Chapter 10
EU institutional websites
Targeting citizens, building asymmetries
This chapter uses corpus methods to explore how
distance and power asymmetries are mediated by EU institutions in
their website netspeak – the digital Eurolect – and subsequently
reflected in Polish translations against the background of Polish
domestic institutions’ websites. At the policy level, the selective
translation of EU content into only procedural languages builds
asymmetries between official languages. The study analysed two
dimensions of translations: (1) grade of specialisation (EU
terminology, EUese), and (2) engagement strategies
positioning institutions and citizens in a discourse. EU and
domestic websites show preferences for different types of engagement
strategies, with the former oriented at downplaying power but
maintaining a respectful distance while the latter decreasing
distance through directness, personalisation, and
informalisation.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Institutional websites as a tool of political marketing and
engagement in institution-to-citizen communication
- 3.Localisation of EU websites: Translators’ agency in institutional guidelines
- 4.Expectancy norms: Transformations of administrative discourse in Post-Communist
Poland
- 5.Corpus design: Institutional websites for citizens
- 6.Analysis of the digital Eurolect: The discursive construction of power and distance in
institutional communication
- 6.1EUese, terminology and a grade of specialisation
- 6.2Engagement: The discursive construction of the institution-citizen
relationship
- 7.Conclusions
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix
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