Political rhetoric and discursive framing of national identity in Croatia’s commemorative culture

Abstract

Abstract The topic of this paper is framing of collective, national identities in commemorative speeches. It identifies abstract conceptions of Croatian national identity articulated by political elites during commemorative practices and examines what patterns are used for their linguistic expression. The questions that are posed are how Croatian nation and national identity are framed in discourse and whether constructs of national identity are formed depending on the context and on the party political affiliation of the speaker. However, the aim is also to track potential changes in elite narratives over time. The analysis is based on a corpus of commemorative speeches delivered by Croatia’s political elites on the occasion of celebration of the Croatian army victory in a military operation. The main focus is on the conceptual and linguistic analysis of the collective identities and sociocultural concepts in the staged communication during commemoration rituals.