Workshop Book of Abstracts
Online workshop Political Language in Motion
Thessaloniki, January 28th, 2023
https://polmo365.blogspot.com/
Email: polmo365@gmail.com,
Organizer
Dr. Anastasios Vogiatzis
School of English, School of Philology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Host
Thessaloniki Cognitive Linguistics Research Group
School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
https://www.enl.auth.gr/tclr/
Anaïs Augé
UCLouvain – Institute of Political Sciences Louvain-Europe
Belgium
anais.auge@uclouvain.be
Climate justice, Ecocide, Eco-terrorism: From metaphorical to judicial implications
In this paper, I focus on the notions of “climate justice”, “ecocide”, and “eco-terrorism”. I demonstrate that these three notions have been extensively exploited in climate crisis discourse produced by activists and politicians. For instance, one may recall the “blood bath” protests performed by the NGO Extinction Rebellion, during which “rebels” sprayed fake blood over buildings. Such performances echo a metaphorical conceptualisation of the impacts of pollution as a BLOODY MASSACRE, for which economic and political leaders are blamed.
These have eventually generated major debates in the political realm, which led Conservative politicians – like Nigel Farage – to “deconstruct” (Musolff, 2022: 85) the activists’ arguments by identifying them as “eco-terrorists” (ACTIVISM AS TERRORISM).
I investigate the “discourse history” (Zinken, 2007) attached to the narrative (Hanne et al, 2014) CLIMATE CRISIS AS A CRIME. I show that activists’ calls for “climate justice” respond to political misattribution of responsibilities for the crisis. Accordingly, activists exploited CRIME-related metaphors to insist on the criminal damages caused by excessive pollution, exploitations, and uncontrolled consumption. Consequently, these instances of “climate injustice” transformed into literal judicial cases, which aimed at forcing politicians to address such “crimes” (e.g., “L’Affaire du Siecle” and petition to recognise a global “ecocide”).
I investigate the process by which the CRIME narrative has generated a JUSTICE scenario (Musolff, 2016) that has been extensively exploited so that the ground of the metaphor became a literal ground for the promotion of justice.
References
Hanne, M., Crano, W.-D., and Mio, J.-S. (eds) (2014). Warring With Words: Narrative and Metaphor in Politics. New York and London, Psychology Press.
Musolff, A. (2016). Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and Scenarios. London Bloomsbury Academic.
Musolff, A. (2022). “World-beating” pandemic responses: Ironical, sarcastic, and satirical use of war and competition metaphors in the context of covid-19 pandemic. Metaphor and Symbol, 37 (2), 76-87.
Zinken, J. (2007). Discourse metaphors: the link between figurative language and habitual analogies. Cognitive Linguistics, 18(3), 445-466
Data available at:
Extinction Rebellion’s blood bath: Fake blood sprayed on Treasury in Extinction Rebellion protest
L’Affaire du Siecle: https://earthcharter.org/laffaire-du-siecle-the-case-of-the-century-how-climate-justice-wants-to-force-the-state-to-fight-against-climate-change-in-france/
Ecocide Petition: https://www.stopecocide.earth/press-releases-summary/greta-to-eu-leaders-support-making-ecocide-an-international-crime
Eco-terrorism: https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1584867479100469254
Veronika Koller
Lancaster University, UK
v.koller@lancaster.ac.uk
People and discourse in motion: revisiting metaphors for migration
In this talk, I revisit a classical concern in critical metaphor analysis: the representation of refugees in public discourse. This topic has recently gained currency due to the 2015 European migrant crisis as well as the war in Ukraine and the subsequent movement of people to and within Europe. What makes this most recent migration different from other cases is the overwhelmingly positive attitude of the public, press and politicians towards the refugees. The question I seek to answer is whether a sympathetic attitude to refugees is reflected in different metaphors than the ones recorded in the literature and how we can account for any differences or similarities. The metaphoric representation of refugees and other migrants has been well researched, both in relatively recent (Charteris-Black 2006) and in historical discourses (Taylor 2021). Thus, we know that metaphors of invasion have been used alongside dehumanising metaphors of water, animals and objects over time, and that other metaphors, e.g. of immigrants as guests, have been employed less persistently. Previous work has also shown the ideological functions of such metaphors in public discourse (Cap 2019) and demonstrated their effects on audiences (Hart 2021). The empirical part of the talk consists of a cross-genre study of political speeches, news coverage and statements by charities in the UK, which develops my previous work combining corpus-assisted methods such as semantic domain analysis (Koller et al. 2008) with manual analysis of metaphor scenarios (Koller and Ryan 2019; cf. Musolff 2006). Based on systemic-functional linguistics, I operationalise the analysis of metaphor scenarios. Another focus will be on the lexical encoding of emotions, to see if the discourse promotes empathy with refugees from Ukraine as an affiliated rather than an out-group. The results will be compared against findings from previous studies about metaphors for refugees in relevant genres, to highlight trends in public opinion in the face of conflict.
References
Cap, P. (2019). Britain is full to bursting point! Immigration themes in the Brexit discourse of the UK Independence Party. In V. Koller, S. Kopf & M. Miglbauer (eds), Discourses of Brexit (pp. 69–85). Routledge.
Charteris-Black, J. (2006). Britain as a container: Immigration metaphors in the 2005 election campaign. Discourse & Society, 17(5), 563-581.
Hart, C. (2021). Animals vs. armies: resistance to extreme metaphors in anti-immigration discourse.Journal of Language and Politics, 20(2), 226-253.
Koller, V., Hardie, A., Rayson, P., & Semino, E. (2008). Using a semantic annotation tool for the analysis of metaphor in discourse. Metaphorik. de, 15(1), 141-160.
Koller, V., & Ryan, J. (2019). A nation divided: Metaphors and scenarios in the media coverage of the 2016 British EU referendum. In Hart, C. (ed.) Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Text and Discourse: From poetics to politics (pp. 131-156). Edinburgh University Press.
Musolff, A. (2006). Metaphor scenarios in public discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 21(1), 23-38.
Taylor, C. (2021). Metaphors of migration over time. Discourse & Society, 32(4), 463-481.
Andreas Musolff
University of East Anglia, UK
A.Musolff@uea.ac.uk
Metaphor, Conspiracy Theory and Crisis
Metaphors have been known at least since Aristotle to be extremely useful in social and political crises for one purpose (inter alia): to highlight, exacerbate, exaggerate or, in modern parlance, ‘weaponize’ the crisis in question. Strictly speaking, metaphors do not achieve this feat on their own: they are aided and abetted by hyperbole, metonymy, analogy and, if needed, by the whole gang of rhetorical tricks known since Antiquity as figures or tropes. Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) has tried to exonerate metaphors from the association with demagoguery; however, in the form of Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA), metaphor’s power of shaping social and political processes in detrimental ways has become a central research object across several domains of study, e.g. Psychology, Media Studies and Discourse Studies.
Taking one of the many recently erupted crises, i.e. the Covid-19 pandemic and the public debates about it as an example, I explore the bad influences that turn innocent metaphors into destructive memes or “mind viruses” (Dawkins). High up on the list of suspects are “fake news” and “conspiracy theories” (CTs). Prima facie, they appear to have little to do with metaphors, as they purport to include factual information, which is denounced by their critics as deceptive. However, as we know from advertising, it is the packaging of goods or messages that matters most, which is where metaphors come in. But do metaphors package fake news and CTs or is it the other way round? I propose that whilst conceptual metaphors may be neutral in terms of evaluative and emotive bias, CTs depend on specific figurative framings in terms of scenarios to become seemingly convincing. Hence, efforts to enlighten public debate by “reframing” figurative contextualizations should focus on critiquing those figurative scenarios that specifically help to weaponize CTs.
References
Butter, M. (2020). The Nature of Conspiracy Theories. Cambridge: Polity.
Charteris-Black, J. (2022). Metaphors of Coronavirus: Invisible Enemy or Zombie pocalypse? Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Musolff, A. (2022b). Fake-conspiracy: Trump’s anti-Chinese ‘COVID-19-as-war’ scenario. In Massimiliano Demata, Virginia Zorzi & Angela Zottola (eds.). Discourses of and about Conspiracy Theories, 121-139. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Uscinski, J., E. (ed.). 2018. Conspiracy Theories & the People Who Believe Them. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ludmilla A’Beckett
University of the Free State
Australia
Discourse history of the slogan “Russia is rising from her knees”
Keywords: Metaphoric story; Disourse; Mininarrative; Incremental changes; Frame
The metaphoric story (Cameron 2010) “Russia is rising from her knees” was coined by Yeltsin and Russian intellectuals in 1990. Recently, the mini-narrative (Musolff 2004, 2012, 2017) has been frequently used by Russian revanchists.
This paper analyses the contexts of the slogan from 1991 to present. It relies on content analysis and an examination of the narrative structure (Burgers et al. 2019). The analysis reveals that changes in understanding of the slogan occurred due to 1) transformations of target concepts; 2) specification of elements that form the storyline. In early 90’s, there was a demand for improvement of living conditions for citizens whereas in the second decade of the 21st century “the rising” has been correlated with dominance on the international scene. The transformation of the storyline includes a) characterisation of the protagonist (Russia); b) recontextualization of the UPWARD movement and transitory positions; c) introduction of other agents (helpers or villains); d) shifts in the focus on the temporal stages of the event (past, present or future).
Transformations in the structure of the mini-narrative lead readers to different evaluations of the event. The government supporters project a positive outcome whereas the opposition sees an unhappy end to the story. The incremental changes in the metaphor scenario and its recontextualisation exemplify the polarisation of Russian political discourse as well as the evolution of public expectation. The schematic representation of the metaphoric story remains the same. However, changes of mental spaces assigned to the scheme lead to different readings of the same frame.
References
Burgers, C., Fa, M. J., & de Graaf, A. (2019). A tale of two swamps: Transformations of a metaphorical frame in online partisan media. Journal of Pragmatics, 141, 57-66.
Cameron, L. (2010). What is metaphor and why does it matter? In L. Cameron and R. Maslen (eds.) Metaphor analysis, pp. 3-25. Equinox: London and New York.
Musolff, A. (2004). Metaphor scenarios in public discourse. Metaphor and symbol 21 (1), pp.23-38.
Musolff, A. (2012). Immigrants and Parasites: “The History of a Bio-Social Metaphor”, in M. Messer, R. Schroeder, and R. Wodak (eds.), Migrations: Interdisciplinary perspectives, pp.249–258. Vienna: Springer https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0950-2_22
Musolff, A. (2017). Irony and sarcasm in follow-ups of metaphorical slogans, in A. Athanasiadou and H. L. Colston (eds.) Irony in Language Use and Communication, pp.127-141, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Maisarah Mohammad Almirabi
Umm Al-Qura University
Saudi Arabia
The Covid-19 Conceptual Structure
Keywords: Covid-19; Conceptual metaphor theory; Universalization; Arabic metaphor; Diachronic metaphors.
Previous studies tackling covid-19 found that most of the used metaphors in different genres are related to WAR. This war metaphor has been found to have the effects of raising awareness of the urgency of the situation, gaining support, bringing calm and stability, and promote some emotional interaction. This study focuses on Arabic metaphors during the different stages of Covid-19, i.e., the time of emergence of the virus, the time of lockdown and curfew, after the invention of the vaccine and during the time of vaccination, and after suggesting multiple doses of the vaccine. The data was collected from Twitter using the Twitter advanced search engine. The importance of this study lies in the fact that previous studies tackling the topic have not focused on the metaphors in such diachronic approach. It is expected that the causes and proposed effects of using the covid-19 metaphors will be similar in this study to the ones found in the previous studies. It is also expected that the resulting metaphors will reflect the diachronic change of Covid-19 global situation. If such results are found, they can be indicative of the match between the global situation and the conceptualization of this situation as realized in language regardless of language or culture.
Eleni Butulussi
Aristotle University Thessaloniki
butulusi@del.auth.gr
Specters, serpents, flytraps, monsters (...): Grand narratives, intertextuality and metaphor in public discourse concerning socio-political changes
Keywords: Intertextuality; Metaphors; Reframing; Socio-political changes.
In recent years, research on metaphor pointed out the need for a more synthetic analysis of both the conceptual aspects of metaphor and its pragmatic, communicative and rhetorical aspects in discourse. The theoretical framework of Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) responded converging methods and principles of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CMA developed interdisciplinary research methods on metaphor analysis in discourse, investigating its important role in the construction of ideology, e.g. in public discourse on crises (immigration, racism, sexism, pandemic, etc.). It also established, aside from image schemas and domains, the crucial concepts of frames, scenarios and framing, as their analysis makes it possible to connect the conceptual and discourse-based aspects of metaphor revealing its function in context (Charteris-Black 2014; Hart 2010; Musolff 2016, 2022).
In this theoretical framework I analyze intertextual metaphors borrowed from great thinkers’ texts (e.g. Marx, Shakespeare, Kafka, Wittgenstein), e.g. A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of (...); the Serpent's Egg; To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle; Can a monster speak? These metaphors are used in contemporary public discourse of crisis concerning immigration, racism, gender, etc. In the text extracts examined, speakers/writers use these metaphors unchanged or modified (with hyperbole, expansion, etc.), with or without metacommunicative comments, to describe/construct the current sociopolitical situation as a dystopia, to express their fears, to criticize and resist, to predict an even more dystopian future or to propose changes for an eutopian one. The analysis of these metaphors involves the identification and interpretation of the source and target frames and scenarios created both in the context of their original texts and in the context of the contemporary socio-political discourse in which these metaphors are "reframed" according to specific ideological-rhetorical motivations (see Butulussi 2020 about intertextuality and metaphor in a piece of contemporary art).
References
Butulussi, E. (2020). Learning processes that connect: Dilemmas, metaphors, contemporary art, education. metalogos-systemic-therapy-journal.gr. Issue 36. https://users.auth.gr/butulusi/Butulussi_2020_Learning_processes_Metaphor_Art.pdf
Charteris-Black, J. (2014). Analysing political speeches. Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave, Macmillan.
Hart, Ch. (2010). Critical Discourse Analysis and Cognitive Science. New Perspectives on Immigration Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Musolff, A. (2016). Political Metaphor Analysis. Discourse and Scenarios. London: Bloomsbury.
Elene Kadagishvili, Ivane Javakhishvili
elene.kadagishvili718@hum.tsu.edu.ge
Different Levels of Sentiment-analysis (Main features, Sentiment-Lexicon and its challenges)
Keywords: Sentiment Analysis; Political Speech; Sentiment Lexicon; Georgian Political Corpus; Sentiment Analyzer.
Sentiment analysis research has mainly three interrelated and at the same time distinct levels (Bing Liu, 2016). these are: Document level; Sentence level; Aspect level; At the document level, the task is to determine whether the overall sentiment expresses negative or positive sentiment (Bing Liu, 2016). Sentence level is the determination of what each sentence expresses - negative, positive, or neutral. When defining sentiment at the aspect level, we consider several aspects: whom we value (it can be a specific person and most of the time, it is a politician), what we value (mostly, it is a concrete action of a specific politician), how we value it (negatively, positively or neutrally) (Bing Liu, 2016). One of the great challenges that a researcher may have during sentiment analysis research is the sentiment lexicon and its problems. Sentiment lexicon is referred as Lexical Resource for sentiment analysis. It contains lexical units with their sentiment orientations. In Natural Language processing different kinds of lexicons plays important role in extracting useful information from text data. A positive or negative sentiment word can have opposite meanings in different uses or in different contexts of the sentence. Or the sentence may contain a sentiment word that does not express any sentiment. In this Presentation, we will discuss specific examples and present interesting conclusions based on the examples. In this presentation, we will also show how the speech of a particular politician reflects his attitude and intentions toward other politicians or political events.
References
Bing, L. (2016). Sentiment Analysis (Mining options, Sentiments and Emotions), University of Illinois at Chikago, pg. 610.
Issa Kanté
Université de La Réunion
Ile de La Réunion / Reunion Island
Geopolitical leaders and language in motion: American Secretary of State’s visit to Africa vs. Russian Foreign Minister’s
Keywords: Geopolitical discourse; Figurative language; Africa; United States; Russia
While the world is experiencing great challenges (the climate crisis, terrorism, Russia’s war on Ukraine, etc.), Africa is facing a revival of geopolitical, ideological and economic competitions between great powers (Stronski 2019, Cohen 2020), as it had been during the Cold War. The recent visits of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Africa are a clear illustration of a wide-ranging geopolitical struggle in motion. Adopting a critical discourse approach (Thompson 1988, van Dijk 1995, Reisigl and Wodak 2009), this study investigates a corpus of discourses (respectively 12,821 tokens and 14,830 tokens) delivered by the diplomats in their visits to Africa in July and August 2022. The notion of ‘discourse’ is conceived here through Fairclough’s (1992: 72-93) three-dimensional conception, i.e. “discourse-as-text”, “discourse-as-social-practice” and “discursive practice”, i.e. processes of text production, distribution and consumption in society. The study seeks to demonstrate how the two antagonists, through opposing worldviews, conceptualize their relationship with Africa in order to alter or uphold their ideological hegemony. Throughout their diplomatic tour, the two leaders tried to characterize dynamically and positively Africa’s geostrategic role so as to convey and sustain their own narrative. Thus, geopolitical language in motion is encoded in the combination of figurative language with the lexicon (nominal and verbal construal) and in dynamic grammatical constructions (such as be + v-ing and modals can and will). In this connection, we examine to what extent both diplomats use metonymic and metaphoric conceptualizations either to praise African nations as key geopolitical partners/friends, or to foreground their own dynamics and positive role toward Africa and the world, using conceptualizations such as: choose/follow a path, pursue/bring peace, create pathways, stand up, shape the world, working with partners/friends, etc.
References
Cohen, H. J. (2020). US Policy toward Africa: Eight Decades of Realpolitik. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity.
Reisigl, M., and Wodak, R. (2009). The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). In R. Wodak and M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods for Critical Discourse Analysis, pp. 87-121. London: Sage. Stronski, P. (2019). Late to the Party: Russia’s Return to Africa. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Thompson, J. B. (1988). Mass Communication and Modern Culture: Contribution to a Critical Theory of Ideology. Sociology, 22(3), pp. 359-383.
Van Dijk, T. A. (1995). Discourse analysis as ideology analysis. In C. Schäffner and A.L. Wenden, Language & Peace, pp. 41-58. London: Routledge.
Maria Karali
Aristotle university of Thessaloniki
Greece
The Mirage of Time: praesens propheticus in political speeches
Keywords: Time; Categorial gradience; Pragmatic exploitation.
This paper is an approach to the cognitive facets of polysemy, the gradience of linguistic categories, and a perennial philosophical quest, the linguistic expression of time. A subclass of perfect verbal forms is often used in prophecies in the Bible, when reference is made to future events the fulfillment of which is taken as so certain that these can be expressed as if already completed. It is notoriously known that grammaticalized futures do emerge from presents, and presents may generally refer to future actions, but some presents anticipate imminent actions so vividly that they convey a sense of an already accomplished deed at the time of the utterance; such forms are called ‘praesens propheticus’ and are very frequent in Greek political pre-electoral speeches. Politicians resort to them for an obvious pragmatic benefit, in order to convey a sense of performativity and inevitability of the promised actions, will is the deed, evoking thus emotive cognitive connotations.
Meaning and function appear however as incogruent with categorical status. Yet, present tense is a polysemous verbal cluster, characterized by semantic gradience and continuity; in prophetic uses the forwarded approximation in perspective supervenes temporal values and the flow of time appears as a subjective illusion. Delineation of time is subject to conceptual manipulation. A peripheral meaning of the present tense, future time reference which is bound with contigency, now becomes focal. In its turn this means that subsective gradience becomes intersective (Aarts, 2007:5).
References
Aarts, B. (2005). Syntactic Gradience, The Nature of Grammatical Indeterminancy, New York, Oxford University Press.
Fanning, B., M. (1990). Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek, New York, Oxford University Press.
Jaszczolt, K., M. (2009). Representing Time, An Essay on Temporality as Modality, New York, Oxford University Press.
Notarius, T. (2013). The Verb in Archaic Biblical Poetry: A discursive, Typological, and Historical Investigation of the Tense System, Leiden; Boston: Brill.
Ledia Kazazi
University of Elbasan “Aleksander Xhuvani”, Elbasan
Albania
“If Europe refuses to marry us, we will never get married” – Conceptualizing Albania – EU relations
Keywords: Conceptual metaphor; Framing; Persuasion; Political discourse.
Political discourse heavily relies on metaphor usage to frame how the public views or understands political issues by eliminating alternative points of view. One of the most common usages of metaphors is to positively represent future scenarios that are constructed as solutions to existing problems thus conceptualizing an ideal Utopia or the good projected in some remote space in time. Through the activation of unconscious emotional associations metaphors contribute to the “creation” of a desired story and politicians have to tell the right story in order to persuade the public opinion and serve their ideological purposes. In most of his 2022 speeches, Albanian PM Edi Rama has mainly relied on the FAMILY metaphor and the MARRIAGE metaphor to conceptualize Albania’s EU accession process. This particular metaphor frame becomes persuasive through establishing moral credibility by implying the benevolence of the speaker as the family is considered the basis of moral systems.
Through a corpus of speeches collected during 2022 this paper aims at analyzing how PM Rama uses the FAMILY metaphors to shape his political and ideological objectives. His assignment of the roles of “bride” and “groom” to the respective parties is clearly delineated according to the traditional gender roles by emphasizing the characteristic patriarchal values of the Albanian society.
Key words: conceptual metaphor, framing, persuasion, political discourse, Albania
References
Charteris-Black, J. (2005). Politicians and Rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor, Basingstoke/New York, Palgrave Mac Millan
Lakoff, J & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press
Lakoff, G. 1996. Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don’t. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Musolff, A. (2004). Metaphor and Political Discourse: Analogical reasoning in debates about Europe, Basingstoke/New York, Palgrave Mac Millan
Musolff, A. (2016). Political Metaphor Analysis: Discourse and Scenarios, London, Bloomsbury Academic
Virginija Masiulionytė, Jurga Cibulskienė, Inesa Šeškauskienė
Vilnius University
Lithuania
virginija.masiulionyte@flf.vu.lt jurga.cibulskiene@flf.vu.lt inesa.seskauskiene@flf.vu.lt
Evaluation and shifting viewpoints in the discourse of the Belarusian political crisis
Keywords: Figurative language; Viewpoint; Evaluation; Labels; Belarus.
Cognitive Linguistics (CL) adheres to the principle that people have a “multifaceted capacity to conceive and portray the same situation in alternate ways” (Langacker, 2007: 435), which is called construal (Langacker, 2007: 435; Croft & Cruse, 2004: 40; Verhagen, 2007: 48). The capacity is often referred to as perspective, which is a vantage point from which we view a situation. Moving or shifting viewpoints may afford a completely different understanding of an event (Sweetser 2012). Perspective, or viewpoint, is closely linked to evaluation, which expresses the speaker’s/writer’s attitude towards a particular phenomenon and reflects one’s individual or a community’s value system. Evaluation helps maintain the relationship between the participants and also may be employed for manipulative purposes (Hunston & Thompson, 1999: 5–13; Hunston, 2011: 12).
This paper focuses on exploring the viewpoints and evaluation identifiable in Lithuanian, German, and Russian (Kremlin-controlled) news portals towards the political crisis in Belarus in 2020-2021. More specifically, we attempt to identify evaluative labels used in reference to Lukashenko and the Opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya. The corpus consists of three datasets (ca 25,000 words each) collected from news portals in the three languages and covering the period from May to December 2021. The findings demonstrate a clear preference given to negative labels, which are particularly abundant in the Russian dataset, and suggest that figurative language, mostly irony, sarcasm, and metaphor, is at work when discussing heated political events. The Russian dataset stands out in its employment of numerous labels attached to its enemies, and is very different from either the Lithuanian or German dataset. Evaluative labels reflect the value system in a particular society (free democratic world vs. dictatorship) and contribute to shaping it.
References
Croft, W., Cruse, A. (2004). Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hunston, S., Thompson, G. (1999). Evaluation: An Introduction. In Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson (eds.). Evaluation in Text. Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: University Press. 1–27.
Hunston, S. (2011). Corpus Approaches to Evaluation. Phraseology and Evaluative Language. New York/London: Routledge.
Langacker, R. (2007). Cognitive Grammar. In Dirk Geeraerts & Hubert Cuyckens (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, 421–462. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sweetser, E. (2012). Viewpoint and perspective in language and gesture, from the ground down. In Barbara Dancyger & Eve Sweetser (eds.), Viewpoint in language, 1–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Verhagen, A. (2007). Construal and Perspectivisation. In In Dirk Geeraerts & Hubert Cuyckens (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, 48–81. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Adi Maslo
Dzemal Bijedic University of Mostar
Bosnia and Herzegovina
A Political Arena: A Frame Semantics Analysis of the 2022 FIFA World Cup
Keywords: Framing; 2022 FIFA World Cup; Politics; The Internet.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup has been not only a sporting arena, but also a political one. The allegations surrounding this global event have focused on political rather than sporting issues. This paper analyzes the Internet content surrounding the hotly debated political messages on workers' rights, gender equality, corruption allegations, and the like. Fillmore’s (2006) Frame Semantics along with Lakoff’s (2006) concepts of Deep Frames, Surface Frames, and Issue-defining Frames are used to analyze both media coverage and public comments on various platforms. The phenomenon of Frame Shifting (Coulson, 2001) will be used for humor-based political statements. The proposed frame analysis will reveal a global perception of political topics in an otherwise sports environment and provide insight into the differences in value systems.
References
Coulson, S. (2001). Semantic Leaps: Frame-Shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning Construction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fillmore, C. (2006), ˝Frame Semantics˝, In: Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings, ed. By Geeraerts, Dirk., Mouton De Gruyter, Berlin, 373-400.
Lakoff, G. (2006), Thinking Points – Communicating Our American Values and Vision, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.
Anam Nawaz
University of Otago
New Zealand
anam.nawaz@postgrad.otago.ac.nz
Ideological Stance in Political Discourse: A Transitivity Analysis of Nawaz Sharif’s Address at 71st UN Assembly
Keywords: Hallidian Perspective on Language; Implicit meanings; Nawaz Sharif; Political
ideologies; Political speeches; Transitivity; UN assembly.
The present study aims at analyzing Nawaz Sharif’s (the prime minister of Pakistan at that time) address in the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly. The speech was given extensive media coverage and political attention and has been widely applauded by the political entities both in Kashmir and Pakistan for Sharif’s brave stance against the Indian brutality and tyranny in Kashmir. However, Sharif’s silence on Kashmir dispute in his speeches, media interviews and election campaigns has always been questioned by his political competitors. Sharif’s foreign policies especially the ones related to India, have often been criticized and accused of being pro-Indian. These two opposite political positions; pro and anti-Indian, paint a blurred picture of his ideological bearing on Kashmir issue. We seek to determine Sharif’s ideological stance from his speech. To accomplish this, we studied ideological cues imbedded in the linguistic choices made by the speaker to construct his political discourse. Our analysis is lexico-grammatical, based on theoretical work by Halliday (1985/94) as reformulated by Thompson (2004). An analysis of transitivity focused on the processes discovered that among the six process types, material, relational and mental processes appear more frequently in the speech which may be interpreted as Sharif’s ideological stance towards Kashmir issue surprisingly positive as opposed to what was expected. Considering the participants and circumstances associated with the processes, the representation of the dominant ideological sense in the context indicate a cautious utilization of the available meaning making resources in language to construe an important political discourse.
References
Halliday, M. A. K. &Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rded.). London: Hodder Arnold.
Rehman, D. (2016, May 10). Bilawal blasts ‘pro-India’ Nawaz Sharif during pre-election rally in AJK. Retrieved May 9, 2017, from https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/pakistan/bilawalhits- out-at-pro-india-nawaz-sharif-in-azad-kashmir-rally/
Nedashkivska (2006). Presidential speech and processes of Language: Democratization in Contemporary Ukraine. In :ASEES, 20, 39.www.miskinhill.com.au/journals.com
Ulisses de Olivera
Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS)
Brazil
Fake News datasets: optimization in recognition, classification, and filtering through SFL analyses
Keywords: Fake News; One-Class Learning (OCL) algorithms; Systemic-Functional Linguistics;
Genre.
Fake News is widely understood as news with intentionally false information. It has become a popular topic among scholars interested in understanding the phenomena and creating tools to recognize and deal with its online spreading. In this sense, the wide dissemination of fake news led to efforts from data scientists and linguists to mitigate this problem through filtering systems that apply data recognition based on corpora testing in recently developed data sets. Despite several existing computational solutions for the detection of Fake News, many of them are problematic due to: (a) the lack of comprehensive and community-driven fake news data sets; and (b) very little linguistics research on the definition of Fake News in terms of labeling, genre, categories, and their discursive informational and perlocutionary effects. In this sense, this study applies the Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) framework (Halliday, 1994) to analyze a few examples of fake news from online datasets – in Portuguese, Fake.BR; and in English, the FakeNewsNet repository – to understand their ideational (sate-of-affairs construction) and interpersonal (speaker’s expression of attitudes and judgment) meanings for a more accurate classification. SFL demonstrated to be useful for Fake News analysis because it starts at social context, and looks at how language both acts upon, and is constrained by, this social context. It considers the relationship between language and its functions in social settings. Frequently, a few types of fake news are classified in these databases: fabricated news, satire, extreme bias, conspiracy theories, State news, junk science, hate news, clickbait news, unverified-content news, politically extreme biased news, credible-unreliable news.Considering most systems apply variations of One-Class Learning (OCL) algorithms, studies like this are of utmost importance to instill more accurate data sets to prevent inconsistencies, misuses, as well as bad performances of fake news recognition and filtering online tools.
References:
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
Dubravka Papa
Faculty of Law in Osijek
Croatia
dpapa@pravos.hr
The Use of Metaphor and Metonymy in English Legal Discourse – the Case of the “European Climate Law”
Keywords: Metaphor; Metonymy; EU law; European Climate Law.
Cognitive linguistics has been more interested in metaphor than in metonymy due to universal, conceptual complexity of metaphorical mappings. However, metonymy as metaphor’s “poor sister” is not less universal but operates in a conceptually simpler way. They both are basic cognitive processes influencing the way we think, speak and act rather than embellishments. The approach to metaphor and metonymy has shifted from that of figures of speech to phenomena reflecting relationship between concepts (Brdar, 2007). This paper deals with the differences in approach to metaphor and metonymy within the scope of their effect as well as their typologies. Some metaphors are culturally specific, whereas others occur in different cultures (Kövecses, 2010). Based on the claim that the language of law is culture specific but should also be unambiguous this paper analyses the use of metaphor and metonymy in the legal discourse of EU “European Climate Law” (Regulations (EC) No 401/2009 and (EU) 2018/1999). The aim of the paper is to contrast the English with Croatian conceptual metaphor and metonymy translations, put the corpus into the theoretical framework, and establish the cognitive domains such as “responsibility is a burden”, “progress is a motion forward” etc. The hypothesis is that metaphors that fall into the same cognitive domain in both English and Croatian, are preserved in their entirety in the translation as well. Finally, the conclusion is drawn based on the research data.
References
Brdar, M. (2007). Metonymy in Grammar: Towards motivating extensions of grammatical categories and construction. Osijek, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Osijek.
Kövecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor, language, and culture. D.E.L.T.A., 26:especial. 739-757. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-44502010000300017
Serhiy Potapenko
Kyiv National Linguistic University
Ukraine
serhiy.potapenko@knlu.edu.ua
Ukrainian President Zelensky’s addresses to national parliaments: Effectiveness of arguments based on cultural prototypes
Keywords: Argument; Address; Parliament; Prototype.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speeches to national parliaments draw on cultural arguments meant to influence the local audiences. Their effectiveness is revealed by the prototype methodology relating categorization to the best example (Rosch 2009: 43).
This presentation argues the effectiveness of arguments evoking national prototypes depends on their direct or gradient use.
Direct arguments name the best examples of a particular nation’s culture. In the addresses they are arranged according to three patterns: the zoom-in begins with universal prototypes, e.g. reference to the Mount Rushmore National Memorial symbolizing democracy is followed by naming Pearl Harbor and 11th of September attacks in the address to the American Congress; the zoom-out starts with national prototypes, e.g. a former Polish president’s prediction of the Russian aggression is followed by reference to Pope Paul’s unification mission in the speech to the Polish parliament; the transnational pattern rests on the prototypes important for both peoples, e.g. Greek Chersonesus built on Ukrainian territory and Filiki Eteria organization set up in Odesa to overthrow the Osman rule of Greece.
Gradient arguments differ in the degree of effectiveness. Derivatives construct new referents drawing on the best example, e.g. a European wall image based on the Berlin Wall prototype in the address to the German Parliament. The implicit suggest prototypes without naming them, e.g. a hint at the Fukushima nuclear disaster in the address to the Japanese Parliament. Potentials refer to the possible damage to national prototypes, e.g. projected destruction of Genoa in the address to the Italian parliament.
To conclude, with respect to their influence arguments form the following hierarchy: direct, closest to the national prototypes arranged in varying textual sequences to underscore their importance, and gradient, relative to diminishing influence subdivided into derivative, implicit, potential.
References
Rosch E. (2009). Categorization. Cognition and Pragmatics, 41-52.
Irene Theodoropoulou
Qatar University
Qatar
irene.theodoropoulou@qu.edu.qa
Styl(iz)ing the debunking of the ideological hegemony of the left in Greek political discourse: The case of Adonis Georgiadis
Keywords: Style; Stylization; Performance; Greek politics; left; Adonis Georgiadis.
Aiming at understanding the unified role of speech style and stylization in political discourse, this paper argues that the performative shifting between style and stylization can be employed strategically by politicians in order for the latter to undermine, challenge, and, ultimately debunk political ideologies, a function that has not received enough analytical attention in the scholarship on speech styl(iz)ing; the latter tends to foreground more the role of styl(iz)ing (Coupland, 2007) in the construction of social identities, communities, and ideologies, instead of the deconstruction thereof. The case study of interest is the performatively styl(iz)ed debunking of the ideological hegemony of the left by the right Greek politician, Adonis Georgiadis, the current Minister of Development and Investments of the Hellenic Republic, in his parliamentary speeches, who is known for his rhetorical aptitude, and strategic use of history-based metaphors (Black, 2014). The argument put forward is that through his skilful oscillating between styling and stylizing, based on coercion, legitimation, and representation (Ieţcu-Fairclough, 2008), he manages to construct a performed Socratic type of dialogue, whereby he exposes the inherent contradictions pertinent to the ideological hegemony of the left political ideology that has dominated Greece since 1981, and the specific actions and policies that the SYRIZA-led coalition government has engaged in. By strategically styl(iz)ing these contradictions, he attempts to communicatively debunk leftism in Greek political discourse.
References
Black, J. C. (2014). Analysing Political Speeches:: Rhetoric, Discourse, and Metaphor. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Coupland, N. (2007). Style: Language variation and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. (2008). Legitimation and strategic maneuvering in the political field. Argumentation, 22(3), 399-417.
Helena Worthington
Masaryk University
The Czech Republic
From success to deadlock: How the Iran Nuclear Deal reflects the changing rhetoric of U.S. administrations
Keywords: Iran Nuclear Deal; United States; Critical Discourse Analysis; Power relations.
On 16 January 2016, President Obama announced the achievements of the long-standing negotiations with Iran on its nuclear programme. On this day, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) known as the Iran Nuclear Deal came into operation. The international agreement was designed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon in return for loosening the sanctions that had been imposed on the country. After over two years of Iran’s compliance with the agreement, the Trump administration withdrew from the deal, which allowed Iran to continue the development of a nuclear weapon. Currently, the Biden administration aspires to break the deadlock created by the previous president, and, most importantly, to delay the day Iran becomes a nuclear power.
The presentation attempts to outline the back-and-forth changes in the Iran nuclear programme that reflect the inconsistent U.S. rhetoric towards it. A theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with aspects of Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) has been adopted to analyse the authentic proclamations of the U.S. Presidents that expressed their stances on the Iran Nuclear Deal. Given the position of the United States as the world’s most powerful nation, the key concepts of power relations and hegemony will be discussed.
Consequently, the study aims at addressing the question of how the change in U.S. rhetoric impacts on the nuclear programme in Iran and how that impact then influences the regional geopolitical stability.
References
Fairclough, N., & Fairclough, I. (2012). Political discourse analysis. Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse. Textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. London and New York: Longman.
Gresh, G. F., & Keskin, T. (Eds.). (2018). US foreign policy in the Middle East: from American missionaries to the Islamic State. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Hixson, W. L. ([2008]). The myth of American diplomacy: national identity and U.S. foreign policy.Yale University Press.
Otero, C. P. (Ed.). (2004). Language and politics (Expanded second edition). AK press.
Simpson, P. & Mayr, A. (2010). Language and power. A resource book for students. London: Routledge.
van Dijk, T. A. (2008). Discourse and power. Contributions to critical discourse studies. Houndsmills: Palgrave MacMillan.
van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: a multidisciplinary approach. London: Sage.
Wodak, R. (2011). The discourse of politics in action: politics as usual (Paperback edition). Palgrave Macmillan.
Teodor-Florin Zanoaga
Alfred Ernout Center (Sorbonne University)
France
t.zanoaga@laposte.net
Persuasive Techniques in the Political Media Speeches of the 2022 Presidential Campaign in France
Keywords: Political Media Speech; 2022 French Presdential Election; Emmanuel Macron; Marin Lepen; Political metaphor.
By their political speeches given this year in May and April, the candidates to the French presidential election tried to convince the French citizens to vote for their programs. The purpose of our communication is to analyze the strategies of persuasion from the speeches of two candidates: Marine le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. Until the holding of our conference, we will know which of them will be the winner. The corpus of our research is made up by a group of articles from the newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro and 15 You Tube video speeches of the two candidates among which the traditional final TV debate before the second round. The methodology of our study is based on the data analysis programs Hyperbase and Lexico and on the close reading of the media speeches given by E. Macron and M. Le Pen on TV and in the newspapers. We will analyze the three forms persuasion (ethos, logos and pathos) in the speeches of the two candidates and see which prevail(s) in the case of both of them. If the candidate of the La République en Marche (Republic Forward Party) uses frequently words like tous (“I will be the president of all Frenchmen”), ambition, project, bien décidé, climato-sceptique, Marine Le Pen prefers words such as justice sociale, nation, peuple, respect, respecter, le bon sens, climato-hypocrite. Both of them use repetitions and antithesis in order to emphasize their strong points. We will analyze also the body language of the two candidates in their TV debates and see to what extent it helps them to gain the elector’s credibility. We will examine if the traditional final debate before the second round of the elections should continue to be organized or not, because during the live broadcast the unpredictability factor appears, some candidates could not find rapidly the right words or the right arguments against their opponents and this situation leads them to lose their credibility in the eyes of their voters.
References
Bacot, P. (2016). Discours présidentiels et de présidentielles. Paris, ENS Éditions.
Lamizet, B. (2011). Le langage politique : discours, images, pratiques. Paris, Ellipses, 2011.
Stasilo, M. (2012). Genre de discours politique en France et en Lituanie, éthos des politiciens : déclarations et interviews des candidats élus et des candidats vaincus consécutives aux résultats des élections présidentielles (1993 – 2009), Thèse de doctorat, Université Paris-Est; Vilniaus Universitetas.
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