On the Discursive Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Europe: Herausgegeben:Heinemann, Sabine; Helfrich, Uta; Visser, Judith

Europe is the name for a scintillating variety of historically emerged concepts, constantly developed and discussed over time. Its complexity and fuzziness is reflected in a multitude of myths, topoi, symbols and boundaries, which all constitute shared knowledge of the concept of EUROPE and which continue to influence attempts to (de- and re-)construct European identity. The case studies collected in this volume investigate the competing concepts of Europe in political and public discourses from a wide range of perspectives (e.g. frame semantics, discourse linguistics, multimodal analysis), focusing on the following aspects: How is EUROPE conceptualised, (re-)negotiated and legitimised by different political actors, political bodies and institutions? How does “the European idea” change throughout history and how is the re-emerging idea of nationality evaluated? Table of Contents 6 EUROPE under Construction: Introduction and Overview 8 1. Europe – a first approximation to a multifaceted term 8 2. Europe yesterday and today: a historical overview 12 2.1 The beginnings of the EEC/EU 12 2.2 The EU and its crises 14 2.3 Perspectives for the EU 18 3. Linguistic analysis of the conceptualisation of EUROPE 20 Bibliography 24 Founding Concepts: Metaphor and Metonymy in the (French) ECSC Treaty 27 1. Founding concepts of EUROPE in legal discourse 28 2. Theoretical and methodological framework 31 3. A founding metonymy: the European Community and Europe 34 4. Conceptual metaphors for the ECSC 35 4.1 Where BUILDING meets CONTAINER 37 4.2 A LEGAL PERSON WITH A MISSION 38 5. A tentative final word 41 Bibliography 42 The Conceptualisation of EUROPE in the Italian Press since the Early 20th Century 46 1. Introduction – Italy and EUROPE 47 2. Metaphors in political discourse – a theoretical overview 48 3. Europe-related metaphors in the Italian press 52 3.1 EUROPE as a geographical and political reference 53 3.2 PATH / JOURNEY / TRANSPORT metaphors 54 3.3 CONSTRUCTION / BUILDING / HOUSE metaphors 57 3.4 ORGANISM metaphor 60 3.5 Other conceptual metaphors 62 4. Metaphors and frames 64 5. Concluding remarks 66 Bibliography 67 Notre Europe a besoin d’une refondation – Macron’s Strategies of Political Re-Framing 70 1. Introduction 71 2. Theoretical background and methodology 71 3. Analysis 74 3.1 Discursive context and communicative situation: setting the frame 74 3.2 The verbal (re-)construction of the concept of EUROPE 78 4. Discussion and conclusions 91 Bibliography 95 From Brexit to Frentrance? The Brexit Discourse as an Arena for Language Battles 100 1. Introduction: Brexit and French 101 2. Methods and aims 102 3. Background: the EU and its many languages 104 4. Discourse events: the (meta-)linguistic actions of EU actors 107 4.1 The trigger 107 4.2 Language use in Brexit negotiations 111 4.3 The point of culmination 116 4.4 From language battles to battle language 121 5. Final remarks 123 Bibliography 125 Pro-European and Anti-European Attitudes: Linguistic Analyses of the Discourse on Europe Based on German and French Newspapers 128 1. Introduction 129 2. Discourse linguistics 130 2.1 The reception of Foucault’s discourse theory in linguistics 131 2.2 The concept of discourse in Romance linguistics 133 2.3 Methodology 133 3. Corpus-linguistic analyses on the discourse strand “Attitudes towards Europe” 135 3.1 Analyses of keyword-generated corpora 136 3.1.1 Le Figaro (01-01-1997 until 06-02-2021) 136 3.1.2 Libération and Le Figaro (01-01-2018 until 06-02-2021) 137 3.1.3 Die Welt and taz (01-01-2018 until 06-02-2021) 139 3.2 Excursus: qualitative analysis 141 3.3 Analyses of large web corpora 142 3.4 Semantic relations 143 4. Conclusions 145 Bibliography 146 The Fairy Tale Mental Model in Speeches by the Austrian FPÖ and the Italian Lega Right-Wing Populist Parties in the European Parliament: A Contrastive Linguistic Analysis 150 1. Introduction 151 2. State of research 152 3. The conceptual metaphor and the fairy tale mental model 153 4. Methodology and corpus 155 5. Results 158 5.1 THE EU AS A VILLAIN 159 5.1.1 THE EU AS A TYRANT 159 5.1.2 THE EU AS A LIAR 161 5.1.3 THE EU AS A CRIMINAL 162 5.1.4 THE EU AS THE CULPRIT 162 5.2 MEMBER STATES and CITIZENS AS VICTIMS 163 5.2.1 AUSTRIA and MEMBER STATES AS DAMAGED PEOPLE 164 5.2.2 CITIZENS AS DAMAGED PEOPLE 164 5.2.3 ITALY and MEMBER STATES AS DAMAGED PEOPLE 165 5.2.4 ITALIAN CITIZENS AS DAMAGED PEOPLE 166 5.3 MEMBER STATES, GOVERNMENTS and LEADERS AS HEROES 166 5.3.1 AUSTRIA and MEMBER STATES AS PROTECTORS 167 5.3.2 AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT and ORBÁN AS PROTECTORS 167 5.3.3 ITALY AS A HELPER and A RESCUER 168 5.3.4 ITALIAN GOVERNMENT and SALVINI AS COURAGEOUS PEOPLE 168 6. Conclusions 169 Bibliography 175 Podemos, VOX and Ciudadanos – Spanish European Election Campaigns in Times of Crisis 178 1. Introduction 179 2. Podemos – VOX – Ciudadanos: populist parties? 180 2.1 Introducing the parties4 180 2.1.1 Podemos 180 2.1.2 VOX 182 2.1.3 Ciudadanos 182 2.2 Relationship with Europe and the European Union 183 2.3 Podemos – VOX – Ciudadanos: examples of populism? 184 2.3.1 Attempting to define populism 184 2.3.2 Podemos – VOX – Ciudadanos as populist parties 186 3. European election campaign 2019: a comparative analysis of electoral manifestos 188 3.1 Conceptualisation of EUROPE in the last decades: state of the art 188 3.2 Podemos 188 3.3 VOX 190 3.4 Ciudadanos 195 4. Conclusion 198 Bibliography 199 Linguistic Approaches to Discourse: A Multi-Layered Methodology Illustrated by the Example of the Discursive Construction and Deconstruction of EUROPE after the 2015 Paris Terror Attacks 204 1. Introduction 205 2. Linguistic discourse analysis in Romance and German studies 207 3. Theoretical framework: analysing layers, concepts and components of discourse 209 3.1 Characteristics of current approaches from the francophone language area 210 3.2 Methodology for a multi-layered discourse analysis in Romance linguistics 213 4. Discourse analysis: construction or deconstruction of EUROPE after the Paris attacks? 217 5. Summary and conclusion 224 Bibliography 226 RENEWAL vs REBUILDING: Concepts of EUROPE and how Twitter can Shape our Ideas about it 231 1. Introduction: language and the construction of reality 232 1.1 Conceptualisation, linguistic signs and knowledge activation: frames as a model of cognitive knowledge organisation 232 1.2 Political framing 237 2. Twitter as a means of communication for political discourse 239 3. Discourse- and frame-analytical modelling of the concepts of EUROPE in Twitter comments by Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen 240 3.1 L’Europe du renouveau in Emmanuel Macron’s concept of EUROPE and the “Macron bubble” 241 3.1.1 Establishment of concept continuity and consolidation through diffusion 241 3.1.2 Diffusion and echo effects: consolidating the idea of Europe in the “Macron bubble” 244 3.2 Discourse elements “under fire”: attempts at deconstruction 249 3.2.1 Replies and comments as a means for diffusion 250 3.2.2 Rebâtir l’Europe: deconstruction mechanisms and negativisation of default values by Le Pen 253 3.2.3 Processes of deconstruction 259 4. Conclusion: RENEWAL vs REBUILDING in Macron’s and Le Pen’s concepts of EUROPE 260 Bibliography 263