Political discourse is omnipresent in our societies since we have access to a never-ending stream of political messages through media, messages about how the outside world is governed or should be governed. Politics is basically about ideas, ideologies, visions, and arguments, conveyed by language, with which it is closely connected. It is difficult to study one aspect without taking the other into account. In other words, the different approaches (linguistics, discourse analysis, history, political and social sciences) are complementary to each other, as the starting point of analysis is different. Whereas linguistic and discourse analytical approaches have as starting point concrete textual elements and discourse practices (micro-level analyses), the political and social science approach often takes as its starting point society at a macro-structural level. Thus, while the latter gives a picture of general tendencies, the former highlights the practices of individual politicians and political parties.

Argument

Political discourse is omnipresent in our societies since we have access to a never-ending stream of political messages through media, messages about how the outside world is governed or should be governed. Politics is basically about ideas, ideologies, visions, and arguments, conveyed by language, with which it is closely connected. It is difficult to study one aspect without taking the other into account. In other words, the different approaches (linguistics, discourse analysis, history, political and social sciences) are complementary to each other, as the starting point of analysis is different. Whereas linguistic and discourse analytical approaches have as starting point concrete textual elements and discourse practices (micro-level analyses), the political and social science approach often takes as its starting point society at a macro-structural level. Thus, while the latter gives a picture of general tendencies, the former highlights the practices of individual politicians and political parties.

The idea of the conference is to focus on political election debates in different Romance speaking countries. This target is justified by the fact that election debates are particularly important in the study of political discourses. As social phenomena, they are very important since they are public, they are large media phenomena, and they reflect the ideological polarization of our societies. As a linguistic activity, the political debates are interesting study objects, especially within rhetorical, argumentative and interactive studies. Many election debates have influenced different countries’ ideological choices, national identities, and they have also left their stamp on the languages. The plenary lectures will thus deal with political debates broadly within discourse analysis perspective that is, from textual analysis of linguistic units in a social context to studies of debates – not as language activities, but as cultural, social and historical phenomena creating meaning in relation to the outside world. The common denominator, the closely related languages and cultures as well as common points in the discursive and rhetorical traditions of the Romance countries despite of the existing diversity, turns an interdisciplinary, comparative study into an especially interesting subject with a high relevance for larger questions concerning, for instance, the European and the Mercosur integration processes and the necessity to shape a public opinion and political discourse across the national borders.

An interdisciplinary approach: objectives:

Every political leader in a functioning democracy should aspire to communicate with his/her electors, and for this purpose adapt his/her discourse to them. It is therefore of crucial importance for our conference to compare political debates within and across national borders, focusing on, for example, terms of address, politeness strategies, discursive ethos (self-presentation), themes, cultural or religious allusions, gender – in the light of socio-cultural factors, such as level of education, language, religion, ethnic groups, political systems, the communicative situation, and other socio-pragmatic factors, such as variation within interaction norms. The conference will thus search answers to questions such as how linguistic means and communicative strategies contribute to the discursive ethos of the candidates and how the ethos relates to other discourses in the society as well as how the macro political constellation is reflected in concreto in the debates.

Main themes

There will mainly be a focus on different types of political election debates, on the national level. Here are some questions, which will be treated:

• Are there/What are the cultural differences between the Romance language speaking countries? With which linguistic and social parameters can these differences be described and may be explained?
• Are there any differences between more recently (i.e. during the last 40 years) re-established democracies in comparison to countries with a longer democratic tradition like for instance France?
• What differences do we find between Romance speaking countries in Europe and those on the American continent?
• Another central question for the conference will be the distinctive marks of the political debates as a genre and which role and status debates (as social activities) have in different societies. Which extra-linguistic expressions (as gestures, pause, scenography, image, etc.) are relevant for each culture?
• What place holds the debates in the media and how does this influence the debates’ character and the participants’ actions?
• With these intercultural perspectives the conference will focus on notions as argumentation, rhetoric, ethos, register, sociolinguistic variation, politeness, face-work, interaction and gender.

The workshop wish to include various aspects of the political discourse: linguistic, social, cultural and historical and it aims to establish a closer collaboration within discourse analysis and political discourse in the Romance speaking countries.

The conference’s concept is, to sum up, based on the assumption that knowledge and understanding of political discourse is best achieved through collaboration between the disciplines of linguistics and social sciences. Social, historical as well as linguistic perspectives will hopefully involve scholars from both the humanities and the social sciences.

Submission guidelines

We invite submissions that approach one or any combination of these questions. We invite you to come up with a thematic panels or individual presentations.

Please submit abstracts by email to n.n@su.se

Abstracts should include a title, your contact details (name, affiliation, mailing address, email) and description of your paper (300 words)

Important dates

Deadline for abstract submission:

July, 15th 2014

Notification of Acceptance: August 23d 2014

Conference date: October 9th – 11th, 2014

Organisation and Scientific Committee

• María-Luisa Bartolomei,
• María Bernal,
• Thomas Johnen (coordinator),
• Andrés Rivarola,
• Malin Roitman,
• Françoise Sullet-Nylander,
• Fredrik Uggla (Romance Studies and Classics, University of Stockholm);
• Paulina de los Reyes (Department of Economic History, University of Stockholm)

Invited plenary speakers

1) Patrick Charaudeau, Université Paris XIII (One of the internationally most recognized French researchers on discourse analysis. He has an important focus on media political discourse. His regional scope includes France and Latin America. His publications are on French, Spanish and Portuguese. Many of his works has been translated to Spanish and Portuguese);

2) Catalina Fuentes Rodríguez, Universidad de Sevilla. (One of the most important researchers on Pragmatics in Spain. She has done important research on argumentation in Andalusia’s parliamentary discourse; Spanish);

3) Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Université Lumière Lyon 2 (One of the internationally most recognized French researchers on Pragmatics with important research on political discourse and French election debates; French)

4) Maria Aldina Bessa Ferreira Rodrigues Marques, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal (One of the most important researchers on political discourse in Portugal; Portuguese).

5) Fredrik Uggla, Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Stockholm University. Background in political and social sciences and an important research on election campaigns in different Latin American countries.