Last update:
9 February 2010
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The Discourse of EuropeTalk and text in everyday life
2007. viii, 200 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Hardbound
– In stock
978 90 272 2717 1 / EUR 99.00 / USD 149.00
e-Book
– Available from e-book platforms
In this volume we approach the question of what it is to be European by considering the way in which citizens talk about their everyday lives, as they are perceived against the background of Europe and European issues. Hence, the volume will offer insights into the rarely glimpsed micro political world of ordinary talk and explore the way in which such talk in social interaction and other spheres might help us understand what Europe means to a range of its citizens. Using a range of broadly discursive approaches we will touch on, inter alia, issues of identity, youth, borders, ethnicity, local politics, and minority languages. In the end, we suggest, it is a common sense view of pragmatic utility that centres what it is to be European, and this is something which is continually fluid and shifting within ever changing social, historical and political circumstances.
Table of contents
“Amidst the vast literature on European institutions, legislation, and economic issues, Sharon Millar and John Wilson's volume stands out as the first book to focus entirely on a variety of ordinary discourses constructing aspects of what could be called a European identity. It comprises thoroughly pragmatic analyses of the view from below (and, in one of the chapters, of some political actors' attempts to appeal to such a view) which policy makers and political scientists should become familiar with.”
Jef Verschueren, University of Antwerp
“In the wake of the narrative turn, this book provides a welcome approach to ways in which European citizens, not just those within the EU, narratively construct and live their versions of what Europe means to them. It is rich in materials from a variety of countries within Europe and provides a welcome “missing link” between ways in which politicians and economists conceive of Europe and how ordinary citizens discursively construct their versions of it.”
Subject classification |
Linguistics