"The EU is Not Them, But Us!"

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.

“Krizsán has written a book which is a more than welcome addition to the currently under-populated field of large scale corpus research projects grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Krizsán’s book illustrates the gains not only of using SFL theory to make sense of corpus data but also shows how rigorous quantitative findings can be enhanced by follow up qualitative investigation.”—Dr Gerard O'Grady, Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff School of English Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, Wales“[This] is a well structured and interesting book with clear innovative aspects in the field of political discourse in general and EU political discourse in particular. The results of the study—through both qualitative and quantitative analyses—contribute substantially to the understanding of how the EU as a political project is construed in practice.”—Prof Kjersti Fløttum, Department of Foreign Languages, University of Bergen, Norway“In this volume Krizsán contrasts construals of self-inclusion in the discourse of representatives of three member states of the EU. The methodology developed provides a positive step in integrating micro and macroanalysis of textual features in the critical analysis of discourse.”—Dr Tom Bartlett, Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff School of English Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, Wales

Dr Attila Krizsán is a researcher at the Network for European Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His main interests include European and Hungarian political discourse, multilingualism, identification and power in the EU administration and the politics of education in the EU.