Papers by Martina Berrocal
Political Discourse in Central, Eastern and Balkan Europe, 2019
Zeitschrift für Slawistik, 2014
Political discourse is closely observed and evaluated by the public, with special attention being... more Political discourse is closely observed and evaluated by the public, with special attention being paid to events in which the accepted rules and norms have not been observed or the common practice has been violated. In this context, terms like political ‘front-stage’ and ‘backstage’ are especially relevant. The ‘front-stage’ is where politicians perform their professional tasks and roles, which are generally audience-oriented; the political ‘backstage’, on the contrary, is where communication lacks the audience-oriented, professional ‘spin’; hence, communication leaks from the ‘backstage’ can cause public distain. The present analysis focuses on an interactional event that took place on 6 of December 2013. While sitting in the Parliamentary Chamber, the incumbent Prime Minister, Jiří Rusnok and two other Ministers from his technocratic government were caught, on microphone, commenting on the obligation of certain state representatives to attend the funeral of Nelson Mandela. The “unspun” language and general tone of the conversation were at odds with desired public image and institutional practice of government members and sparked a heated debate about the propriety of the communication modus among Czech politicians.
Political Discourse in Central, Eastern and Balkan Europe
Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a unique global experience, arousing both exclusionary nationa... more The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a unique global experience, arousing both exclusionary nationalistic and inclusionary responses of solidarity. This article aims to explore the discursive and linguistic means by which the COVID-19 pandemic, as a macro-event, has been translated into local micro-events. The analysis studies the global pandemic through the initial statements of 29 leading political actors across four continents. The aim is to examine discursive constructions of solidarity and nationalism through the social representation of inclusion/exclusion of in-, out-, and affiliated groups. The comparative analysis is based on the theoretical and methodological framework of the socio-cognitive approach to critical discourse analysis and is informed by argumentation theory and nationalism studies. The results of our analysis suggest that leaders have constructed the virus as the main outgroup through the metaphors of the pandemic-as-war and the pandemic-as-movement which have e...
Lodz Papers in Pragmatics. Special issue on The pragmatics of othering: Stereotyping, hate speech and legitimising violence , 2017
As the core of political discourse is the struggle for power and scarce resources, conflict seems... more As the core of political discourse is the struggle for power and scarce resources, conflict seems to be an essential component of political action and interaction. In addition, conflicts in parliament are manifested in many different ways. They range from disputes during the plenary sessions to more personal attacks in the question time. This paper, however, examines an atypical display of parliamentary discourse, namely a speech by a social democratic MP David Rath, which regarded a vote on his extradition and was delivered on 5 June 2012. This speech obviously did not fulfil the primary function of the parliamentary sessions, i.e. legislating and decision-making. Here the MP was given the opportunity to present his own version of events and ask fellow MPs to maintain his parliamentary immunity. The analysis revealed two intertwining discourse strategies. On the one hand, the MP who is charged with several criminal acts presents himself as a victim of a conspiracy. In that, he aims to divert attention from the criminal case while calling for sympathy and providing self-justification. On the other hand, he uses his time to verbally complain about his arrest, the conditions in which he is held in custody, and the people he holds responsible for his current situation; he uses verbal attacks to undermine and disqualify a number of overt and covert enemies. The key aim of the analysis is to explore how victimhood is constructed in discourse, what discourse strategies are observable at the macro-level and how they are reflected in the discourse structure and in the linguistic style.
The essence of political communication is seen in the permanent struggle for power. The situation... more The essence of political communication is seen in the permanent struggle for power. The situation is no different in parliamentary settings where dissent is the driving force of events. The unceasing conflict, whether it is real or staged, can be observed above all in the mediatised forms of parliamentary discourse which take place when medially exposed or voters' sensitive topics are on the program or when political ceremonial events are celebrated. These manifest a finer rhetorical elaboration and a greater presence of quotations and intertextual references. This paper focuses on the debates in the Czech Parliament (Poslanecká sněmovna) during the presidential election 2008. To start, it examines the impact of the post-communist reality on the selection and the use of inter-textual references. Secondly, it considers how the intertextual references used mirror some of the common Czech myths and how the polemic effect of the quotations can be multiplied in the argumentation. To conclude, it traces some additional functions of intertextual references such as framing of a concrete point in complex argumentation or using quotations manipulatively.
Political discourse is closely observed and evaluated by the public, with special attention being... more Political discourse is closely observed and evaluated by the public, with special attention being paid to events in which the accepted rules and norms have not been observed or the common practice has been violated. In this context, terms like political 'front-stage' and 'backstage' are especially relevant. The 'front-stage' is where politicians perform their professional tasks and roles, which are generally audience-oriented; the political 'backstage', on the contrary, is where communication lacks the audience-oriented, professional 'spin'; hence, communication leaks from the 'backstage' can cause public distain.
Tschechisch in den Medien. Kuße, H./Kosourová, H. (Eds.), 2013
Kontexty propagandy. Kouba, M./Magincová, D./ Říha, I. (Eds.), 2012
Beiträge der europäischen slawistischen Linguistik (POLYSLAV). Kislova, E./Knapik-Gawin, K./Kubicka, E./Szafraniec, K./Tomancová, M./Ulrich, S. (Hg.) , 2012
Books by Martina Berrocal
This edited volume offers new insights into contemporary political discourses in Slavic speaking ... more This edited volume offers new insights into contemporary political discourses in Slavic speaking countries by focusing on discursive and linguistic means deployed in relevant genres, such as parliamentary discourse, commemorative and presidential speeches, mediated communication, and literal and philosophical essays. The depth of the linguistic analysis reflects different levels of linkage between language and social practice constituting the discourse. The theoretical and methodological approaches discussed range from interactional pragmatics over corpus linguistics to CDA. The chapters contain original language material in Russian, Polish, Czech, Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian, and the authors address issues such as the affiliation to different political and social groups within parliamentary settings, national identity, gender and minorities, as well as cultural memory and reconciliation.
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Papers by Martina Berrocal
Books by Martina Berrocal