scholarly journals Between Political Myths, Dormant Resentments, and Redefinition of the Recent History: A Case Study of Serbian National Identity

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-68
Author(s):  
Joanna Wygnańska

The subject of the article concerns the issue of constructing and reconstructing national identity. The object of interest here is a sociological case study of Serbian national identity. It includes reconstruction and interpretation of in-depth interviews conducted in Serbia with the representatives of Serbian symbolic elites. The concept of symbolic elites is approached in the discussed research from Teun van Dijk’s perspective. Thus, they are individuals and groups directly involved in the production of public opinion, who have an impact on the content of publicly available knowledge, and the creation and legitimization of public discourse. The work is embedded in the methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and is based on the assumptions of the Discourse‐Historical Approach (DHA). In this optics, the most important thing is the historical and social context of the studied process of the discursive construction of national identity. Therefore, the conclusions also touch upon the historical, political, and social perspective of the formation of Serbian national identity. The reflection also aims at presenting the analysis from the contemporary perspective (mainly in 2008-2020). Thus, paying attention to the political divisions in Serbia and the country’s road to democratization and European integration, the discussed research study shows the comprehensive specifics of the studied national identity.

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.


2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisela Ruiseco ◽  
Thomas Slunecko

Following the discourse-historical approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (Wodak, de Cilia, Reisigl and Liebhart 1999; Wodak 2001), we analyze the inaugural speech of the actual president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, which he delivered on August 7th, 2002 in Bogotá. We take this speech as an illustration for the construction of national identity by the Colombian elites. In our analysis, we are particularly interested in Uribe’s strategy of referring to the European heritage and in his ways of appeasing the cultural and ethnic differences of the population.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Nartey

Abstract This paper presents a discourse-mythological analysis of the rhetoric of a pioneering Pan-African and Ghana’s independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah, drawing on Ruth Wodak’s discourse-historical approach to critical discourse analysis. The thesis of the paper is that Nkrumah’s discourse, in its focus on the emancipation and unification of Africa, can be characterized as mythic, a discursive exhortation of Africa to demonstrate to the world that it can better govern itself than the colonizers. In this vein, the paper analyzes four discursive strategies employed by Nkrumah in the creation and projection of his mythology: the introduction or creation of new discourse events, presupposition and implication, involvement (the use of indexicals) and lexical structuring and reiteration. This study is, therefore, presented as a case study of mythic discourse within the domain of politics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-118
Author(s):  
Katie Baker Jones

Discursive practices employed by American Vogue to recontextualize sustainable fashion between 1990 and 2015 were explored through the lens of a discourse-historical approach and multimodal critical discourse analysis. References to sustainably minded values and actions were found throughout the 26 years studied with notable peaks and valleys in coverage that, at times, contradicted changing social interest in the subject. Over time, Vogue recontextualized sustainable fashion discourses and encouraged a passive revolution by moving from a contentious positioning of either/or sustainable fashion to one that embraced a both/and positionality by narrowing focus to lifestyle and product features. Additionally, Vogue celebrated social actors engaged in sustainable behaviors though these were increasingly positioned as lifestyle choices rather than revolutionary collective action. Vogue continuously recontextualized the sustainable fashion discourse as “new” and desirable while neutralizing most negative considerations of fashion consumption through a variety of articulations and by drawing on well-established semiotic resources.


2017 ◽  
Vol II (I) ◽  
pp. 273-288
Author(s):  
Haleema Khalid ◽  
Muhammad Shahbaz ◽  
Behzad Anwar

This article aims to investigate Maalik, Pakistani political thriller as the product of ‘politicotainment’, a genre combining politics and entertainment. Keeping in view the nexus of politics, media and language, Discourse Historical Approach from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis with a particular focus on media, discourse, and society is employed. Maalik, is exceptional movie because it is explicitly related to real life socio-political and socio-cultural events of Pakistan; its focus on social and political issues such as exploitation of power and corrupt political system shifts the focus towards the ownership of Pakistan and accepting responsibilities. Therefore, the film connects the emerging political discourse in Pakistan with the rising public pulse against corruption and call for accountability. This research provides insights regarding the discursive construction of contemporary Pakistani narrative in the time of national crisis in order to reveal the projected and recontextualized norms in the context of Pakistan.


Author(s):  
Suprayogi Suprayogi ◽  
Dian Puspita ◽  
Sandi Nuansa ◽  
Kamelia Sari

As indigenous belief acknowledgement in Indonesia is still progressive, debatable but limitedly investigated from critical discourse analysis perspective, this research is aimed at revealing the discursive construction of indigenous belief issue in The Jakarta Post. This research focuses on analyzing indigenous belief as phenomenon, indigenous believers and government as social actor through the analysis of nomination and predication strategies. Articles published in The Jakarta Post online newspaper from 2013 - 2020 are chosen as corpus data. To analyze this research, Discourse-Historical Approach by Wodak and Meyer (2009) is used as the framework. This research also employs corpus analysis using Sketch Engine. The finding suggests that the issue centralized in the discussion of identity card and human right framed in five different periods. The use of collective proper name, anthroponym and deixis are significant to refer to indigenous believers, meanwhile institutional name, anthroponym and synecdoche are mostly used as referent for government. There is a shift of predication strategies from negative to positive when it discussed government policy on putting indigenous belief column on identity card. This research suggests that the use of corpus software as well as manual corpus screening is important to locate more detail language data. 


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 645-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Teo ◽  
Cui Ruiguo

This article focuses on the discursive construction of national identity through a National Day Rally speech delivered by Singapore’s Prime Minister in 2010. Inspired by the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis and using methods developed by Halliday and van Leeuwen, it offers a close analysis of the speech, which uncovers patterns related to the type, extent and effects of various agentive roles attributed to the country, government and people of Singapore. Macro-discursive strategies like the use of specific references and real-life anecdotes calculated to reify the success of the Singapore ‘brand’ and inspire Singaporeans are also discussed. Through this multi-layered analysis, the article demonstrates how discourse transforms an imagining of Singapore’s nationhood into a concrete image of what Singapore is and what being a Singaporean is all about.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-95
Author(s):  
Eglė Kesylytė-Alliks

This article analyzes discursive representations of Lithuania and of Belarus as Lithuania's “Other” in the context of the recent political crisis in Ukraine. Focusing on the media discourse of Lithuanian intellectuals regarding the historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) and its legacy, it examines how Belarus and its role vis-à-vis Lithuania have been depicted. The analysis is informed by the discourse-historical approach within critical discourse analysis, using thematic content and argumentation schemes for studying the images ascribed to the GDL, Belarus, and Lithuania in the selected texts. Focus in the discourse of intellectuals on the GDL as a historical homeland is found to shift from history as a scholarly endeavor to the politics of history and the uses of the past in today's political projects. Belarus and the GDL emerge as topics not only historically and politically salient but also potentially dangerous for Lithuania within the setting of the events in Ukraine.


لارك ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (36) ◽  
pp. 258-270
Author(s):  
ساره علي حسين

Abstract                     This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of the discursive construction of national identity in selected political discourses. The nationalist narratives affect the ways people view problems that are related to them as a group, i.e. related to their ethnicity, nation, and country. Because of the effective role of the national narratives in directing people's decisions, the study aims to investigate the ways in which national identities are maintained or reproduced in political discourse to reach political purposes. Thus, the researchers use a qualitative thematic analysis based on three levels to investigate the construction of the national identity in discourse. To achieve this aim, the study analyses two political speeches in which one of them is presented by the First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond and the second one is given by the Prime Minister of the UK David Cameron. Both speeches are presented a day after the Scottish independence referendum. The researchers employ Wodak, de Cillia, Reisigl and Liebhart's (2009) theory of the discursive construction of national identity to examine the strategies that are used by those opposing sides to maintain or reproduce a specific national identification. The study arrives at identifying certain strategies used to express the opposing views of both politicians to construct, maintain or destroy national identities.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-29
Author(s):  
Riho Västrik

Abstract This article aims to find out how Soviet Estonian documentaries constructed the national discourse in the 1960s, by focusing on the case of the 10-minute documentary Ruhnu (1965) by Andres Sööt. Ruhnu was the first Soviet Estonian documentary released after World War II that romanticised Estonian nationalism. In order to narrate the national ideals considered undesirable by the official ideology, the Soviet Estonian filmmakers often chose to portray characters embedded in the national consciousness as archetypal heroes from pre-Soviet times and the landscapes associated with them. In the desire for past times, national heroes and idealised landscapes were constructed and naturalised in a contemporary context. The article raises the question - what kind of heroes, landscapes and activities were used to construct the national identity and which elements of film language were used? The research method used, critical discourse analysis, allows us to analyse the archetypes created in the documentary and the archetypal landscapes used as a framework for the narrative.


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