Journal article
Negative Discourse Analysis and utopias of the political
Journal of Language and Politics, Vol.18(3), pp.323-345
2019
Abstract
This paper puts forward an argument about the relation between utopian thought and political discourse. It demonstrates how utopias frame normative discourse in general and political discourse in particular. The argument is informed by Kenneth Burke's theory of the negative command and its place at the basis of all human language. I argue that utopias are necessarily based in the hortatory negative and are, in literary terms, like religious texts in general being 'words about words' designed to coordinate "the tribe". Burke calls such texts 'logological'. The argument I put forward here points to a rapidly crumbling utopia that has beset much of the world and all of the West since at least the Reagan-Thatcher era in which a new corporatist political economy was given global impetus.
Details
- Title
- Negative Discourse Analysis and utopias of the political
- Authors
- Philip Graham (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
- Publication details
- Journal of Language and Politics, Vol.18(3), pp.323-345
- Publisher
- John Benjamins Publishing Co.
- Date published
- 2019
- DOI
- 10.1075/jlp.18052.gra
- ISSN
- 1569-2159; 1569-2159
- Copyright note
- Copyright © John Benjamins Publishing Co. Reproduced with permission. Please contact copyright holder to re-use or reprint the material in any form.
- Organisation Unit
- Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic); University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Creative Industries - Legacy
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450857602621
- Output Type
- Journal article
- Research Statement
- false
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- Web Of Science research areas
- Language & Linguistics
- Linguistics