This collection explores the discursive strategies and linguistic resources underpinning conflict and polarization, taking a multidisciplinary approach to examine the ways in which conflict is constructed across a diverse range of contexts. The volume is divided into two sections as a means of identifying two different dimensions to conflict construction and bridging the gap between different perspectives through a constructivist framework. The first part comprises chapters looking at sociopolitical conflicts across specific geographic contexts across the US, Europe and Latin America. The second half of the book unpacks sociocultural conflicts, those not defined by physical borders but shaped by ideological differences on core values, such as on religion, gender and the environment. Drawing on frameworks across such fields as linguistics, critical discourse analysis, rhetoric studies and cognitive studies, the book offers new insights into the discursive polarization that permeates contemporary communicative interactions and the ways in which a better understanding of conflict and its origins might serve as a mechanism for providing new ways forward. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in critical discourse analysis, linguistics, rhetoric studies and peace and conflict studies.

This collection explores the discursive strategies and linguistic resources underpinning conflict and polarization, taking a multidisciplinary approach to examine the ways in which conflict is constructed across a diverse range of contexts. The volume is divided into two sections as a means of identifying two different dimensions to conflict construction and bridging the gap between different perspectives through a constructivist framework. The first part comprises chapters looking at sociopolitical conflicts across specific geographic contexts across the US, Europe and Latin America. The second half of the book unpacks sociocultural conflicts, those not defined by physical borders but shaped by ideological differences on core values, such as on religion, gender and the environment. Drawing on frameworks across such fields as linguistics, critical discourse analysis, rhetoric studies and cognitive studies, the book offers new insights into the discursive polarization that permeates contemporary communicative interactions and the ways in which a better understanding of conflict and its origins might serve as a mechanism for providing new ways forward. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in critical discourse analysis, linguistics, rhetoric studies and peace and conflict studies.

This book addresses an under-researched area within populism studies: the discourse of supporters of populist parties. Taking the 2019 European elections as their case study, the authors analyse how supporters in eleven different countries construct identities and voting motivations on social media. The individual chapters comprise a range of methods to investigate data from different social media platforms, defining populism as a political strategy and/or practice, realised in discourse, that is based on a dichotomy between “the people”, who are unified by their will, and an out-group whose actions are not in the interest of the people, with a leader safeguarding the interests of the people against the out-group. The book identifies what motivates people to vote for populist parties, what role national identities and values play in those motivations, and how the social media postings of populist parties are recontextualised in supporters’ comments to serve as a voting motivation.

Bringing together a body of related research which has recently developed in Critical Discourse Analysis, this book is the first to address the role of perspective in socio-political discourse. Specifically, the contributions to this volume seek to explore, from a cognitive standpoint, the way in which perspective functions in three dimensions - space, time, and evaluation - to enact ideology and persuasion. A range of discourse genres are analysed, including political discourse, media discourse, and songs used as political tools. Starting from the contention that discourse processing relies on the same mechanisms that support our understanding and experience of space, the book finds a recurrent theme in the way in which perspectival concepts like distance and focus, prompted by linguistic signs, feature in our discursively constructed knowledge of social and political realities. By highlighting the complex nature of perspective-taking in ideological discourse, the volume sets the agenda for further research in this area. The book will appeal to linguists, discourse analysts, media scholars, and political scientists, and all who are interested in the relationship between language and cognition in the socio-political domain. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Discourse Studies.

Bringing together a body of related research which has recently developed in Critical Discourse Analysis, this book is the first to address the role of perspective in socio-political discourse. Specifically, the contributions to this volume seek to explore, from a cognitive standpoint, the way in which perspective functions in three dimensions - space, time, and evaluation - to enact ideology and persuasion. A range of discourse genres are analysed, including political discourse, media discourse, and songs used as political tools. Starting from the contention that discourse processing relies on the same mechanisms that support our understanding and experience of space, the book finds a recurrent theme in the way in which perspectival concepts like distance and focus, prompted by linguistic signs, feature in our discursively constructed knowledge of social and political realities. By highlighting the complex nature of perspective-taking in ideological discourse, the volume sets the agenda for further research in this area. The book will appeal to linguists, discourse analysts, media scholars, and political scientists, and all who are interested in the relationship between language and cognition in the socio-political domain. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Discourse Studies.