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Linguistic creativity and institutional design: the case of Greek parliamentary discourse*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Villy Tsakona*
Affiliation:
Democritus University of Thrace

Abstract

Creative language in Greek parliamentary discourse is investigated here in order to show that Greek parliamentarians strategically resort to such language as a means of criticism and collective party identity construction. The proposed microanalysis is combined with a macroanalysis considering linguistic creativity to correlate with the particularities of the Greek political system and the topic discussed in such debates. Taking into account the institutional parameters influencing the properties of parliamentary discourse suggested by political science, it is argued that the conditions and goals of deliberation in the Greek parliament favour the presence of creative language.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2012

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Footnotes

*

This study is part of a post-doctoral research project funded by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (2007–8). The author wishes to thank Maria Sifianou, Eleni Antonopoulou, Argiris Archakis and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions on the present article.

References

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21 Van der Valk, ‘Right-wing parliamentary discourse on immigration in France’, 316.

22 J. Steiner et al., Deliberative Politics in Action.

23 Cf. Gadavanij, ‘Intertexmality as discourse strategy’.

24 The data under scrutiny include solely written material. At the time this study was conducted (2007-2008), videotaped material coming from parliamentary sessions was not available to the public, unless one recorded the sessions broadcast on the Greek parliamentary TV channel by one’s own means. Recently short videotaped extracts have been uploaded on the official website of the Greek parliament, but they come exclusively from recent debates (2010 onwards).

25 See Tsakona, ‘Κοινοβουλευτικός λόγος’.

26 Ibid.

27 According to the Rules of Order of the Greek Parliament (Athens 2008), the Leader of the Opposition always speaks before the Prime Minister in budget debates.

28 To quote his exact words in Greek: #‘H οήθεν απογραφή σας είναι η μεγαλιπερη πολιτική απάτη, μετά τη Μεταπολίτευση ’.

29 The Greek parliamentary discourse extracts presented here are translated into English by the author. Italics are used in both versions to indicate linguistic creativity. The interlingual transference of such features has not always been a simple task and may have had undesirable stylistic effects in the target version. Thus, glosses and additional pragmatic information are provided in the analysis, wherever necessary. Square brackets in the English version include additional contextual information and square brackets including dots in both versions indicate omissions, mostly of paralingual information appearing in the written proceedings (e.g. ‘applause from PASOK’s wing’), which were not deemed relevant for the present study. The year of publication of each speech from which the extract was taken appears in parentheses at the end.

30 Tannen, D., Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse (Cambridge 1989) 12 Google Scholar; Kakridi-Ferrari, M., Επανάληψη: H λειτονργία της ως βασικού μηχανιαμον οτη γλώσσα, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Athens, 1998, 71-7Google Scholar; Coates, ‘Talk in a play frame’, 40-4.

31 ‘Enormous budget deficit’ is here used as a translation equivalent of #‘βαρύτατα ελλειμματικοί προϋπολογισμοί’ (lit., ‘budgets with the most heavy deficit’), where hyperbole occurs in the Greek superlative adverb βαρντατα ‘most heavily’.

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35 Lo, A. and Reyes, A., ‘Language, identity and relationality in Asian Pacific America: An introduction’, Pragmatics 14.2/3 (June/Sept. 2004) 118-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Archakis and Tsakona, Ταντότητες, αφηγήσεις και уХаюоіщ εκπαίδενση.

36 Cf., among others, Labov, W., Language in the Inner City (Oxford 1972)Google Scholar; Kakridi-Ferrari, #Επανάληιρη, 108-26.

37 Archakis and Tsakona, ‘Parliamentary discourse vs. newspaper articles on parliamentary issues’; Archakis and Tsakona, ‘“The wolf wakes up inside them”‘.

38 Cf. Lo and Reyes, ‘Language, identity and relationality in Asian Pacific America’, 118-19.

39 T.A. van Dijk, ‘Text and context of parliamentary debates’, in P. Bayley (ed.), Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Parliamentary Discourse, 339 (emphasis in the original). See also Van Dijk, ‘Political discourse and political cognition’, 216-17, 225.

40 Carter, Language and Creativity.

41 Eideneier, H., ‘Οψεις της ιστορίας της ελληνικής γλώσσας από τον Όμηρο έως σήμερα: Από τη ραψωοία οτο ραπ (Athens 2006)Google Scholar.

42 Goutsos, D., ‘#Μόρια, δείκτες λόγου καί κειμενικά επιρρήματα: H ορίοθέτηοη των γλωσσικών κατηγοριών με τη χρήοη ηλεκτρονικών σωμάτων κειμένων’, in So Διεθνές Σννέόριο Ελληνικής Γλωσσολογίας, Ιωάννινα, 30 Αυγονοτου-2 Σεπτεμβρίον 2007 (Ioannina 2009) 754-68Google Scholar.

43 See, among others, C. liie, ‘Insulting as (un)parliamentary practice in the British and Swedish parliaments: A rhetorical approach’, in P. Bayley (ed.), Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Parliamentary Discourse, 45-86; Dedaić ‘Political speeches and persuasive argumentation’.

44 Tsakona, ‘Linguistic creativity, secondary orality, and political discourse’.

45 See, among others, Tziovas, D., ‘Residual orality and belated textuality in Greek literature and culture’, in Georgakopoulou, A. and Spanaki, M. (eds), A Reader in Greek Sociolinguistics: Studies in Modern Greek Language, Culture and Communication (Bern 2001) 119-34Google Scholar.

46 Negus and Pickering, Creativity, Communication and Cultural Value, 29.