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Sailing to Ithaka The transmutation of Greek left-populism in discourses about the European Union

  • Dimitris Serafis*
  • , E. Dimitris Kitis
  • , Stavros Assimakopoulos
  • *Corresponding author for this work
    • University of Malta

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

    14 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This paper examines the reasoning lines in PM Alexis Tsipras’ political discourse in critical moments of SYRIZA’s tenure as the ruling party in Greece. Adopting a CDS perspective, we zoom in on the patterns that underlie the (de)legitimization of the crisis-ridden EU in three seminal speeches by PM Tsipras during the Greek/EU financial crisis. To this end, we integrate systemic-functional and cognitive linguistic tools with a view to scrutinizing representational meaning, before turning to employ the notions of endoxon and topos/locus as a means of studying the particular argumentative inferences, triggered by the respective discursive representations. Through this lens, we show how the overall argumentation can be seen as supporting the (de-)legitimation of dominant EU austerity perspectives while transforming SYRIZA into a pro-austerity voice.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)344-369
    JournalJournal of Language and Politics
    Volume21
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 8 Mar 2022

    Keywords

    • (de-)legitimation
    • Argumentation theory
    • Critical discourse studies (CDS)
    • European Union
    • Greek/EU financial crisis
    • Populism
    • SYRIZA/Tsipras

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