Colloquium: New Philologies (E-Journal)
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Let’s stop the enemy! A Critical Discourse Analytical case-study of a national consultation
No full textIn April 2017, the Hungarian government launched a national consultation entitled ‘Let’s stop Brussels’ focusing on topical issues such as Brussels’ prohibition of reductions in household utility charges; illegal immigration; foreign attempts to influence the domestic political scene; Brussels’ attacks on tax reductions and job creation programmes in Hungary. The present study investigates whether there is any extent of manipulation applied in the questionnaire of the consultation sent to Hungarian eligible voters by using van Dijk’s (2006) triangulated Critical Discourse Analytical (CDA) approach. Van Dijk’s three-layered approach to the investigation of manipulation in discourse is an integrated theory that establishes links between three different dimensions of manipulation: society, cognition and discourse. A CDA framework allows a text to be evaluated as manipulative in terms of its context categories rather than merely in terms of its textual elements. Accordingly, the presence of manipulation in the discourse of the national consultation is explored by examining the balance in its participants and in the information shared; by considering its influence on social cognition; and by revealing the rhetorical techniques applied in the discourse of the set of questions. The results of the study show that various techniques of manipulation were applied in all the three layers of the discourse of the consultation
Ernst Bloch’s Ungleichzeitigkeit then and now – About a political term and its reflection in literary texts of the past and present
Get PDFThe term Ungleichzeitigkeit, taken from the philosophy of Ernst Bloch, shows itself as an analytic tool that helps understanding the emergence of nationalism both in the past and present. The objective of the presentation is not only to compare ungleichzeitige developments then and now but also to show in which ways this political term is reflected within contemparary literary texts as well as in novels from the past.
Content„They seized their prey among people who got lost“ – with these words the German philosopher Ernst Bloch described in his book Erbschaft dieser Zeit (1935) the strategy of the Nazis to gain power during the 1920s and 30s. According to Bloch the nationalist propaganda was first and foremost successful due to capitalizing on – what Bloch called – Ungleichzeitigkeit. With this term he encompassed the situation of all milieus and classes which did not stand at the forefront of modernity (especially the petty bourgeois and the peasantry). In contrast to social democratic and communist parties the Nazis were willing and also able to grasp (and henceforward to manipulate) the phantasies and desires of these groups of people.
Mutatis mutandis the concept of Ungleichzeitigkeit uncovers a similar situation for the present (always having in mind that today there is no political group like the Nazis). Citizens, particularly those living in small towns and villages, were politically ignored for a long time, leaving them exposed to the propaganda of right wing parties and movements. The words used to gain back trust among these people often ring hollow. However, in contrast to the past – and this will be one central hypothesis of my presentation – there seems to be more awareness today among artists, especially writers, that Ungleichzeitigkeiten within a society are likely to cause soft spots which make attacks on the democracy easier. Authors like Klaus Mann or Hans Fallada captured the Ungleichzeitigkeiten of the 1920s and 30s in their novels when the consequences (or even the aftermath) of the National Socialist empowerment were already visible. They considered the downfall of democracy when it was already deceased. Today, writers like Juli Zeh or Saša Stanišić seem to be more conscious towards reality. In their novels they consider the living conditions, problems and dreams of people living in rural areas, thus making it harder for the rest of the population as well as for politics to ignore potential threats that go along with developments that are characterized by Ungleichzeitigkeit.
As the paragraph above already indicates, the notion of Ungleichzeitigkeit from the philosophy of Ernst Bloch will be methodologically crucial for my presentation. I did not translate the term Ungleichzeitigkeit because in my judgement transmissions like non-simultaneity or non-parallelism focus too much on the negation. Bloch did not want to describe people living in Ungleichzeitigkeit only as reactionary or backward; he also wanted to stress that there is nevertheless an anticapitalistic impulse that connects for example the peasant with the proletarian (and that of course disappears when nationalist movements get hold of these people). In short, the Gleichzeitigkeit within the Ungleichzeitigkeit is also very important to Bloch. (The same phenomenon is for example true for the term deconstruction.) Following Marxist thinking Bloch used the concept of Ungleichzeitigkeit to capture differing developments of social classes. The peasant for instance, bound to his own clod of earth, with the means of production in his own hands has not much in common with his fellow citizens living in the cities. These groups share the present but nevertheless live in totally different times. However, they are both pressured by the same economic development which can lead to the above mentioned anticapitalistic impulse. Because this impulse is not very clear and precise, particularly for those affected by Ungleichzeitigkeit, these people need to be addressed in a specific way by left wing politicians and thinkers. According to Bloch this was not done during the time of the Weimar Republic.
When it comes to this failure and to the Nazis who used it for their own purposes Klaus Mann’s novel Mephisto in part almost seems like a reflection of Bloch’s theoretical concept. Especially analysing the character of Hans Miklas – a young actor coming from rural Bavaria to Hamburg who struggles to make a living and eventually turns towards the Nazis – will be fruitful in this context. As already mentioned neither is there such a party as the Nazis in the present nor did we witness an antidemocratic takeover in politics. But nonetheless Ungleichzeitigkeiten are still in place and play a major role in the emergence of today’s nationalist movements. Against this backdrop novels like Juli Zeh’s Unter Leuten or Saša Stanišić’s Vor dem Fest seemingly appear like a reminder that there are people who should not be forgotten. Analysing these novels with Bloch’s concept of Ungleichzeitigkeit and at the same time comparing them with literary texts from the past potentially reveal that they can be a powerful means in undoing (or at least in pushing back) antidemocratic movements of the present
The Role of Language and the Significance of Primordialism in Nationalistic Rhetoric: A Case Study of National Identity Discourse in Contemporary Japan
Get PDFNihonjinron, the particularistic discourse on Japanese national identity, successfully dominates the Japanese panorama even now, thanks to the influence of academic and popular literature, mass media, Japan’s powerful cultural industry, politics, and a widespread, genuine interest in “Japaneseness” among the Japanese themselves. The works of professor Watanabe Shōichi represent an outstanding example of Nihonjinron literature and of its temporal continuity. From the second half of the 1970s until well into the 2000s, Watanabe has been surprisingly prolific in the nihonjinron field, enthusiastically propagating the establishment’s ideology. In this respect, his essays provide a significant insight into three main aspects of the Nihonjinron: the role of language as the highest expression of national identity; the existence of a widespread set of peculiar Japanese expressions conveying its ideological framework; its deep-rooted primordialist core. In the construction of a lexical and conceptual dichotomy between the stratum of the supposed “native lexicon” and that of “foreign loans” which compose the Japanese language and in the emphasis on the uniqueness of the Japanese language as a vehicle of Japanese primeval spirit, Watanabe shows the primordialist system of beliefs surrounding the concept of the “Japanese nation” (naturalness, organicity, continuity, timelessness, mythical-ness, sameness, perennial-ness) which firmly underlines the entire Japanese identity discourse
About the decapitation of corpses: Reflections of Ernst Bloch’s Ungleichzeitigkeit in the novels of Klaus Mann (including a glimpse into the present)
Get PDFWith the help of the term Ungleichzeitigkeit the German philosopher Ernst Bloch tried to comprehend the emergence of Nazism. Bloch was not satisfied with the typical Marxist explanation that fascism can simply be understood as capitalism’s last hope. Instead, he focused on dreams, wishes, and worldviews which seemed to be misplaced in the present and, thus, were ignored or considered as reactionary by the political left. Bloch demonstrated how the Nazis were able to exploit these Ungleichzeitigkeiten by addressing them in their propaganda. The objective of this paper is not only to introduce the notion of Ungleichzeitigkeit in its historical context but also to show in which ways this political term is reflected in the novels of Klaus Mann. As Mann, at first glance, may seem as a rather unexpected candidate for such an endeavour, the text starts with outlining the relationship Bloch and Mann had during the 1920s and 1930s. The paper ends with a brief look at today’s Ungleichzeitigkeiten and their reflections in contemporary German literature
Subverting the Ethics of Crime Fiction in Dževad Karahasan’s Noćno vijeće (The Night Council)
Get PDFThis article explores the crisis of modernity using the example of Dževad Karahasan’s novel Noćno vijeće (The Night Council), a work of literature thematising war crimes committed in the name of nationalism during the 1990s in Yugoslavia. By comparing the specific compositional features of this novel with the general formal and ideological tendencies of crime fiction as such, our analysis establishes that the ethical foundations of contemporary civilisation along with the modern notion of justice as mirrored by the genre of the detective novel are, in the case of Noćno vijeće (The Night Council), treated as questionable. Belonging to the line of critique that observes modernity as a state of permanent crisis, this novel betrays the standard conventions of the criminalist genre, thereby contesting the modern era’s prevalent idea of justice by reflecting on the complexity of ethical order in human society
‚Nur‘ Wahlkämpfer oder doch Populisten? Eine linguistische Analyse des populistischen Diskurses französischer Präsidentschaftskandidaten
Get PDFRecently, populist movements are gaining more and more ground in western democracies. As a result, the term populism is applied more widely thus losing its conceptual sharpness. This article therefore aims to identify characteristic features of populist discourse, as opposed to political discourse in general and election campaign communication in particular. This goal is pursued using a dual approach. Firstly, a conceptual discussion shall illustrate the current problems in defining populism. Secondly, the examination of the 2017 French presidential election campaign will provide empirical evidence for typical features of populist discourse. Within the theoretical framework of discourse analysis, a linguistic analysis of the TV show 15 minutes pour convaincre will reveal the main characteristics of populist discourse used by the top candidates Fillon, Hamon, Le Pen, Macron and Mélenchon. Based on these results, different forms of populism will be distinguished. Their common core leads to a multi-faceted definition of populism combining form and content (as follows): Populism is a phenomenon which is based on the appeal to the ‚people‘ and anti-elitism as well as on an antagonistic logic, highly contrasting with the agonal character of political discourse
Language.Literature.Politics. 1918–2018. (Un)doing Nationalism and Resistance
Get PDFThe Open Access journal Colloquium: New Philologies, the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt and the Alps-Adriatic-Rectors’ Conference organised the 3rd AARC PhD Students’ Conference entitled Language.Literature.Politics. 1918–2018. (Un)doing Nationalism and Resistance. The conference took place from Thursday, 20th to Saturday, 22nd September 2018 in Klagenfurt (Austria), at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt.
Selected paper abstracts form the Perspectives section of this Colloquium issue. Revised and amended versions of the papers will be published as a Special Issue.
Preface of the conference programme: Although it may seem to many as a case of déjà vu, we actually bear witness to a cyclical turn of events in history. The world shortly after World War I seems very similar in many ways to the current state of affairs in the sense that another major push against multinationalism, multiculturalism, and globalism is clearly evident. Mirroring 1918 and the nationalist movements of the time, 2018 seems to bring a strong (or at least a loud) return to nationalism. After a long general movement into globalization, unification, and multiculturalism that has marked the period succeeding World War II, nationalism, particularly in the Western World, seems more pronounced today than anytime in the last 70 years. It is particularly rampant in the political discourse of today. On the other hand, supranational entities such as the EU, seem to be deriving new motivation precisely from the revival of these nationalistic tendencies. A thorough look is hence needed into the languages not only of nationalisms, but also of critique and resistance to them, especially into their narrative, rhetoric, and argumentative strategies, as well as their use of metaphors, images, and other devices of communication
Neologisms Concerning Migration Processes: A Czech Example
Get PDFIn order to describe changes in the lexical system, M. Dokulil used the metaphor of a deep body of water. While down in the deep, nothing is happening, on the surface the water never stops to move, flow, circulate. In Dokulil’s metaphor, the surface layer symbolises those lexical items closely related to social changes: new words and old words whose meaning has changed, or old words that have become elements of new words.
The analysis of neologisms occurring during relevant social changes provides a valuable insight into the users’ attitudes towards contemporary events. This paper deals with neologisms and neosemanticism concerning the migration processes that have taken place in Europe from 2011 to 2018. The neologisms are extracted from Neomat, the database for Czech neologisms. An analysis based on word formation and semantics, supported by papers in Neologizmy v dnešní češtině, is followed by an analysis from a sociolinguistic perspective, relying on the work of V. Dvořáčková, E. Mleziva and the theoretical frame given in the monography of V. Muhvić-Dimanovski.
The focus of this article will be on those words which denote concepts related to the great migrations of our time. The productive formation by employing prefixes meaning pro or contra indicates a social urge to express polar attitudes on the subject. Due to the relevance of migration processes in a global context, lexical and semantical borrowing constitute the most frequent word formation types. The meaning of some stable lexical items has changed due to an increased frequency of use and this is carried out in two opposite ways: by blurring lines between closely related items and by filling empty spaces in order to gain higher levels of precisio
