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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 22:2 (2023) ► pp.163–184

Serbian Progressive Party’s shameless normalization of expressing sycophancy toward the leader

ORCID logo | University of East Sarajevo
The notion of shameless normalization is applied in the paper to argue that the Serbian ruling party’s press releases introduce shameless normalization of expressing sycophancy toward the leader. Within the framework of critical (political) discourse analysis postulating that social actors’ use of language is vested with interests that need to be linguistically managed, the paper focuses on how the proposed strategies in political discourse – coercion, legitimisation and (mis)representation – manage the interest of the authors of press releases in realization of sycophancy. The analysis shows that the shameless normalization of sycophancy is realized by coercing the recipients to accept the exclusive right of the leader to represent the homogenized people of Serbia (the ingroup). This exclusive right is legitimized through positive representation of the leader as the self of the ingroup. Such legitimisation is enabled by misrepresentation both in terms of quality and quantity of the information conveyed.
Keywords: shameless normalization, sycophancy, antagonism, coercion, misrepresentation, legitimization
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Right-wing populism background of SNS and Serbia as a semi-authoritarian regime
  • 3.Theoretical framework
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Aleksandar Vučić as a source of authority, reason, vision and sanity
    • 4.2Aleksandar Vučić as a victim of the outgroup’s attacks
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • Reference
Published online: 8 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21071.jef
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