The Discourse of Conflict and Crisis: Poland’s Political Rhetoric in the European Perspective

This book explores the linguistic patterns of conflict, crisis and threat generation in Polish political rhetoric that have been at the heart of state-level policies since the Law and Justice (PiS) Party came to power in October 2015. Analysing a vast corpus of speeches, statements and remarks by prominent Law and Justice Party politicians, this book sheds light on internal parliamentary and presidential discourse against opponents of the government, before widening its lens to Poland’s strained relations with the EU regarding refugee distribution and immigration. Drawing on theories from contemporary critical discourse studies and critical-cognitive pragmatics, the book shows how the crisis, conflict and threat elements in these discourses produce public coercion and strengthen the Party’s leadership. Piotr Cap extends his argument further to examine discursive examples from Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria, Italy and the UK, highlighting the correlation between the Law and Justice Party and broader socio-political and rhetorical trends in contemporary Europe. The result is an authoritative panorama of the mutual dependencies and shared discursive strategies of European right-wing groups.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures and Tables Introduction 1. ‘Do What I Say, Unless…’: Political Leadership, Coercion, and Threat Construction 2. Polish Contexts: Threat-Based Communication and Crisis Management in Communist and Post-Communist Poland 3. Enemy at Home: ‘Total Opposition’, ‘Post-Communist Elites’ and ‘Keepers of the Round Table Order’ 4. The ‘Worst Sort of Poles’ Narrative 5. European Union and the Discourse of National Sovereignty 6. Oppressed by Neighbors: Germany, Russia, and Nord Stream 2 Concluding Remarks Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Piotr Cap is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Lódz, Poland.

Review :
A well-documented study ... The main contribution of Cap's book lies in expanding the intersections between cognitive linguistics and discourse studies by showing how language uses can be weaponized by powerful political actors and explaining the pragma-linguistic operations that result in certain power-legitimizing construals of reality. Piotr Cap’s lucid account is indispensable for English-speakers seeking to understand the workings of national populism, and not only in the form that it has taken in Poland and eastern Europe. Taking full account of national particularities, including Britain’s Brexit, it provides an unusually rich analysis of national-populist text and talk, applying up-to-date methods from the language sciences.