“Brexit Means Brexit!”: Investigating the production of social phenomena in poliitical discourses.
journal contribution
posted on 2023-08-30, 20:14 authored by Imko MeyenburgThe United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit, is arguably the most important political, social, and economic phenomenon in British post-WWII history. This paper analyses parliamentary debates from December 2018 concerning the European Withdrawal Act, focusing on the epistemic modality of Member of Parliaments’ (MP) statements, to investigate the ontology of Brexit. Epistemic modality refers to linguistic devices that allow modification with regards to confidence, truthfulness, and probability, and enables investigation of MPs’ commitments. Commitments are a part of their status function declaration, which create institutional reality (Searle, 2008). Analysis of such commitments permits inference about the institutional reality of Brexit.
History
Refereed
- Yes
Volume
45Issue number
4Page range
570-595Publication title
Symbolic InteractionISSN
1533-8665External DOI
Publisher
WileyFile version
- Accepted version
Language
- eng