“Now everyone knows I’m a serial killer” Spontaneous Intentionality in Conversational Metaphor and Story-Telling

Drawing on data from a series of informal conversations about public safety and police-community relations, we distinguish between a speaker’s generalized communicative intentions with respect to metaphor use and story-telling, based on what Chafe (1994, p. 145) calls “unifying ideas that persist in semiactive consciousness” and the spontaneous intentions that arise within the short-term focus or spotlight of consciousness and guide the production of actual utterances. Although speakers occasionally enter a conversation with a fixed intention to express an idea with a particular metaphor, tell a particular story in a particular style, or accomplish some other speech act, such as persuading or informing, more commonly in ordinary conversations speakers begin with only a generalized intention to engage in the social interaction, sometimes but not always accompanied by generalized intentions regarding a particular topic or a particular form of expression. We argue that these “unifying ideas” interact with the contents of the short-term focus or spotlight of consciousness to generate spontaneous communicative intentions that in turn guide the production of metaphors, stories, and other language segments. Often these spontaneous communicative intentions arise interactively in response to other participants’ utterances; sometimes they arise in response to unforeseen opportunities in the speaker’s own utterances. Consequently, in ordinary casual conversations the spontaneous communicative intentions behind metaphor, story-telling and humor are often formed ‘on the fly,’ in response to the dynamic social interaction, and sometimes as a result of collaboration with other participants

Explaining solidarity through metaphors: two examples from a Romanian textbook

Solidarity is a complex, abstract, multifaceted concept that may be unpacked and used in a variety of situations, ranging from socio-economic and political contexts to the currently salient pandemic context. Defining solidarity, either in theory or in practice, requires connections to other less abstract ideas, which are more familiar to people. In this paper, I examine the way in which the concept of solidarity is defined and explained in a Romanian social studies textbook for 6th graders. My analysis focuses on two metaphorical framings of solidarity found in the textbook, namely ‘solidarity as exchange’ and ‘solidarity as assistance’. I discuss these examples of metaphors of solidarity in the context of broader discussions surrounding the construction of the intercultural society (of which solidarity is a crucial value) in textbooks. (DIPF/Orig.

Review of #FAKENEWS. Noua cursã a înarmãrii [#FAKENEWS. The new arms race] by Alina Bârgăoanu

“Fake news is neither fake, nor news” – Alina Bârgăoanu bluntly states in her latest book focusing on the overhyped phenomena of fake news and disinformation. An awful lot of public discussion and publications, both academic and popular literature, have been generated, during the last five years or so, by the fake news mania worldwide. However, significantly fewer efforts have been made to dissect and clarify the nature and, more importantly, the political, social and even psychological implications of fake news and disinformation exponentially increased spread

‘Of the People or for the People’? An Analysis of Populist Discourse in the 2014 European Parliament Elections in Romania

Populism is on the rise in Europe; this is a fact attested by the success of populist parties in recent elections (regional, national, European). Populists’ electoral performance can be explained from a variety of perspectives, depending on the focus of the analysis; e.g. ideological, socio-economic, political factors. This paper aims to contribute insightful observations to the attempts to show how these parties have managed to score so well in elections by analyzing the communication and discursive practices used by populist politicians. I will focus on examining elements of populist rhetoric used by populist politicians, as well as by mainstream politicians in televised debates and election posters from the 2014 European Parliament election campaign in Romania

Review of #FAKENEWS. Noua cursã a înarmãrii [#FAKENEWS. The new arms race] by Alina Bârgăoanu

“Fake news is neither fake, nor news” – Alina Bârgăoanu bluntly states in her latest book focusing on the overhyped phenomena of fake news and disinformation. An awful lot of public discussion and publications, both academic and popular literature, have been generated, during the last five years or so, by the fake news mania worldwide. However, significantly fewer efforts have been made to dissect and clarify the nature and, more importantly, the political, social and even psychological implications of fake news and disinformation exponentially increased spread

When ‘Seeking Love is Travel by Bus’: Deliberate Metaphors, Stories and Humor in a Romanian Song

Drawing on a song by Romanian blues rock singer and satirist Alexandru Andrieș, Transport în comun, we argue that both listeners and metaphor researchers must sometimes assume that a metaphor has been deliberately used and transformed in order to make sense of a metaphorical story, particularly when the metaphor is embedded in a particular cultural and political context. On the face of it Transport în comun is a song about seeking love, but it opens with a decidedly unromantic metaphor, “women are buses,” then develops this song into a story that is intelligible only on the assumption that the songwriter / singer has selected and developed the metaphor deliberately. We further argue that Andrieș’s known history of writing cleverly satirical songs during the Communist Romania, plus widely-shared experiences with public transportation in large cities, provides a firm basis for the further assumption that Andrieș also deliberately developed the song as a political and social metaphor. We agree with Gibbs (2011) that it is not possible to determine from the text alone whether a particular metaphor was used deliberately. However, we argue that the larger context in which a metaphor appears often provides evidence of deliberateness that is too strong to ignore. We aim to demonstrate that understanding and appreciating this song requires that the listener make the assumption that the metaphor was deliberately chosen and elaborated, and that most of the song’s meaning is lost without this assumption

WHAT KIND OF UNION? THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AS SEEN BY CANDIDATES TO THE EC PRESIDENCY IN THE 2014 EP ELECTIONS

Abstract There is no doubt that the European Union is at a crossroads. The recently (arguably) ended economic and financial crisis has left serious marks on the deep structure of the Union, which seems feebler than ever in its history. What is currently contested by politicians and people alike is the very raison d"être of the European project: do we need a Union anymore? Should the European Union be abandoned or should it be revived and consolidated? These are serious and timely questions that require urgent attention. The 2014 EP elections offered a platform spread across Europe where issues such as the future of the EU could have been addressed. In this paper, we analyze the three debates between the candidates to the Presidency of the European Commission. We particularly focus on the scenarios for Europe proposed by three of the five main participants and examine their proposals against the arguments on the future of the European project made by established scholars and experts (i.e. federation, supranational democracy, Europe of nation states, an association of sovereign states, fiscal union, banking union, etc.) Keywords EP elections, future of the European Union, models of the E

The Rise of Euroscepticism in Times of Crisis. Evidence from the 2008–2013 Eurobarometers

The financial and economic turmoil within the European Union has significantly impacted upon the way in which the European citizens assess the advantages of EU membership and the future of the integration process. Intensely preoccupied with the economic problems, the EU leadership has lost sight of the constant decrease of public support and the increasing lack of citizens’ confidence in the Union. This paper seeks to show the dynamics of public opinion between 2008 and 2013 with a special focus on the rise of Euroscepticism, using secondary data analysis of standard Eurobarometers. Our longitudinal analysis reveals the dynamics of EU-related attitudes and perceptions before, during, and after most of events that are usually labeled under the rather generic term “crisis”

Start Spreading the News : A Comparative Experiment on the Effects of Populist Communication on Political Engagement in Sixteen European Countries

Although populist communication has become pervasive throughout Europe, many important questions on its political consequences remain unanswered. First, previous research has neglected the differential effects of populist communication on the Left and Right. Second, internationally comparative studies are missing. Finally, previous research mostly studied attitudinal outcomes, neglecting behavioral effects. To address these key issues, this paper draws on a unique, extensive, and comparative experiment in sixteen European countries (N = 15,412) to test the effects of populist communication on political engagement. The findings show that anti-elitist populism has the strongest mobilizing effects, and anti-immigrant messages have the strongest demobilizing effects. Moreover, national conditions such as the level of unemployment and the electoral success of the populist Left and Right condition the impact of populist communication. These findings provide important insights into the persuasiveness of populist messages spread throughout the European continent