British Public Discourse Research Articles

The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 in the Perception of the British Political Elite and British Public Opinion

The purpose of this papers is to analyze the perception of the British public opinion and the political elite of Great Britain of the revolutionary processes in Egypt during the period 1919—1922. The main thesis of this study is that the events in Egypt were on the periphery of British public discourse, but they caused a great concern among the British establishment. The perception of the Egyptians remained in the perspective of the ideas of the “white man’s burden” and the Egyptian nation was denied the right and possibility of self-determination and the creation of its own sovereign state. However, due to the impossibility of maintaining the pre-revolutionary status quo and the willingness of British society and elites to make some concessions to Egyptian leaders, Egypt gained independence while the British maintain the control over the Suez Canal and Sudan as well as the right to patronize Egyptian ethnic and confessional minorities and protect Egypt from external threats.

Responding to Islamophobia: British Muslims “Talk Back” to the UK

This study explores how second and third generation Muslims in Britain resist calls to become “normal” good Muslims and are less willing to respond to accusations of “clashing civilizations,” and instead seek to unapologetically assert their particularized racial and religious difference through cultural expressions of dissatisfaction. I analyze forms of British Muslim cultural production, including visual art, fashion, music, and poetry including a focus on forms particularly expressed on digital platforms. Social media, for example, offers a new discursive landscape where British Muslims are actively using aesthetic driven communities to produce self-expressed visual content. I look at how these forms of sub-cultural expression function as sites of contestation, where Muslim minorities reframe their experiences, challenge dominant messages about their group identity, problematize the essentialism of Muslims, and construct a counter-public—a distinct British Muslim public discourse and cultural narrative specific to Muslims in Britain.

Radical contingency, radical historicity and the spread of ‘homosexualism’: A diachronic corpus-based critical discourse analysis of queer representation in The Times between 1957–1967 and 1979–1990

This paper suggests that LGBTQI representation in The Times does more than simply construct queer subjects. Rather, by representing a sexualised Other, the language of The Times necessarily indexes the presence of an unmarked heterosexual population. Moreover, while LGBTQI people have historically been criminalised and discriminated against, a comparison between two historical corpora (1957–1967 and 1979–1990) demonstrates that The Times has consistently used language to suggest that the heterosexual population is, in fact, vulnerable to the threat of non-normative desire and sexual practices.By considering which key phrases and collocations are consistent between the two corpora, it is revealed that the verb spread is used to position heterosexual people as vulnerable to both ‘homosexual conduct’ in the 1960s and the threat of HIV infection in the 1980s. This is significant because of the considerable influence broadsheet newspapers like The Times had on British public discourse during the latter half of the twentieth century. In order to frame the discussion, the analysis is supported by the theories of radical contingency and radical historicity (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). The former posits that subject positions are necessarily constituted by what they are not while the latter posits that subjectivities available to us in the present are always the result of political processes from the past. The social ontology of discourse theory (Laclau and Mouffe 1985) therefore provides a lens through which to interpret what diachronic newspaper data reveals about how British social attitudes were changing or staying the same during this time.

Understanding the bioeconomy: a new sustainability economy in British and European public discourse

Over the past decade, the term bioeconomy has emerged in both policy and academic discourse. Implying a technology-driven approach to wealth generation from organic materials, the term has taken hold with so far limited critical engagement. It is a contestable rather than contested term. Noting the rise of numerous other ‘economies’ (blue, green, circular) on a similar timeframe, this paper undertakes a critical discourse analysis of academic literature and UK/EU policy documents using the term ‘bioeconomy’ to produce a contextualised understanding of how it is used in both theoretical and practical contexts. Our analysis shows that bioeconomy, as with the other ‘sustainability’ economies, which we term the ‘S-economies’, prioritises the economy and the markets as the solution brokers for the environmental and economic problems they seek to address. The apparent fragmentation of the theory and policy concerning the environmental sustainability of economic activity is expressed through the variability of terms that aspire to establish multiple economies functioning at the same time. Limited empirical analysis of the existing ‘bioeconomy’ is symptomatic of the dissociation between theory and practice, emphasizing technological approaches favouring capital intensive approaches over local solutions. The S-economies, including the bioeconomy, are an attempt to bypass economic structural realities that otherwise would need to be addressed.

Trans Women Are (or Are Becoming) Female: Disputing the Endogeneity Constraint

AbstractThe dispute between the transgender-rights movement and “gender-critical” activists represents a stark division in British public discourse. Although the issues of contention are numerous and require their own philosophical treatment, a core metaphysical concern underlies them. Gender-critical activists, such as Kathleen Stock, tend to argue that recognizing trans women as women requires erasing the category of biological sex. This implies that all trans women are male, and thus recognizing them as women rips female biology from the root of the category “woman.” In this article, I argue that this view is mistaken. As exogenously produced sex characteristics should count toward a person's sex classification, all trans women are (or are becoming) female.

Medicine in theMonthly Review: Revealing public medical discourse with topic modelling

AbstractHistorians of science and medicine have long argued for the need to recover non-specialist views of medicine and health, as research has often concentrated on practitioner accounts. In this paper, we examine medical discourse in the British periodical the Monthly Review. Published monthly from 1749 to 1844, the Monthly was greatly influential in its time. However, it has received limited scholarly attention, due in part to the unwieldy size of its corpus, which spans 96 years and 246 volumes, each composed of three–six monthly issues. We employ statistical topic modelling to analyse the Monthly, revealing the presentation and prevalence of various public medical discourses, as well as how these discourses varied over the course of the periodical’s almost 100 years. As the Monthly aimed to review every published text, it provides records of and contemporary discussions about thousands of texts currently lost from archives. This analysis of the Monthly ultimately sheds light on the medical topics and texts that featured prominently in British public discourse during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Having your cake, eating it and losing the (p)lot : the combination of proverb, hyperbole and sarcasm in (and about) Brexiters’ discourses

Can the use of rhetorical devices designed to achieve persuasion, such as metaphor, irony, proverb and hyperbole, be too persuasive, i.e., overshoot the communicative aims of the speaker? More specifically, can the combination of such devices be ‘too much of a good thing’ because it commits speakers (and their followers) to actions that they were not fully aware of when first launching/propagating them? This paper investigates the socio-pragmatic development of Brexit-related applications of the metaphorical proverb, ‘You cannot have your cake and eat it’, during 2016-2021 in British public discourse. At the start, the proverb’s reversal into the assertion ‘We will have our cake and eat it!’ by the then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and other « Brexiters » became a highly prominent endorsement of Brexit and it temporarily set the agenda for the public perception of the UK-EU negotiations. Its prominence also gave rise to neologisms such as cakeism and cakeist. However, over time it has become an object of derision and has led to sarcastic re-reversals.

Book review: Sam Bennett, Constructions of Migrant Integration in British Public Discourse

Book review: Sam Bennett, <i>Constructions of Migrant Integration in British Public Discourse</i>

Understanding Social Insurance: Risk and Value Pluralism in the Early British Welfare State

This article seeks to make two contributions to the understanding of social insurance, a central policy tool of the modern welfare state. Focusing on Britain, it locates an important strand of theoretical support for early social insurance programs in antecedent developments in mathematical probability and statistics. While by no means the only source of support for social insurance, it argues that these philosophical developments were among the preconditions for the emergence of welfare policies. In addition, understanding the influence of these developments on British public discourse and policy sheds light on the normative principles that have undergirded the welfare state since its inception. Specifically, it suggests that the best model, or normative reconstruction, of social insurance in this context is a value-pluralist one, which pursues efficiency and equality or solidarity, grounded in group-based perceptions of risk.

Can political rhetoric ever be “too persuasive”?

Can the use of linguistic devices to achieve persuasion, such as metaphor, irony and hyperbole, ever be “too persuasive”, i.e., overshoot its rhetorical aim? More specifically, can the combination of such devices be “too much of a good thing” in that it commits speakers (and approving hearers) to actions that they were not part of their persuasion intentions? This paper investigates the semantic and pragmatic development of the Brexit-related applications of the metaphorical proverb, You cannot have your cake and eat it, during 2016–2019 in British public discourse. At the start of that period, the proverb’s reversal into the assertion “We can have our cake and eat it!” by the then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and other “Brexiteers” became a highly prominent endorsement of Brexit and its supposed benefits for the UK; it even temporarily set the agenda for the public perception of UK–EU negotiations. Over time it became an object of hyperbolic praise as well as derision and recently seems to have lost much of its persuasive force. The paper argues that the proverb’s new reversed application by Johnson was initially successful in reviving its metaphorical meaning and framing it in a hyperbolic rhetorical context but that it also pushed Brexit proponents to an “all-or-nothing” outcome of the conflict narrative, both vis-à-vis the EU and within the British political debate. Thus, rhetorical success can lead to argumentative (and political) commitments that may have been not foreseen by the speaker and may run counter to their persuasive interests.

Narratives on the Beginning of the 1875-1878 Uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the British Public Discourse

: In his noteworthy book Against Massacre, Humanitarian Interventions in the&#x0D; Ottoman Empire 1815-1914 (2012), Davide Rodogno states that even prior to the Eastern&#x0D; Crisis (1875-1878), the Ottoman Empire and Turks had been excluded from civilised&#x0D; states and nations for several reasons (despotism, Islam, polygamy, slavery, impossibility&#x0D; of reformation). Thereby, the Europeans have secured the position of being the only&#x0D; ones determining the standards of civilisation: they decide how, where and when a nonEuropean country will access the family of civilised people. As a supplementary part of&#x0D; orientalism, balkanism and ottomanism, as well as a justification to the implementation of&#x0D; the “western” double standard, it was stereotypical to construct a negative image of Turks&#x0D; that also included Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the period of crisis, such was&#x0D; the 1875-1878 Eastern Crisis, the British and other European public and political elite,&#x0D; including Russia, had developed considerable anti-Turkish sentiments. In this paper, I&#x0D; analysed and synthesised discourses about Bosnia and Herzegovina in the British public&#x0D; space, from the beginning of the uprising in 1875, to the anti-Turkish campaign following&#x0D; the Turkish crimes in Bulgaria in May 1876. The discourse on the uprising of the British&#x0D; Consulate in Bosnia and the anti-Ottoman discourse of the British press in relation to&#x0D; the uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina appeared as especially important. The last one&#x0D; appeared through several narratives: oppression as a way of rule, oppression as the cause&#x0D; of the uprising, oppression and the Turkish crimes over Christians as an argument for a&#x0D; humanitarian intervention and western (Austrian) occupational right.

Review, Bennett, S. (2018) Constructions of Migrant Integration in British Public Discourse.

Review, Bennett, S. (2018) Constructions of Migrant Integration in British Public Discourse.

Book Review: Bennett, S. (2018). Constructions of migrant integration in British public discourse. Becoming British

Book Review: Bennett, S. (2018). Constructions of migrant integration in British public discourse. Becoming British

Sam Bennett “Constructions of migrant integration in British public discourse. Becoming British”

This article reviews Constructions of migrant integration in British public discourse. Becoming British 978-1-3500-2920-0

Holocaust Inversion

Holocaust Inversion Lesley Klaff (bio) INTRODUCTION The word "Holocaust", which literally means "a complete burned sacrifice", has since 1957 been the principal English-language referent to the systematic Nazi mass murder of European Jews. This was influenced by Yad Vashem's1 adoption since 1957 of the word as the English translation referent to the systematic Nazi mass murder of European Jews. Prior to that, the word shoah at Yad Vashem had usually been translated into English as "Disaster", "the Great Disaster", "the Destruction Period", and "the European Catastrophe".2 The word "Holocaust" as the dominant referent to the Nazi genocide of Jews is said to have entered mainstream American and British public discourse as a result of the Eichmann capture in 1960 and his trial in 1961; and the acceptance of the word as the appellation for the Nazi persecution and mass murder was hastened by the writer Elie Wiesel who also disseminated the term. In Israeli official and academic circles, however, the word shoah remained dominant and the word "Shoah" with a capital S has been used in English-speaking circles since the early 1990s as an alternative to, or as a synonym for, "Holocaust". THE MEANING OF "HOLOCAUST" Despite its acceptance in the English-speaking world as the principal referent to the Nazi mass murders, the meaning of the word "Holocaust" varies according to whether or not it refers to non-Jewish death as well as Jewish death during the Hitler period, and according to when the Holocaust is said to have begun. For example, President Carter's 1979 Executive Order that created the United States Holocaust Memorial Council defined "the Holocaust" as the ". . . extermination of six million Jews and some five million other peoples."3 Today, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum follows a version of this definition and defines "the Holocaust" as [End Page 73] the "murder of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II."4 Britain's National Holocaust Museum and Centre in Nottinghamshire does not offer a definition but seeks to separate the Nazi Judeocide from non-Jewish death during the Hitler period by describing itself as offering "Exhibitions exploring the history of the Jewish Holocaust and other 20th-century genocides."5 The online Encyclopaedia Britannica defines "Holocaust" as "the 12 years (1933–45) of Nazi persecution of Jews and other minorities . . . climax[ing] in the 'final solution'."6 The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (2007) defines Holocaust as "The (period of the) mass murder of Jews (or transf. of other groups) . . . 1939–1945."7 The American Heritage College Dictionary (1997) defines "Holocaust" as "The genocide of Jews, Gypsies, and others by the Nazis during World War II."8 The Oxford Modern English Dictionary (1996) defines "Holocaust" as "[T]he mass murder of the Jews by the Nazis 1941–1945."9 The Random House Webster's College Dictionary (2000) gives a narrow but not uncommon meaning of "Holocaust" as "the systematic mass slaughter of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II."10 This definition places a significant portion of Jewish death by the Nazis outside the term's boundaries. Finally, it's worth noting the broad description of the Holocaust in the Chambers Dictionary of World History: The attempt by Nazi Germany to destroy systematically European Jews. From the inception of the Nazi regime in 1933, Jews were deprived of their civil rights, persecuted, physically attacked, imprisoned, pressurized to emigrate, and murdered. With the gradual conquest of Europe by Germany, the death toll increased, and a meeting at Wannsee (Jan 1942) made plans for the so-called "final solution." Jews were herded into concentration camps, slave labour camps, and extermination camps. By the end of World War II in 1945, more than 6 million Jews had been murdered out of a total Jewish population of 8 million in those countries occupied by the Nazis. Of these the largest number, 3 million, were from Poland. Other minorities (gypsies, various religious sects, homosexuals) and millions of Soviet prisoners were also subject to Nazi atrocities, but the major genocide was against the Jewish people.11 This is a broad description...

The Immigrant as "the Other". Towards Differential Cultural Models

The study looks at how the fear of the Other, rampant in contemporary societies, is countered linguistically in selected English-language discourses, including both sides of the Atlantic, Australia, and New Zealand. The overarching conceptual category of THE OTHER is internally heterogeneous and involves linguistic portrayals through such terms as other, different, foreigner, stranger, or alien. The kinds of discourses that will be analysed, i.e. those aimed to reduce the level of the fear of or the hostility towards Others, contextualize these terms in ways markedly different from those in the fear-augmenting discourses. Typical devices used for the purpose are collocations and lexical patterns within the text.The data come from British, American, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand press and public discourse, with some insight also obtained from Ryszard Kapuścinski’s book The Other. However, because the book is a series of lectures translated from Polish into English, a brief excursus into the analogous portrayal in the Polish original is also performed. On the theoretical side, the analysis will hopefully provide a hint as to whether and in what ways the heterogeneity of THE OTHER as a concept can be captured in terms of differential cultural models.

A marriage of convenience or an amicable divorce: Metaphorical blends in the debates on Brexit

Abstract The paper investigates the interaction of conceptual blending and conceptual metaphor in producing figurative creativity in discourse. The phenomenon of figurative creativity is defined by Kövecses (2005) as creativity arising through the cognitive mechanisms of metonymy, metaphor, and blending. Specifically, the paper examines the use of creative figurative language in the British public discourse on the topic on Brexit. The aim of this paper is to show that conventional metaphors can be creatively stretched through conceptual blending, producing instances of creative figurative language. Specifically, applying blending theory, we will analyse innovative conceptual blends, motivated by the conventional marriage/divorce metaphor. In addition, the paper also examines the way in which creative figurative language produced in metaphorical blends provides discourse coherence at intertextual and intratextual levels.

Discourse in the United Kingdom on EU immigration: Analysis of Prime Minister David Cameron’s political language on EU immigrants between 2010 and 2015

This article explores how immigration into the United Kingdom from the European Union became a negatively perceived “issue” in British public discourse and how the politicisation of EU immigration unfolded under the first Cameron (coalition) government, with special attention to the rhetoric of Prime Minister (PM) David Cameron. The paper assesses the role the PM’s political language and decisions played in constructing a negative image of EU immigrants in the above mentioned period. It does so by examining his speeches through Critical Discourse Analysis and defining the extent to which he politicised the phenomenon, as set out by the Copenhagen School’s theory of Securitisation. The paper consequently finds that between 2010 and 2015 Cameron’s political language adapted to the political pressures felt both within and outside his party, which as a result steered his rhetoric on EU immigration towards a growingly hostile and alienating direction. This was expressed through a political language that used overwhelmingly one-sided arguments, put more emphasis on the negative side of EU immigration, and often clearly differentiated between the “good” in-group (British citizens) and the “bad” out-group (EU immigrants). However, while the PM’s rhetoric largely contributed to the politicisation of the issue, it had no clearly identifiable securitising intent.

BRITAIN, THE TWO WORLD WARS, AND THE PROBLEM OF NARRATIVE

The concept of coming to terms with the past originated in post-1945 West Germany but such historical therapy is evident in all the belligerent countries. In that process, the two world wars are intricately connected, each seen refractively through the prism of the other. This article focuses on Britain whose national obsession with the two world wars is particularly acute. The first and second sections suggest that British public discourse has been able to construct a satisfying narrative of 1939–45 but not of 1914–18, meaning a narrative that has both a clear beginning, middle, and end and also a stark moral meaning. Viable narratives draw on the events themselves, the words used to conceptualize them, and the interpretations of 'instant' histories and memoirs. The third section argues that the elevation of 1939–45 in national discourse as our ‘finest hour’ (Churchill) has aggravated the problematic nature of 1914–18 for the British. In the wake of Brexit, the last section argues that Britain – unlike France and Germany – has found it difficult to move on from the era of the two world wars by locating these conflicts in a more positive narrative of the twentieth century as the eventual triumph of European integration.

BRITAIN, THE TWO WORLD WARS, AND THE PROBLEM OF NARRATIVE

AbstractThe concept of coming to terms with the past originated in post-1945 West Germany but such historical therapy is evident in all the belligerent countries. In that process, the two world wars are intricately connected, each seen refractively through the prism of the other. This article focuses on Britain whose national obsession with the two world wars is particularly acute. The first and second sections suggest that British public discourse has been able to construct a satisfying narrative of 1939–45 but not of 1914–18, meaning a narrative that has both a clear beginning, middle, and end and also a stark moral meaning. Viable narratives draw on the events themselves, the words used to conceptualize them, and the interpretations of 'instant' histories and memoirs. The third section argues that the elevation of 1939–45 in national discourse as our ‘finest hour’ (Churchill) has aggravated the problematic nature of 1914–18 for the British. In the wake of Brexit, the last section argues that Britain – unlike France and Germany – has found it difficult to move on from the era of the two world wars by locating these conflicts in a more positive narrative of the twentieth century as the eventual triumph of European integration.