R. de Cillia

Politics and language – overview.

This article deals with different aspects of language and politics, notably different approaches to the analysis of ‘political language’ in its broadest sense. First, we give an overview of the history of research in this field after World War II, focusing on ‘political linguistics,’ with the analysis of National Socialist language as one important starting point. This is followed by a brief description of the field of research of language policies and language planning. Some key terms and concepts in the research on language and politics – discourse, text, politics, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and multidisciplinarity – are defined, and the main characteristics of the different approaches and most important findings are presented. The second part of the article outlines relevant research dimensions, defines Critical Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, and finally characterizes some important approaches to discourse analysis: Norman Fairclough, Teun van Dijk, the Duisburg School of CDA, French Discourse Analysis, the semiotic approach of Gunter Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, Jay Lemke, Ron and Suzie Scollon, and the Viennese discourse–historical approach using analysis of the Waldheim affair as an example.