Constructing national history in political discourse: Coherence and contradiction (Moldova, 2001-2009)

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 780-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Danero Iglesias

History is one of the many instruments available for the persuasive construction of a nation. In Moldova, the Party of the Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM), in office from 2001 to 2009, advocated for a Soviet-based version of the Moldovan nation. This “Moldovanism” boasted of the existence of a “Moldovan People” and was relied upon to justify the independence of the former Romanian province. Vladimir Voronin, the party's leader and president of the Republic during this period, promoted this “civic” Moldovan nation and created what seemed to be a coherent and ad hoc construction of an independent Moldovan nation.This paper focuses on communist political discourse during this eight year period. Through the use of Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper focuses on the discursive construction of the Moldovan nation. It is based on Voronin's official speeches and messages from key occasions such as Independence Day and Victory Day.This paper demonstrates the varied use of history in these speeches which improves understanding of the process of the construction of a nation. Moreover, it demonstrates that this construction, far from being coherent, was also sometimes contradictory. Indeed, discourse was adapted to the immediate context and audience. Finally, the paper explains how an explicitly “civic” discourse can be implicitly and, sometimes even explicitly, “ethnic” and “exclusive”.

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mufatihatul Islam ◽  
Sudono Syueb

One of the political religious organizations whose influence is strong enough is Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia with Islamic Political Discourse Khilafah Islamiyah. The political discourse adopted by Hizb ut-Tahrir certainly reap the controversy in Indonesia whose status is the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia which is based on the ideology of Pancasila. Various efforts were made by Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia to enforce its political discourse to penetrate mass communication media such as magazines, tabloids and weekly bulletins. The construction of news in such a way is also always in the sequence as interesting and sepersuasif possible as to influence its readers.Critical discourse analysis is a model of media text analysis that will construct how a medium writes its message, through critical discourse analysis to know the purpose of writing the news. In this study, researchers will construct news content on Al Wa'ie magazine Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia especially on the news "Religion Religion and State" in Rubric Afkar.Keywords: Discourse Analysis, Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, Politic


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 850-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Danero Iglesias

Since independence, nationalism has been at the front of politics in the Republic of Moldova in the context of a persisting political struggle about the very definition of the Moldovan nation. Looking at campaign video clips produced in 2009 by Moldovan political parties and using a methodology inspired by Critical Discourse Analysis, the article gives a better understanding of nationalism in Moldova nowadays. The article demonstrates that the focus of political parties on the nation is purely symbolic. They adapt their discourse to the context in which they evolve (audience of the videos and targeted voters). Pursuing the objective of gaining or holding on to power, parties construct an ad hoc nation whose content they fill with the needs of the moment, using mirroring arguments to win the elections over competing parties seen as enemies of an endangered country.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652110485
Author(s):  
Christopher Hart ◽  
Bodo Winter

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) increasingly recognises the role played by multiple semiotic modes in the discursive construction of social identities and inequalities. One embodied mode that has not been subject to any systematic analysis within CDA is gesture. An area where gesture has been extensively studied, and where it is shown to bear significant semiotic load in multimodal utterances, is cognitive linguistics. Here, we use insights from cognitive linguistics to provide a detailed qualitative analysis of gestures in a specific discursive context – the anti-immigration discourse of Nigel Farage. We describe the gestures that accompany a range of rhetorical tropes typical of anti-immigration discourses and critically analyse their role, alongside speech, in communicating prejudice and legitimating discriminatory action. Our analysis suggests that gesture is an important part of political discourse which is worthy of further investigation in future CDA research.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Angermuller

This contribution looks into a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin after the terrorist attack against a high school in the Northern Caucasian town Beslan in September 2004, widely seen as marking the end of the liberal hegemony in the Russia of the post-soviet period. However, a closer look reveals the many possible readings that are made of the speech. According to the reactions found in a corpus of press articles, the speech activates both “internationalist” and “sovereignist” readings in media discourse. By pointing out the polyphonic organization of discourse, I make the case for a productive exchange between the French tradition of discourse analysis, interactionism and critical discourse analysis. In this view, the readers have to deal with the many different voices crisscrossing political discourse. In the light of its polyphonic organization, the meaning of discourse needs to be “fixed” by the participants of political discourse.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-439
Author(s):  
Kamber Güler

Discourses are mostly used by the elites as a means of controlling public discourse and hence, the public mind. In this way, they try to legitimate their ideology, values and norms in the society, which may result in social power abuse, dominance or inequality. The role of a critical discourse analyst is to understand and expose such abuses and inequalities. To this end, this paper is aimed at understanding and exposing the discursive construction of an anti-immigration Europe by the elites in the European Parliament (EP), through the example of Kristina Winberg, a member of the Sweden Democrats political party in Sweden and the political group of Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy in the EP. In the theoretical and methodological framework, the premises and strategies of van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach of critical discourse analysis make it possible to achieve the aim of the paper.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adib Rifqi Setiawan

The Critical Discourse Analysis is often applied to analyze political discourse including the political speech. This article analyzes Grace Natalie Louisa’s Speech, mainly in Festival 11 by Partai Solidaritas Indonesia (PSI), that is exclusively based on the perspective of Teun Adrianus van Dijk. It reveals that we can learn how to deliver our ideology to public. Moreover, we can have a better understanding of the political purpose of these speeches.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 272-292
Author(s):  
Jack Joy

Recent studies into the notion of crisis argue that affective states of insecurity can offer an instrumental utility to elites seeking to sustain existing power relations. Through their discursive construction, such imaginative landscapes help legitimize previously illegitimate forms of political action, rationalize heightened forms of collective sacrifice and instill new disciplinary technologies among political subjects. Building on this growing body of scholarly work, in this study I use critical discourse analysis (CDA) to address Hizbullah’s mobilization of a specific ‘crisis imaginary’ as part of its efforts to legitimize its ongoing involvement in the Syrian civil war. This perceptual regime works to uphold a ‘state of exception’ for Hizbullah, sustain the practice of martyrdom as a form of Girardian ‘mimetic desire’ and structure a wider moral universe that continues to bind the party’s audience to the resistance society while maintaining their continued docility.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-275
Author(s):  
Mustafa Menshawy

Abstract In this article, I examine a corpus of texts that address the 1973 war; these texts cover the period from 1981 to 2011, marking the beginning and end of Hosni Mubarak’s rule. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I explore how Mubarak’s regime employed the war to legitimize its power and defend its policies by deploying longstanding culturally-embedded ‘macro themes’. These macro themes refer to the war as an overwhelming and undisputed ‘Egyptian victory’ and, more significantly, they portray Mubarak himself as ‘war personified/war personalized’. The analysis of linguistic and extra-linguistic features in al-Ahram newspaper (the mouthpiece of the state), among other media texts on the war, show how the discursive construction was made consistent, coherent and resonant in a managed context that characterized the political and media landscapes. Depending on unique access to those who produced, edited and even censored the texts under analysis, this method unravels a complex set of cultural messages and conventions about the war, and fills a lacuna in the literature by offering insight into the deliberate and well-coordinated process of shaping and reshaping a specific discourse for a specific purpose.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaina Singh

On August 13th 2010, the MV Sun Sea ship carrying 492 Tamil asylum seekers arrived off of the coast of British Columbia. Immediately upon arrival the Tamil asylum seekers were detained for a prolonged period of time, subjected to intensified interrogation techniques, and unfairly questioned even when in possession of identifying documents. This paper examines how the government used political discourse to try and justify the unusually harsh detention of asylum seekers. Through a critical discourse analysis strategy, eight newspaper articles will be analyzed and the theories of securitization, discourse, and orientalism will be used to advance certain political ideologies. The political justifications of detention operate through the theme of the egocentric state, and the theme of categorizing and demonizing asylum seekers. The final theme discussed is the concept of victimization, which will offer an alternate perspective to this paper’s main focus on political discourse.


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