'The Eu Is Not Them, But Us!': The First Person Plural and the Articulation of Collective Identities in European Political Discourse

This volume contributes to the latest trends in discourse studies by presenting a Hallidayan corpus-driven critical linguistic analysis. The results are tested statistically, which enhances their reliability as compared with most previous corpus-driven systemic functional analyses. The linguistic analysis is conducted on context-specific corpora built out of speeches delivered on the topic of European integration by key politicians of similar institutional functions in their respective countries, Finland, Hungary and the UK. The empirical findings offer insights into differences and similarities between articulations of collective identities in the political discourse on EU integration. The results indicate that the different (power) positions assigned in the enlargement negotiations were reflected in the language use of politicians. The findings also reveal shared European patterns of identification among speakers of different national backgrounds. What is more, these patterns reflect the limitations set on being European by the so called democratic deficit of the EU. This monograph can be of interest to researchers, postgraduate students and advanced undergraduates working in the fields of discourse analysis, applied linguistics, political science, sociology and European studies. EU institutions and national government agencies running projects connected to European integration may find this volume useful as well.