Most works on populism framed in a discourse-analytic perspective focus on the features of populist discourse itself, contributing greatly to the understanding of the phenomenon. However, a full understanding of populism should also consider the ways in which notions of populism are constructed, negotiated, reproduced, and popularised in public discourse, as this contributes to forming public opinion at large and people’s responses to populism itself. For this reason, the chapter addresses discourses about populism, with a focus on editorials dealing with Brexit in the British and Italian press. Although their position of supremacy in orienting public opinion has been partly mined by talk shows, blogs, and social media at large, opinion pieces remain one of the most important sites in which intellectuals (generally senior journalists) publicly share their views trying at the same time to influence the opinion of the readers. Based on an original framework integrating categories from critical discourse studies, argumentation theory, and the study of heteroglossia/dialogism, the analysis focuses on the ways in which editorialists define and evaluate populism and populists, the argumentative topoi they employ to support their standpoints, and whether and how they engage alternative viewpoints. In our view, all these aspects concur to expand or reduce the space of dialogue created by the text, and hence, we claim, the ability of the readers to feel included, and see their positions represented, in the broader discussion. The risk is that if no dialogue is opened at all with the people who uphold populist views, intellectual discourse will fail to involve them as interlocutors in a critical discussion, thus making them more receptive (or vulnerable) to populist propaganda.
Drehe, Iovan. 2011. “The Aristotelian Dialectical Topos“.Argumentum 9 (2): 129–139.
Kienpointner, Manfred. 1997. “On the Art of Finding Arguments: What Ancient and Modern Masters of Invention Have to Tell Us about the Ars Inveniendi.” Argumentation 11: 225–236.
Marín Arrese, Juana I. 2017. “Stancetaking and Inter/Subjectivity in Journalistic Discourse: The Engagement System Revisited.” In Evaluation in the Media: European Perspectives, edited by Ruth Breeze and Inés Olza: 21–46. Bern: Peter Lang.
Martin, James R., and Peter R. R. White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation. Appraisal in English. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Perelman, Chaïm, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1991. The New Rhetoric. A Treatise on Argumentation (translated by J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Reisigl, Martin. 2014. “Argumentation Analysis and the Discourse-Historical Approach. A Methodological Framework.” In Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies, edited by Christopher Hart and Piotr Cap: 67–96. London: Bloomsbury.
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2001. Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. London: Routledge.
Rigotti, Eddo, and Sara Morasso. 2010. “Comparing the Argumentum Model of Topics to Other Contemporary Approaches to Argument Schemes: The Procedural and Material Components.” Argumentation 24(4): 489–512.
Sicurella, Federico Giulio. 2015. Intellectuals as Spokespersons for the Nation in the Post-Yugoslav Context. A Critical Discourse Study (Doctoral dissertation). Lancaster University, United Kingdom.
Stavrakakis, Yannis. 2014. “The Return of the People: Populism and Anti-Populism in the Shadow of the European Crisis.” Constellations 21(4): 505–517.
Thompson, Geoff, and Susan Hunston. 1999. “Evaluation: An Introduction.” In Evaluation in Text. Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse, edited by Susan Hunston and Geoff Thompson: 1–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Townsley, Eleanor. 2015. “Public Intellectuals, Media Intellectuals, and Academic Intellectuals. Comparing the Space of Opinion in Canada and the United States.” In Speaking Power to Truth: Digital Discourse and the Public Intellectual, edited by Michael Keren and Richard Hawkins. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.
van Rees, Agnes M. 2005. “Indicators of Dissociation.” In Argumentation in Practice, edited by Frans H. van Eemeren, and Peter Houtlosser: 53–68. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Voloshinov, Valentin N. 1995. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, Bakhtinian Thought – an Introductory Reader (translated by S. Dentith, L. Matejka and I. R. Titunik). London: Routledge.
Walton, Douglas, Christian Reed, and Fabrizio Macagno. 2008. Argumentation schemes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Bailly, Jessy, Coline Rondiat, Anaïs Augé & Min Reuchamps
2024. Populism as a centrist strategy for disqualification: The use of ‘populism(s)/populist(s)’ in Belgian, French and Spanish Parliaments. Parliamentary Affairs
Eklundh, Emmy, Frank A. Stengel & Thorsten Wojczewski
2024. Left Populism and Foreign Policy: Bernie Sanders and Podemos. SSRN Electronic Journal
Statham, Simon
2020. The year’s work in stylistics 2019. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 29:4 ► pp. 454 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 august 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.