Los besos en el pan by Almudena Grandes: Anti-conformism in the face of precarity through a populist reading

This study is concerned with investigating the implications of the new nationalist and populist discourse of the far right-wing movements to immigration in different Arab countries, with a focus on Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan. For this purpose, the study is based on a corpus of different genres, including political speeches, newspaper articles, as well as social media posts and comics. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is used in order to explore speakers’ ideologies and how rhetoric and discursive strategies are employed to influence public opinion and persuade citizens about certain views and policies and even prompt them to take the desired action. Results indicate that the new nationalist and populist discourse adopted by different politicians and far right-wing parties and movements have negative impact on the rights of migrants and refugees in Arab countries. Migrants and refugees are used as scapegoats for political gains. They are blamed for all social, economic, and political challenges and crises these countries are suffering today. Right-wing movements are embedding some hidden ideologies in their political discourse that are related to the hate and rejection of migrants and refugees. It can also be concluded that the increasing popularity of anti-immigration movements and radical right-wing political leaders hint at the influence of the nationalist and populist discourse on the public opinion in their countries. Populist discourse has led to fear and rejection of the “Other”, and even to racist acts and xenophobia.

Bir soylemin varligi uc bilesene baglidir: soylemin kaynagi olan konusucu, alici ve soylemin kendisi. Soyledikleriyle karsisindakini etkilemek ve inandirmak icin, konusucunun icten ve durust olmasi, dinleyicinin duygularina seslenmesi ve ayni zamanda da dogru ve tutarli gerekcelerden olusan bir dil kullanmasi gereklidir. Duygulara seslenen soylemler “yanlis gerekcelendirme” ya da “hatali gerekcelendirme” (ing. fallacies, fr. paralogisme) olarak adlandirilmis ve mahkum edilmistir. “Karsimizdakini soylediklerimize inandirmak icin sadece akla degil, o’nun duygularina dokunmak ya da seslenmek gerekir” dusuncesi de baskalari tarafindan ortaya konmus ve benimsenmistir. Calismamizda, alicinin acima duygularini (fr. appel a pitie) harekete gecirerek kendisine sempati ya da ilgi duymasini saglamak uzerine kurulu olan magduriyet soyleminin (fr. discours victimaire) sozcelemsel, soylemsel ve de sozbilimsel ozelliklerini inceleyerek “magduriyet soylemi siyasal soylemde nasil ortaya konmaktadir? Bu soylemin ortaya konmasi siyasal aktorlerin inandiriciklarinda ya da gerekcelendirmelerinde (fr. argumentation) nasil rol oynamaktadir? sorularina yanit arayacagiz. Calismanin butuncesini, T.C. Cumhurbaskani’nin cesitli zaman araliklariyla ortaya koydugu soylemler olusturacaktir. EXTENDED ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH Victimization in the political discourse Extended Abstract Discourse consists of three components: source of the discourse: the addresser, addressee, and the discourse itself. Aristoteles, hence, identified the rhetorical evidences as ethos, pathos and logos concerning these three components. In other words, the addresser/speaker should be sincere and honest, appeal to the emotions of the addressee and use the language consisting of consistent and accurate argumentations to be able to have an impact on the addressee and persuade target audiences. The discourse appealing to emotions was called as fallacy and condemned by first Plato, the teacher of Aristoteles, then by Hamblin (Fallacies, 1970) and later by the contemporary linguists and argumentation scholars. However, Aristoteles and some contemporary linguists such as Plantin, Amossy, and Charaudeau have adopted the idea that it is necessary to touch upon not only the addressee’s minds, but also their emotions to make them believe what we talked. Because the discourse including the addressee’s emotions is more persuasive and effective. In this study, we aim at analysing the rhetorical, discursive and semantic characteristics of victimization discourse based on activating the humane sentiment of the listeners and arousing interest and sympathy. We are going to try to answer these questions like; how does the victimization discourse present in the political discourse? How does this discourse have a role in the persuading and the argumentation of the politicians to the target audiences? One of the most important manner of discourses is the political discourse that makes us believe what we talk by activating the emotions such as compassion and pathos of the listeners. The usage of victimization in the political discourse means the utterance of the political actor in his speeches about the injustices made to him or the idea he is representing. As for the politician leader of the opposition, he develops his political discourse by complaining to voters about ruling party’s implementations. If the politician is in the ruling party, he complains about the oppression and the interdict made to him or the idea he is representing. The corpus of the study consists of the certain political discourses of President of Republic of Turkey. While he was listing the factors that caused his victimization or the people that behaved unjustly toward him, he listed by beginning from collective subject to individual subject in the subject of political discourse. In other words, the bedeviled people are firstly Saidi Nursi and his idea, then turbaned girls and finally himself as subject of discourse. This list reduces the subjectivity of discourses subject: the bedeviled. At the same time, it has been effective in the presentation of the victimization on the idea he is representing not himself. For this reason, aggrieved party is firstly third-person singular, then first-person singular. Regarding the perception in the listeners or voters by using this discourse of political subject, he aimed at creating a character: brave, fearless hero, ready for going to a prison, even dying for his idea in face of the listeners by using bedeviled political subject with the discursive strategies as stated above. His receiving into prison is so important that he showed this experience as a reason by emphasizing that we are here by wearing our shrouds. Thus, he seems to be as a leader like honourable, brave, religionist and principled. He activates the sentiments of the listeners not only pathos but also highly sensitive religious sentiments. If we think about his discourse He was oppressed, despised, even ignored for a while in Turkey, he has been in power since a long time; the subject of this sentence is now president. We can conclude that victimization in the political discourse is very important, even a discursive irreplaceable strategy.

This chapter argues that despite the convergence of their superficial contents, political and technical discourses are still substantially different in terms of the semiotic structures embodying their logic of articulation. The semiotic structures of populist and technocratic discourses are empirically elicited and compared through a semiotic mapping methodology based on the principles of mathematical network analysis and interpretive semiotic analysis. Findings suggest evidence about the differentiation of populist and technocratic discourses in terms of their semiotic structures for the samples collected from the Turkish political context. Despite its limitations, the semiotic mapping approach developed in this study offers promising methods for bridging the quantitative and qualitative methods for the analysis of policy discourses.

While much work has been done on discourse and populism in Europe concerning various minority groups, little is understood about how populist ideologies are manifested through discourse in current US political and media discourses concerning African-Americans. Using the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, the present study seeks to uncover such discursive patterns. Based on Wodak’s (2015) conception of populism as tied to fear, scapegoating, and ‘othering,’ the current paper aims to address populist discourse in US (social) media. A collection of diverse online media is employed (news articles, YouTube videos) to analyze the populist discourse of Donald Trump, his supporters, and his anti-populist opponents. Particular attention is paid to (anti) racist discourse concerning African-Americans, primarily the case of the Central Park Five. Specifically, the discursive strategies in these types of discourses are examined in order to explain how populism is structured and manifested in discourse, affording the unique opportunity to further understand the unfolding of populist text and talk in its recent and ongoing stages. Findings indicate that the most prominent discursive strategies that characterize these media, and that manifest populist attitudes are despective lexical choice, legitimation, evasion, and exclusionary rhetoric. This qualitative analysis reveals the subtle ways in which African-Americans are discriminated against through language use and sheds light on (anti) populist ideologies in US media. Additionally, this work tries to fill a gap in exploring resistance discourse (i.e. anti-populist), an understudied area in the critical discourse studies literature.

<bold>ABSTRACT</bold> In post-truth times, information manipulation permeates public and political discourse on an increasing scale. Under post-truth conditions, populists and disinformation purveyors have found a fertile ground to flourish. The aim of the paper is to look systematically at the linguistic properties of ‘populist politics as a discursive practice’ [Gidron and Bonikowski (2013). Varieties of Populism: Literature Review and Research Agenda (Working Paper Series). Cambridge, MA: Wheatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University., no. 13-0004] in Lithuania. Linguistic manifestations of (inter)subjectivity and affect in an interview from a media outlet circulating disinformation are investigated from the perspectives of the Discourse-Historical Approach [Wodak (2002). The Discourse-Historical Approach. In: R Wodak, ed. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. Sage Publications, 63–94. GBR], the Appraisal theory [Martin and White (2005). The Language of Evaluation. Appraisal in English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan] and the affiliation framework [Inwood and Zappavigna (2023). Attitudes About Propaganda and Disinformation: Identifying Discursive Personae in YouTube Comment Sections. In: S. M. Maci, M. Demata, M. McGlashan, and P. Seargeant, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Discourse and Disinformation. Milton Park: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003224495]. The findings indicate that the populist actors who build their discourse on certain elements of disinformation may employ a repertoire of complex linguistic tools targeting the sensitivities and insecurities of the target audience. An effective interplay between the language of affect, (inter)subjectivity, communing affiliation, and discursive strategies may result in the increased persuasiveness of disinformation and populist discourse (especially before and during intense pre-electoral and electoral periods such as before and during 2024) and, subsequently, in gaining parliamentary seats or public positions, or, at least, gaining more target audience attention for paving the way for the desired future political career.

The war unleashed by Russia in 2022 is widely presented in online versions of English-language newspapers; Ukraine is constantly in the epicentre of the world news. This study highlights political and ideological contexts of the war in Ukraine, the sociopolitical and cognitive aspects of news according to an interdisciplinary approach considering the language as a social practice. The article highlights the polarization in the presentation of the events and the main actors entitled in the discursive strategies, representing the dichotomy In- versus Out-group. The study is aimed at the investigation of the ideological structures and their manifesting linguistic devices in political discourse based on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of discursive strategies for constructing the images of Ukraine and Russia in the British and American press. The integrated Critical Discourse Analysis was applied to the research of the news to study the media discourse and the language, where CDA focuses on social practice, social power and ideology. Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) is used to research the ideology of war images presented in the language of news reports. The relevance of this study determined by the aim is to show the main discursive strategies of polaeization in political media discourse. The research methods of the article combine three vectors of the analysis by Fairclough with explanatory tools (by van Dijk), and the elements of stylistic analysis and Critical Metaphor Analysis. The illustrative material was collected by information search and continuous sample from the open access newspapers and magazines issued in the US and Great Britain (The Daily Mail, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and others). Conclusion. This research argues that polarisation is being demonstrated in the media discourse on the war in Ukraine in 2022. The taxonomy of the identified discursive strategies of polarization deployed in the media political discourse includes labelling, evidentiality, number game, hyperbolism, victimization, personalization and analogy, that can either be used singly or intervened. The discursive strategy of evidentiality is applied to authorities, officials, witnesses that are accepted as trustworthy sources of data; the number game strategy combined with victimization are verbalized by metaphoric simile, metonymy, enumerating and magnifying the numbers with the modifying adverbs; the strategy of hyperbole conveys the positive impression of the in-group and negative acts magnification of the out-group verbalized by metaphor, metonymy, metaphtonymy; the personalization strategy is deployed with the purpose of foregrounding the positive actions of the in-group that implies negative out-group actions; the strategy of analogy is applied in the comparison of the war in Ukraine and the struggle of the Ukrainians for their independence with other historical events. Linguistic means used to realize the discursive strategies of polarization include the conceptual metaphor, metonymy, simile, idioms, metaphtonymy, intertextual allusion and personification.

Discursive strategies are often deployed to create awareness, capture and persuade electorate in political campaign songs. Existing scholarly works on political and electoral issues have examined different aspects of political discourses but have not sufficiently examined the import of political campaign songs in electoral and political discourses. Therefore, this paper examines the use of political campaign songs in southwestern Nigeria with a view to identifying the discursive strategies deployed to persuade the electorate. The YouTube Channel was visited in order to retrieve the transcript of political campaign jingles used during the 2011, 2015 and 2019 general elections in southwestern Nigeria. The selected period comprised the most recent general elections in the region. Guided by relevant aspects of the socio-cognitive model of critical discourse analysis, data were subjected to discourse analysis. The analysis uncovers the vital relationship existing between the political campaign songs and the Nigerian socio-cultural spatial setting that produced them. Eight discursive strategies: allusion (historical, religious/biblical, socio-cultural), propaganda, indigenous/native language usage and code alternation, reference to collective ownership, figurative/proverbial expressions, adaptation of common musical tune, and rhythmicity were identified. Politicians use different discursive and rhetorical strategies in their political campaign songs to open the door to the heart of the electorate.

Populism is often seen as a tactic, strategy and method of campaigning in political communication that exploits political discourse. Populism plays a vital role in Indonesia’s 2019 presidential election. Various research has been carried out to understand the practice of populism. However, few have explained the way social media and online news in populist communication practices relate to the discourse of the online presidential campaign. This research aims to understand the pattern of the use of populist discourse in Indonesia’s 2019 presidential election in online news and social media. The study employed Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) that focuses on social identity construction and the relation of populist discourse practices. Data for the study were obtained from online news from January 15 to February 14, 2019. A total of 81 news articles from online news and 576,782 entries that are disseminated in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube were analyzed by using Nvivo and web crawlers. This research finds that, first, political discourse and populist discourse are amplified by online news coverage and extended in the social media; second, online news does not engage in producing populist discourse but echoes the populist discourse by citing politician’s populist utterance. In conclusion, populist keywords and concepts like infrastructure, food, energy, and radical become a hegemonic discourse in Indonesia’s 2019 presidential election. There are two important contributions of this study on populist discourse in Indonesia’s 2019 election campaign. One, the knowledge of the pattern of the distribution of populist discourse. Two, the understanding about the use of populist discourse in social media and online news.

This study is aimed at studying framing strategies in political discourse. The aim of this scientific work is to study discursive framing strategies, namely lexical and predicative ones, in the texts of political messages published by Pedro Sanchez, one of the candidates for the post of the Spanish Prime Minister in April 2019.Within the framework of this study, we use the analysis model proposed by Beatris Gallardo-Paúls. Taking into account Fillmore’s ideas, she suggests using framing mechanisms, which help each speaker direct the recipient’s interpretation by means of various discursive strategies. B. Gaillardo-Paúls distinguishes three levels of pragmatics with different strategies; within the framework of this article, the strategies are analyzed at the level of the utterance.The study revealed the frequent use of such lexical means as metaphor, anaphora and euphemism, which emphasizes the importance of their role in creating a political image and influencing the emotional perception of the audience. We also note a high frequency of the personal pronouns “we” and “they” as actants, which helps the politician to emphasize the ideological confrontation between the left and right parties in Spain.

The aim of this volume is to identify, explore and compare expressions of populism in the Romance-speaking part of the world. The volume includes studies from different academic disciplines such as discourse analysis, cultural and media studies. Populist discourses are generally characterized by a deep polarization of positions and a disproportionate reliance on accusations. Populist discourses frequently reinforce existing antagonisms and undermine the traditional political argumentative style, based on the factual confrontation of opinions in the public space. Populist leaders often present themselves as the unfettered spokespersons of the people with whom they form a community of “us” in the struggle against “them”. This accords with the strong polarization mentioned earlier. The rise of populist discourses in many countries over the past decades could be due to changes in political communication. The constant and overwhelming dissemination of information in all types of media, the consequent relativization of truth, as well as a less clear political division on a left-right scale, could favor political alternatives based on personality and the highly polarized messages we see today. The question of how to reach voters in today's media buzz is a much bigger question today than it was a few decades ago, and the exposure of faces and comments has increased exponentially, which in itself can promote a certain kind of politicians. In fact, there is a strong emphasis on the leadership of populist movements, which is also a recurring theme in this book, alongside the impact of the new media landscape on political discourses. In this light, some of the recurring themes in the thirteen studies included in the volume are the denunciation – by populist voices – of the corruption of the so-called elites as well as their inability to solve concrete political and economic problems. It is also about the escalation and reinforcement of populist discourses as an expression – an act – of extreme criticism, even hatred, against traditional political leaders. These populist voices are looking for scapegoats and claiming proximity to the people, represented in the discourse as an authentic and uniform group. Other recurring themes are the emphasis on traditional values, national symbols, ethnicity, and nostalgia for a bygone era, which are effective subjects for eliciting feelings and fostering a sense of togetherness. The interplay between some of these issues is explored in more detail in the book. The chapters of the book indeed show to what extent populist discourses introduce a system based on characteristics such as unilaterality, through the designation of a threat and/or a common enemy, and on the strong focus on the rejection of the legitimacy of the adversary.

There are different techniques that have been evaluated to identify whether a political discourse is populist or not. This research analyzes the debates in the plenary session of the Peruvian Congress during the first legislature of 2020 using NVivo and clause-based text semantic analysis (CBSTA). It is concluded that this technique allows us to observe that there is no populist discourse in the entire Congress but a partial use of it, more aimed at highlighting the demands of the people. However, there is a populist discourse when addressing some issues and within some political parties when they address certain issues. The use of populist discourse is not constant, it has variations and is applied to some issues more than others.

The article reveals the relevance of the study of populist political discourse in the context of modern socio-political processes, and justifies the need to find effective tools for solving research tasks. It is emphasized that the multifaceted nature of the study of populism (as a political technology, as a specific nature of political activity, as a socio-political phenomenon, as an ideology, etc.) actualizes the problem of finding effective methods of its research, determining the essence of this phenomenon of political reality. In this context, the potential of the methods of discursive psychology as a possible tool for the study of political populist discourse is analyzed. Discursive psychology is defined as one of the directions of social constructivism. The possibilities of using the tools of this field of knowledge for the study of populist discourse are revealed. Also the possibilities of discourse analysis and its application for decoding meanings and interpreting information in the process of social interaction are analyzed. It is shown that the participants of this interaction are considered by discursive psychology, on the one hand, as products of certain discourses, on the other hand, as their producers, as agents of cultural reproduction and social changes. The main theoretical and empirical studies of discourse, which were formed within the framework of discursive psychology, are analyzed. The main provisions of M. Foucault’s post-structuralist theory are revealed, which is based on the analysis of the interrelationship of discourse, power and the subject. The main provisions of the theory of interactionism are highlighted and the approach to discourse as a manifestation of the inner world of a person, which is formed in the process of social interaction – a kind of "exchange of symbols" through interaction, is analyzed. Based on the research results of J. Potter and M. Wetherell, an attempt, within the synthetic approach, to combine these two paradigms is analyzed. The main principles of discursive psychology are singled out, the use of which is, in the opinion of the author, expedient for the study of political populist discourse. As a result of the research, the author came to the conclusion about the expediency of using the methods of discursive psychology as a tool for researching political populist discourse, the significant heuristic potential of the selected methods for political science, in particular in linguistic and discursive research of political populist discourse.

The current study is an attempt to reveal hidden nationalist attitudes in the political discourse of the American right-wing party in the USA using critical discourse analysis. The study aims at identifying the discursive strategies used in political discourse with regards to nationalism and immigration, investigating the construction of in-groups and out-groups, clarifying the positive self-presentation and negative others presentation, showing the most common warrants used to justify nationalist rhetoric against immigrants and, setting conclusions. In order to achieve the aims of the study, it is hypothesized that (i) Discursive strategies are used to construct immigrants as out-groups and political actors and their allies as in-groups (ii) Political actors use positive self image to present themselves and negative others to present immigrants. (iii) political actors use criminalization ideologies to justify their nationalist discourse against immigrants . In order to achieve the aims of the present study, the following procedures are followed (i) Data is selected from the YouTube which is a press conference for the American right-wing president, Donald Trump (ii) The data has been analyzed linguistically to show discursive strategies used by Trump with regards to nationalism and immigration (iii)The model adapted for this study is DHA to CDA; Reisigl and Wodak (2001,2009).The study comes up with these conclusions (i) Results of the study verify all the hypotheses set forward (ii) Trump names immigrants as part of out-group and his people as in-group (iii) Trump presents immigrants with negative others image and present himself with positive self-image(iv)Nationalism in the USA is a civic nationalism.

This article raises the question of argumentative technique in political discourse. The main objective of this contribution is to study the different discursive strategies used by French President Emmanuel MARCON to put into argument his speech delivered on March 12, 2020 on the measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. The results of this study show that political discourse is ostensibly argumentative and that it depends for its preparation on several discursive processes. Keywords: Political Discourse, Argumentative Technique, Discursive Strategies.

Diplomatic language and political discourse have always been inseparable and have wielded effects in terms of power, control, and domination. These effects depended on how language was used and for what purpose. The article stems from the premise that the use of specific strategies, particularly discursive strategies, enables users to convey power and leadership. Consequently, this article analyzes the political discourse, specifically the diplomatic language, used in the welcoming speech delivered by Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed at the African Union (AU) Assembly. The analysis is conducted based on Reisigl and Wodak's Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) theory, focusing on their five discursive strategies. The goal is to uncover the discursive strategies employed by Abiy Ahmed to achieve unity and, through unity, convey Africa's power in general, in the face of foreign intrusion, as well as Ethiopia's power specifically. The analysis reveals that the discursive strategy of predication predominated throughout the speech, both individually and in combination. Predication was employed to showcase notions of power, positivity, independence, and sovereignty of Ethiopia. By utilizing these discursive strategies, Abiy emphasizes the importance of collaborative efforts to overcome any obstacles that arise in Africa.