The Discursive Construction of National Identities

TLDR

The concept of the nation as an imagined community has gained importance in the relevant literature during the last decade. The study investigates how national identities are constructed in discourse, focusing on topics, strategies, and linguistic devices that build sameness, uniqueness, and difference. The authors developed a descriptive and analytical method grounded in contemporary social science approaches to examine discursive construction of national identity, applicable beyond the Austrian case. The study pioneers a focus on the discursive construction of national sameness, expanding discourse‑historical analysis beyond its traditional emphasis on difference.

Abstract

The concept of the nation as an imagined community has gained importance in the relevant literature during the last decade. How do we construct national identities in discourse? Which topics, which discursive strategies and which linguistic devices are employed to construct national sameness and uniqueness on the one hand, and differences to other national collectives on the other hand? These questions were investigated in our study on the Austrian nation and identity. Taking several current social scientific approaches as our point of departure, we have developed a method of description and analysis of these phenomena which has applications beyond the discursive production of national identity in the specific Austrian example studied. By focusing particularly on the discursive construction of (national) sameness, this study has broken new ground in discourse-historical analysis, which until now has mainly been concerned with the analysis of the discursive construction of difference.