes and methodologies into combined and coherent Analysis of Political Discourse (APD). Dealing with an extensive and representative variety of topics and domains - political rhetoric, mediatized communication, ideology, politics of language choice, etc. - it offers uniquely systematic, theoretically grounded insights in how language is used to perform power-enforcing/imbuing practices in social interaction, and how it is deployed for communicating decisions concerning language itself. The twenty chapters in the volume, written by specialists in political linguistics, (critical) discourse analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and social psychology, address the diversity of political discourse to propose novel perspectives from which common analytic procedures can be drawn and followed. The volume is thus an essential resource for anyone looking for a coherent research agenda in explorations of political discourse as a point of reference for their own academic activities, both scholarly and didactic. "Politics in today's world consists of almost continuous interconnected talking and writing in a constantly expanding media universe. This comprehensive collection of papers edited by Urszula Okulska and Piotr Cap helps readers to get a hold on the flow of discourse that constitutes politics today. Indispensible for anyone seeking perspectives for understanding the language of politics and research methods for probing beyond the surface."

This book departs from the premise that political discourse is intrinsically connected with media discourse, as shaped by its cultural and transcultural characteristics. It presents a collection of papers which examine political discourse in the media from a cross-culturally comparative perspective in Arab, Dutch, British, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Israeli, Swedish, US-American and international contexts. By using different theoretical frameworks, such as conversation analysis, discourse analysis, pragmatics and systemic functional linguistics, the papers reflect current moves in political discourse analysis to cross-disciplinary and methodological boundaries by integrating semiotics, particularly multimodality, cognition, context, genre and recipient design.

Human beings are political animals. They are also articulate mammals. How are these two aspects linked? This is a question that is only beginning to be explored. The present collection makes a contribution to the investigations into the use of language in those situations which, informally and intuitively, we call ‘political’. Such an approach is revealing not only for politics itself but also for the human language capacity. Each chapter outlines a particular method or analytic approach and illustrates its application to a contemporary political issue, institution or mode of political behaviour. As a whole, the collection aims to give a sample of current research in the field. It will interest those who are beginning to carry the research paradigm forward, as well as provide an introduction for newcomers, whether they come from neighbouring or remote disciplines or from none.

This edited volume brings together leading international researchers from across the social sciences to examine the theoretical premises, methodological options and critical potentials of the Essex School of discourse analysis, founded on the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. In doing so, it presents a clear picture of a poststructuralist and post-foundational research program to postdisciplinary discourse research. Divided into three parts, it begins by elaborating the ontological, theoretical and methodological foundations of the Essex School’s approach to discourse analysis. The second part provides empirical case studies showing how the Essex School research program informs and instructs empirical discourse research. In the concluding third part authors explain how and with what possible consequences this strand of discourse research contributes to social practices of critique. It offers a crucial contribution to the further methodologization and operationalization of the Essex School’s approach so as to make it a viable alternative to discourse-analytical approaches that take dominant positions in today’s ‘field of discourse studies’. The book's transdisciplinary focus will attract readers who use discourse analysis in all areas of the social sciences and humanities, particularly applied linguistics, cultural anthropology, sociology, philosophy and history.

The activity of parliaments is largely linguistic activity: they produce talk and they produce texts. Broadly speaking, the objectives that this discourse aims to satisfy are similar all over the world: to legitimate or contest legislation, to represent diverse interests, to scrutinise the activity of government, to influence opinion and to recruit and promote political actors. But the discourse of different national parliaments is subject to variation, at all linguistic levels, on the basis of history, cultural specificity, and political culture in particular. Through the use of various analytical tools of functional linguistics, this volume seeks to provide explanatory analyses of parliamentary discourse in different countries – Britain, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden and the United States – and to explore its peculiarities. Each chapter outlines a particular methodological framework and its application to instances of parliamentary discourse on important issues such as war, European integration, impeachment and immigration.

This edited volume explores the discursive, performative and mediated dimensions of contemporary political discourse. The strengths of the volume are manifold: it contains cutting edge interdisciplinary research on political discourses by international authors (UK, USA, Italy, Germany, Austria, Denmark) in political science, discourse linguistic and social interaction research. The contributions represent a wide range of methodological approaches to political discourse, analyzing a broad variety of genres, some of which have been less analyzed to-date, for example Wikipedia articles in combination with their discussion pages or the interaction between politicians and voters in the constituency office of a British Member of Parliament. The contributions also focus on political discourses of high and relevant topicality, such as EU membership of Britain, populism, migration and xenophobia, terrorism and narratives in international relations.

This edited volume offers new insights into contemporary political discourses in Slavic speaking countries by focusing on discursive and linguistic means deployed in relevant genres, such as parliamentary discourse, commemorative and presidential speeches, mediated communication, and literal and philosophical essays. The depth of the linguistic analysis reflects different levels of linkage between language and social practice constituting the discourse. The theoretical and methodological approaches discussed range from interactional pragmatics over corpus linguistics to CDA. The chapters contain original language material in Russian, Polish, Czech, Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian, and the authors address issues such as the affiliation to different political and social groups within parliamentary settings, national identity, gender and minorities, as well as cultural memory and reconciliation.

The volume promotes a pragmatic perspective to the analysis of political discourse as multilayered mediated discourse. The chapters cross the disciplinary and methodological boundaries of speech act theory, social positioning theory, and argumentation theory and rhetorics. They address the strategic use of address terms and irony, the form and function of questions, and the expression of certainty in the contexts of parliamentary discourse, interview, talkshow, phone-in programme and motion of support across different discourse domains. Different cultural contexts are represented, including Africa, the Middle East, different parts of Europe and the United States.