European integration process has been one of the dominant topics in Serbian political agenda ever since the regime-change and the restoration of democracy in 2000. Social and economic reforms related to that process are metaphorically represented in Serbian political and public discourse as the “European path” of Serbia. It is a variant of the “Path to Democracy” metaphor and the idea behind it is the assumption that democracy is the most moral form of government (Lakoff 1999). The EU and its political, social and economic system are presented as the best model for the future of Serbia and the EU influence is openly accepted by the Serbian political elite as an integral part of policy-making process (Stojic 2006). Since this complex political, social and economic transition, commonly referred to as “reforms” in political and public discourse, often implies painful changes for different groups of Serbian society, it is important to present it not only as a desirable and necessary but also as an inevitable process. This is accomplished by a careful choice of argumentative tools that the Serbian political elite apply to discursively construct the Serbian Euro-integration process (“the European path” of Serbia). This discourse is an important part of Serbian state narrative, since it explains relations with other states and determines directions of definition for both internal and external politics. Because state narratives are an effective tool for spreading state ideologies, it is important to analyze them in order to better understand the political discourse and the actions it motivates within a society. Therefore, I build on existing scholarship on two important elements of Serbian state narrative on the European integration process, the conceptual metaphor and the cognitive frame, to examine ways in which this narrative is used by political actors to promote their political agenda, namely, the social, political and economic reforms Serbia is obliged to carry out in order to join the EU. Special attention is dedicated to the new framing of Germany, presented and perceived in public as a state with the crucial role for the success of Serbian “European path”. The corpus is composed of statements of the current president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and media reports on his activities, covering the topic of European integration process and the role of Germany in it. This particular corpus is chosen because of the prominent role Aleksandar Vucic has played in Serbian politics in the last several years, serving the most important political functions of Deputy Prime Minister, Prime Minister and President-elect, which makes him currently the key policy-maker in Serbia. The chronological span of the corpus is the period from the rise of this politician to power in 2012 till 2017, when he became President-elect of Serbia. My analysis shows that this political actor: a) metaphorically constructs the European integration process as the “European path of Serbia”; b) presents Serbian-German relations through new cognitive frames, by strategically using the traditional Serbian narrative on Germans and their states. In doing so, he deactivates the well-established frame of aggression and threat posed by the Germans and activates the equally rooted frame of Germans as disciplined and hard-working people. Using the metaphor “Nation/ State is a Person”, where national mentalities correspond to personal characteristics of an individual, Vucic emphasizes positive characteristics of German mentality as the model that Serbs should look upon in order to be successful in their “European path”. The objective of this frame change is to further promote and justify the social, political and economic reforms carried out in the transition process of Serbia, since these reforms often prove to be harmful for numerous groups in the Serbian society (the so called “victims of transition”). The structure of the paper is as follows: I first present the key theoretical concepts (state narrative, conceptual metaphor and cognitive frame) and then apply them to the qualitative analysis of the corpus. Certain discursive patterns have been observed both in Vucic’s statements and the media coverage of his activities. Relaying on theoretical framework based on postulates of cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis (which is interested in the ways language/ discourse contributes to the dynamics of power relations within a society), I offer possible explanations of meanings and functions of the observed discursive patterns. The results of the analysis confirm the importance of the strategic use of state narratives in political discourse as a part of the process of creation of new meanings and promotion of political agendas.
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Apr 12, 2023
Predrag Petrović 
Open Access