Browsing by Author "Myllyoja, Markus"

This Master’s thesis explored the British national identity in the early phases of the Brexit process in the years 2017–2018. The aim of the study was to examine whether a new non-EU British identity which could be detected in the speeches by Prime Minister Theresa May and what kinds of linguistic devices were employed in the construction of such identity. I approached these questions with a triangulating method which finds its home in Critical Discourse Analysis. The data consisted of transcriptions of May’s three speeches: the first one was given in London in January 2017, the second one in Florence, Italy in September in 2017 and the third one again in London in March 2018, as a storm prevented May from traveling to Manchester. I attempted to observe the respective temporal and spatial contexts, as well as the imagined audience in my analysis. I first conducted a quantitative analysis of the data by employing the Appraisal Framework developed by Martin and White. This framework is designed to recognise value positions encased in a text. It is based on Systemic Functional Linguistics and Bakhtin’s ideas on dialogic language. I.e. it views language as a semiotic system of inter-referential signs which is constructed in interaction. I applied the framework to the extent of Engagement. This category of the framework is specifically concerned with dialogic utterances. In the qualitative analysis, I applied several social scientific approaches and concepts related to questions of nation and national identity. In terms of dialogic language, the results displayed that over time May’s speeches began to contain less contractive utterances in which one would exclude other positions from the discourse. At the same time, there was an increase of expansive utterances in which one would allow other positions to seem plausible or neutral. In other words, May seemed to opt for a more conciliatory tone as Brexit visibly decelerated. When it comes to national identity, it would seem like a crucial concept for a state looking for less integrated international co-operation especially if pursuit of national sovereignty is presented as the main reason behind the endeavour. However, this study implies that May’s speeches did not offer elements which a new national identity could have been built upon. In the light of previous research on national identity, they would have evidently needed to contain more emotion-laden language.