Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics: Online-First ArticlesDiscourse of self-legitimation
Self- and other-presentation in the European Parliament’s soft law on Brexit
The article proposes an original conceptual framework that captures the discursive logic of self-legitimation and
applies it to the empirical case of European Union soft law and the process of Brexit. Adopting the general orientation of
Discourse Historical Approach in Critical Discourse Analysis and working with a dataset of all European Parliament (EP)
resolutions on Brexit in the 2016–2023 period, the article investigates how, and interprets the particular ways in which, the EP
legitimised itself as an actor vis-à-vis Brexit, through different linguistic and discursive devices in its resolutions. The
analysis illustrates that the EP’s use of soft law for self-legitimation purposes is an intriguing case of how legal instruments
can be leveraged in multifaceted ways beyond their traditional function for broader communicative and political purposes. As such,
the article extends the traditional understanding of the purposes of EP resolutions by explicitly acknowledging them as powerful
discursive resources for self-legitimation.
Keywords: Self-legitimation, discourse, European Parliament, soft law, Brexit
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical framework
- 3.Methodological framework
- 4.Typology of discursive self-legitimation strategies
- 5.Application of the typology: The case of the European Parliament and Brexit
- 5.1European Parliament as an actor in the Brexit process
- 5.2Data
- 5.3Analysis and results
- 5.3.1Strategies of positive self-presentation
- Rationality-based positive self-presentation
- Credibility-based positive self-presentation
- Morality-based positive self-presentation
- Emotion-based positive self-presentation
- 5.3.2Strategies of negative other-presentation
- Rationality-based negative other-presentation
- Credibility-based negative other-presentation
- Morality-based negative other-presentation
- Emotion-based negative other-presentation
- 5.3.1Strategies of positive self-presentation
- 6.Concluding remarks
- Acknowledgements section
-
Bibliography
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].
Published online: 13 September 2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24010.bru
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24010.bru
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