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This journal is peer reviewed and indexed in: LB, LLBA, MLA Bibliography, Linguistics Abstracts, Scopus, IBR/IBZ, Translation Studies Bibliography, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Current Contents/Social and Behavioral Sciences, Current Contents/Arts & Humanities, ERIH PLUS; International audience; Following its translation into more than thirty languages, Roberto Saviano’s non-fiction novel, ‘Gomorrah’, has unveiled the endless saga of Naples’ organized crime to a vast number of readers. Literary critics and reviewers in the UK and in the US have widely acclaimed Saviano’s talent in depicting the corruption plaguing Naples’ gloomy and degraded hinterland, though the English version of his book has been described by some as stilted and “over-literal” (The Economist, 2008), at times inadequate at rendering Saviano’s fragmented and dramatic style. The socio-cultural context portrayed in ‘Gomorrah’ is naturally distant from the one deriving from the shared experiences of the English-speaking readership: the text is widely populated by culture-bound concepts and implicit meanings, which further complicates the translation process in its entirety. Through a contrastive analysis of the Italian and English versions of the exposé, the study aims at exploring the strategies employed in translating the voices and deeds of Naples’ mobsters, as well as the underlying socio-economic setting of the Camorra (from which the book’s title originates its bitter play on words). With reference to types of non-equivalence between the two language versions under examination, particular attention is devoted to strategies of cultural substitution, reduction, deletion or generalization (Malone 1988; Baker 1992; Fawcett 1997) used to overcome lack of specificity in the target language. For the purpose of the language analysis, particular relevance is given to instances in which, in relation to the reader’s ‘implied’ background information, the target text does not provide an appropriate elaboration of the intertextual references presented in the source text. In conclusion, the paper aims at investigating the “framing function of translation” (Baker 2006) and the way it is (or is not) successful in affecting the representation and the perception of the cultural scenario in which ‘otherness’ is embedded.

International audience

International audience

International audience

Il saggio introduce il volume" The Language of Popularization: Theoretical and Descriptive Models / Die Sprache der Popularisierung: Theoretische und deskriptive Modelle". Il volume si pone i seguenti obiettivi: 1. indagare il tema dei linguaggi di divulgazione in particolare in ambito anglosassone e tedescofono, partendo da una disamina dei principali contributi offerti dalla ricerca, in particolare di quelli più recenti; 2. rintracciare nei contributi della ricerca indicazioni utili per la costituzione sistematica in linguistica di modelli teorici e descrittivi dei linguaggi di divulgazione; 3. in particolare verificare se attraverso gli strumenti teorici e descrittivi attualmente disponibili emergano con sufficiente chiarezza il rapporto e le differenze fra i linguaggi di divulgazione e i linguaggi specialistici; 4. allo stesso tempo evidenziare esempi significativi del tedesco e dell’inglese come “linguaggi di divulgazione” (ove possibile nel confronto con l’italiano). Elenco dei contributori: Julia Bamford, Marina Bondi, Giancarmine Bongo, Giuditta Caliendo, Sara Costa, Giuliana Garzone, Stefania Maci, Vanda Polese / Stefania D’Avanzo, Christina Samson

– This study explores the web-mediated genre of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks, speech events whereby experts in their field disseminate knowledge from different domains (e.g. science, technology, design, global issues) addressing an audience of both co-present participants and web-users all over the world. The aim of this study is to investigate the way academics convey epistemic stance (Conrad, Biber 2000) and build up their image as experts on the TED stage. To this purpose, a contrastive analysis was carried out comparing two corpora of spoken discourse, i.e. a corpus of TED talks and a corpus of MICASE university lectures from different disciplines. Although in both genres the speaker is an academic, both the communicative purpose and audience expectations differ substantially in the two contexts under scrutiny. This comparison highlights some distinguishing traits of TED talks and provides a better insight into this genre. Adopting a corpus-based approach, attention is first paid to the most recurrent epistemic lexical verbs (ELVs) and to the use of first and second person pronouns in the two corpora. The qualitative analysis then focuses on similarities and differences in the discourse functions of the four most frequent ELVs (see, show, know, think) and of their clusters when they combine with first and second person pronouns in the two corpora. Previous studies in the field of English for Academic Purposes (Rounds 1987; Fortanet 2004; Walsh 2004; Artiga León 2006; Bamford 2009) are referred to as a starting point to investigate a novel, unexplored pragmatic space (i.e. that of TED) wherein academics accomplish purposes other than merely disseminating knowledge and training students, such as promoting their research and building up their image as experts. Keywords: Languages for Special Purposes, popularization, web-mediated genres, evidentiality, epistemic stance Abstract – I generi mediati dalla rete svolgono un ruolo fondamentale nei processi di ricontestualizzazione e riconcettualizzazione del sapere specialistico. Oltre a riadattare i contenuti per un pubblico di non addetti ai lavori, attraverso i nuovi mezzi di comunicazione gli esperti hanno la possibilità di rimodellare la propria immagine in base ai propri scopi comunicativi. Questo articolo si incentra sui TED talk, interventi a convegno (TED conferences) trasmessi in tutto il mondo attraverso la rete in cui esperti di diverse discipline conferiscono su vari temi (ad es. scienza, tecnologia, architettura, questioni globali). I TED talk condividono molte caratteristiche con una serie di generi ‘satellite’, come i documentari, le presentazioni accademiche, gli articoli scientifici e le lezioni universitarie. Queste ultime rappresentano probabilmente il genere che maggiormente si avvicina ai TED talk. Sia nelle lezioni universitarie sia nei TED talk, infatti, l’esperto si rivolge ad un pubblico di non esperti (o semi-esperti) avvalendosi di varie modalità semiotiche (ad es. parlato, supporti audio, supporti visivi) in quello che si rivela essere un evento comunicativo essenzialmente monologico. Prestando particolare attenzione a un processo di ricontestualizzazione del discorso accademico, questo contributo si propone di analizzare se e fino a che punto il discorso accademico subisce un cambiamento nel momento in cui il parlante si sposta dall’aula universitaria al palco di TED. Questo studio si basa su un’analisi contrastiva: un corpus di TED talk tenuti da accademici viene messo a confronto con un corpus di lezioni universitarie ricavato dal Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE). Per osservare differenze e analogie fra i due generi ci si avvale di un’analisi sia quantitativa sia qualitativa. Parole chiave: Lingue per Scopi Speciali, Divulgazione, Generi multimediali, Evidentiality, Epistemic stance.

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International audience

This preface briefly illustrates the results of the research project "Tension and Change in English Domain-specific genres" coordinated at national level by Maurizio Gotti (University of Bergamo) and exploring genre-related issues: hybridization, tension, genre variation/evolution, creation of new genres and influences across genres in English domain-specific genres. The preface opens up a volume with contributions by scholars researching in the field of genre, including Norman Fairclough and Srikant Sarangi, who have won world renown for their scientific publications. The contributions have attempted to provide answers to a number of research questions involving current genre-related issues in private and public, institutional and professional communication, such as impact of globalization and the new technologies on discourses / genres, intertextuality and interdiscursivity drawing on corporate/promotional communication practices and strategies in processes of resemioticization and recontextualization across the media.

Constructing the profile of a European citizen aware of her/his identity and rights entails consideration of new identity-building elements in the creation process of a Common European Space for citizens, such as safety, education and better living standards. The analysis concentrates on the way European identity and citizens’ solidarity are formed and developed through new communication policies. Communication between Institutions and citizens largely aims at providing information about rights and safeguard provisions enshrined in EU law. The communicative process is increasingly centred on the empowerment of citizens/consumers through information and awareness-raising initiatives aimed at ‘shaping’ the profile of a conscious, ‘harmonised’ community of individuals. This is reflected in the informative material of the EU, from the more traditional leaflets to the most innovative booklets promoting laws against unfair behaviour towards consumers . The paper draws upon studies on the effect of economic change on the transformations of language and identity (Heller 2003; Castells 2000, 1997). The research work focuses on the way new modes of belonging are constructed in discourse by means of new identification codes. This new profile corresponds to the figure of the European consumer, whose needs become commodified, valuable and directly linked to his/her belonging to the European ‘consumership’. This perspective recalls Fairclough’s ideas (2006) on changes in orders of discourse and on the relations between new market discourses in which citizens are represented as ‘consumers’ of services. References Castells, Manuel 1997. The Power of Identity. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Castells, Manuel 2000. The Infromation Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Fairclough, Norman 2006. Language and Globalization. London and New York: Routledge. Heller, Monica 2003. Globalization, the New Economy, and the Commodification of Language and Identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7/4, 473-492.

In today’s media-enhanced societies where news, opinions and entertainment constantly pervade the social space, political commercials remain the area in which politicians and institutions strive to construct an effective and credible image for themselves. As a genre, political commercials rely on the multimodal resources of fiction filmmaking, including script, visuals and performance; over the years, this genre has been able to distill political campaign themes into powerful visual and verbal messages and has contributed to construe what marketing theorists have recently defined as “nation branding” (Leonard 2002), i.e. a set of instruments employed to construct and improve a “competitive identity” (Anholt 2007) for politicians and institutions. Endorsing the assumption that new genres reflect major changes in communication purposes (Bhatia 1993), we contend, by means of a contrastive analysis between traditional and online electoral campaign practices, that novel forms of genre mixing/switching can also be gauged in the context of new media capabilities. To this purpose, we will collect and investigate a short-term diachronic corpus of video political commercials, which covers a time-span of 50 years (1950-2009).

This paper intends to broaden investigations on the strategies and genres adopted by the EU to win consensus and promote its institutional structure. Attention is called to alternative tools supplementing the (ever-growing) array of discursive devices and structures employed in EU brochures of comparable nature. In particular, focus will be placed on the “humanization” of the European Union, achieved by means of the incorporation of EU employees’ profiles in the Union’ informative material. The attribution of precise names, faces, roles and objectives to activities carried out at the European Union will be examined and the social impact of such attribution discussed within the framework of critical discourse analysis.

The study draws from a comparative analysis of one of EUROPA’s main informative sections, “The EU at a Glance”, in its previous (2002) and current version (2009), with a view to investigating the way institutional and social changes are reflected in discursive practices (Fairclough 1992). In particular, the comparison highlights the emergence of new strategies adopted by the EU in promoting itself, as well as a steady process of ‘neutralization’ of the identity values being advocated at supranational level in order to gather consensus among citizens: the EU does no longer appeal to its historical and cultural common heritage to legitimate its entity, but it is increasingly stressing the objective and tangible benefits that derive from EU membership and that the EU itself offers and ‘advertises’ as a real service-provider (e.g. better living standards, consumer rights, lower tariffs, higher mobility, etc.). The prioritization of these new values is demonstrated by means of a linguistic analysis, which unveils how these longitudinal changes are reflected in forms of linguistic realisation in the new online version of the section under investigation (“The EU at a Glance”). The language analysis is complemented by a statistical study carried out by a model for qualitative assessment (D’Elia and Piccolo 2005; Piccolo 2006) which demonstrates how the discursive transformations in the web site directly reflect and respond to a real change in citizens’ vision and perception of EU values.

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The European Union’s historical development has produced a political and institutional structure based on a set of common items of reference, such as flags, mottos and icons, all evoking adherence to shared European beliefs. The final creation of a pan-European identity is the outcome of different mechanisms, all converging towards the making of a collective set of values and rules that new Member States must embrace when joining the Community. Following the latest evolutions of the EU enlargement process, new issues need to be faced: the broadening of geographical horizons to national entities coming from different cultural and political backgrounds calls for the establishment of a multi-levelled European identity, which is designed to encompass new horizons and bridge the gap between Europe’s margins and centres. The paper investigates the linguistic and semiotic strategies used by the European Union website to promote aggregation and a feeling of mutual belonging between “old” and “new” citizens of Europe. To this purpose, a multimodal analysis of the website’s visual and textual material is introduced to highlight the strategies employed to enlarge, mould and reframe the foundations of a common European heritage. This multifaceted process of integration leads towards the study of the inevitable emergence of new visual and verbal items tailored to suggest a sense of belonging, while redesigning Europe’s new “variable geometry”. Being European thus becomes no longer a matter of birth, but rather a question of adjusting to the Community’s institutions and system of values, which are meant to unite all Europeans, transcending their diversity.

The next round of EU enlargement, due to take place in May 2004, not only constitutes a major event in the building of a future European landscape, but certainly has enormous repercussions on the continent’s geopolitical prospect and its relations with neighbouring countries. The conclusions of European Councils represent an interesting snapshot of the “state of the art” in Europe. The texts are often the result of an intensive and delicate preparatory work that paves the way for the final decision-making process in Europe. This paper investigates the frequent aspects of vagueness and political compromise reached through the strategic use of all-inclusive linguistic constructions. The reasons that justify the use of a “diplomatic” language are also presented in the light of the current political relations existing between the EU and the acceding countries. Special attention is devoted to the particular case of Turkey. The country is a NATO member and enjoys a powerful and crucial position on Europe’s map. However, in spite of an EC Association agreement signed as early as 1963 and a candidature presented in 1987 (well before all the other states now joining), Turkey is the only country still to open negotiations with the EU. The attitude towards this country has always been particularly ambiguous and has witnessed numerous changes over the years. In this respect, the diachronic study of the language employed is carried out through a comparative analysis of different Council conclusions’ texts (from Copenhagen 1993 to Athens 2003).

International audience

Breve descrizione dei contenuti del volume: A livello mondiale, la crescente attenzione per i problemi del degrado ambientale ha determinato l'esigenza di impostare programmi che forniscano indirizzi per un'alternativa ecologica e per un futuro sostenibile. Il problema energetico è diventato soprattutto il problema delle risorse alternative, e l'utilizzo del solare e di tecnologie sia innovative, sia tradizionali, che consentano il risparmio energetico da una parte e una vivibilità migliore dall'altra, è diventato la strategia culturale e politica per il nuovo millennio. Parlare di un'architettura più legata alle molteplici problematiche ambientali significa dare un senso al concetto di architettura ecocompatibile, la quale non può prescindere da una migliore consapevolezza dei problemi energetici. Affrontare i prossimi anni in maniera responsabile vorrà dire coinvolgere i prodotti dell'architettura e i parametri della progettualità in una nuova etica del progetto, in cui la sopravvivenza dell'ambiente e dell'uomo siano un'unica e inderogabile esigenza. È impossibile pensare ad un risparmio energetico scisso da tutti quei fattori che rendono l'architettura e l'agire umano strettamente collegati all'ambiente ed alle sue risorse rinnovabili. "L'ambiente non viene inteso come una realtà neutra sulla quale proiettare idee e rappresentazioni culturali, ma come un mondo imbricato nella vita stessa dei vari organismi che si radicano e si ancorano al suo interno. Individui ed ambiente formano, in questa prospettiva, una coppia inseparabile. Visto il modo in cui si intendono l'abitare, l'agire e l'abilità, anche il loro contesto non può essere inteso come un paesaggio separato, per esempio come un possibile oggetto di contemplazione estetica, bensí come uno scenario dei compiti, in quanto ambito di pratiche e di abilità sia umane che non umane". Sicuramente l'architettura non potrà essere da sola il soggetto propugnatore di un cambiamento ecologico dei comportamenti umani ma potrebbe contribuire notevolmente alla rifondazione ideologica del concetto di vivibilità su questa terra e alla generazione di una nuova spazialità più strettamente legata all'ambiente.

This paper is a contribution of our Research Group (University of Naples Federico II) to the national MIUR project on "Intercultural Discourse in Domain-specific English" (National coordinator: prof. Maurizio Gotti, University of Bergamo). The study reflects two different perspectives and approaches in the analysis of the language of the European Union, both converging on the relation between the source of the legal message and the diversified addressees constituting the EU Community.

Luogo di confluenza, di contrasti e di conflitti ciclicamente affioranti il Mediterraneo, spazio tra le terre, unisce i popoli che lo circondano nella affinità delle radici e nella unità della sua storia. Una identità polare e composita, dunque, basata su fusioni, separazioni, intrecci, scambi, scorrerie, battaglie, che spesso tende, non ostante tutto, a ricomporsi, riconoscendo alla massa d'acqua un che di materno, che sfocia in una comune responsabilità. La ragione di questo libro, che sviluppa con straordinario impegno di ricerca i temi di un convegno svoltosi a Napoli, sta proprio nella condivisione, da parte degli studiosi che hanno risposto con passione al nostro appello, di questo senso di responsabilità. Il baricentro delle grandi trasformazioni epocali da tempo si è spostato, rispetto al mare che ha visto nascere al suo intorno le tre grandi tradizioni religiose monoteiste; ma è pur vero che alcuni dei problemi cruciali del nostro tempo hanno qui la loro collocazione geografica e il confronto Occidente e Oriente ha qui uno dei suoi “sensori” più delicati. Di fatti, fino a qualche decennio fa, sulle due sponde opposte del Mediterraneo vigevano, rispetto alla storia comune, due ottiche diverse. La vicenda delle crociate, interpretata ideologicamente, era la cartina di tornasole della incomprensione reciproca e della diffidenza, dura da eliminare. Oggi molto è cambiato e molti sono i sintomi di futuri ulteriori cambiamenti che favoriranno il dialogo e la ricerca in collaborazione. Lo dimostra il materiale raccolto per questo libro da studiosi delle due sponde con metodologie affini e tutte basate sul rigore filologico e sugli strumenti di un comune sapere. Si delinea all'orizzonte una stagione di “studi mediterranei” alimentata, senza distinzione di qualità, dalla cultura islamica e da quella occidentale; e non è per caso che uno dei terreni più fertili di incontro si sia rivelato quello della storia della città. Nel momento in cui, in tutto il mondo, la città attraversa una crisi di identità, l'area in cui la città stessa ha avuto origine e si è sviluppata in modo armonioso, sperimentando forme di aggregazione, gerarchie, partizioni, dimensioni e modelli spaziali i più diversi - ma sempre confrontabili con i bisogni e i desideri dei cittadini - può ancora insegnarci molte cose da utilizzare nel futuro. E' forse il respiro corale della città mediterranea il suo valore più alto, che manca di regola nella città moderna, il segreto da indagare, il valore su cui riflettere per dare atto di quel “senso di responsabilità” comune di cui è giusto parlare. I saggi qui raccolti contribuiscono a mettere a fuoco questo respiro corale, a ritrovarlo in situazioni ed epoche diverse, come un crisma di mediterraneità.

Luogo di confluenza, di contrasti e di conflitti ciclicamente affioranti il Mediterraneo, spazio tra le terre, unisce i popoli che lo circondano nella affinità delle radici e nella unità della sua storia. Una identità polare e composita, dunque, basata su fusioni, separazioni, intrecci, scambi, scorrerie, battaglie, che spesso tende, non ostante tutto, a ricomporsi, riconoscendo alla massa d'acqua un che di materno, che sfocia in una comune responsabilità. La ragione di questo libro, che sviluppa con straordinario impegno di ricerca i temi di un convegno svoltosi a Napoli, sta proprio nella condivisione, da parte degli studiosi che hanno risposto con passione al nostro appello, di questo senso di responsabilità. Il baricentro delle grandi trasformazioni epocali da tempo si è spostato, rispetto al mare che ha visto nascere al suo intorno le tre grandi tradizioni religiose monoteiste; ma è pur vero che alcuni dei problemi cruciali del nostro tempo hanno qui la loro collocazione geografica e il confronto Occidente e Oriente ha qui uno dei suoi “sensori” più delicati. Di fatti, fino a qualche decennio fa, sulle due sponde opposte del Mediterraneo vigevano, rispetto alla storia comune, due ottiche diverse. La vicenda delle crociate, interpretata ideologicamente, era la cartina di tornasole della incomprensione reciproca e della diffidenza, dura da eliminare. Oggi molto è cambiato e molti sono i sintomi di futuri ulteriori cambiamenti che favoriranno il dialogo e la ricerca in collaborazione. Lo dimostra il materiale raccolto per questo libro da studiosi delle due sponde con metodologie affini e tutte basate sul rigore filologico e sugli strumenti di un comune sapere. Si delinea all'orizzonte una stagione di “studi mediterranei” alimentata, senza distinzione di qualità, dalla cultura islamica e da quella occidentale; e non è per caso che uno dei terreni più fertili di incontro si sia rivelato quello della storia della città. Nel momento in cui, in tutto il mondo, la città attraversa una crisi di identità, l'area in cui la città stessa ha avuto origine e si è sviluppata in modo armonioso, sperimentando forme di aggregazione, gerarchie, partizioni, dimensioni e modelli spaziali i più diversi - ma sempre confrontabili con i bisogni e i desideri dei cittadini - può ancora insegnarci molte cose da utilizzare nel futuro. E' forse il respiro corale della città mediterranea il suo valore più alto, che manca di regola nella città moderna, il segreto da indagare, il valore su cui riflettere per dare atto di quel “senso di responsabilità” comune di cui è giusto parlare. I saggi qui raccolti contribuiscono a mettere a fuoco questo respiro corale, a ritrovarlo in situazioni ed epoche diverse, come un crisma di mediterraneità.

International audience

International audience; This paper explores the meaning of really polar questions and wh-the hell questions in TED talks as compared with MICASE. The meaning of questions is generally defined in relation to their answers. Questions are assumed to request information in conversation exchange (Sadock and Zwicky 1985). An answer is supposed to fill an epistemic gap. The paper investigates the role of questions in a discourse context where no information can be obtained from the addressee. The nature of responses is analysed. Epistemic really in a positive polar question triggers an epistemic bias of opposite polarity. As a verum operator, really adds the negative implicature that the speaker expected the negative answer to be true. The speaker "asks for conclusive evidence for p" (Romero and Han 2004), so as to get a confirmation of their original belief. This confirmation cannot be obtained in TED talks. We show that really questions serve to dispel commonly held beliefs by allowing the speaker to introduce conclusive evidence for not-p in the subsequent discourse and to steer the common ground to a new knowledge state. This discursive function of really polar questions is salient in TED talks as opposed to MICASE.In content questions, the the hell phrase also conveys a negative implicature, i.e. "the speaker's negative attitude toward the content of the question" (den Dikken and Giannakidou 2002). The hell conveys two types of expressivity (Celle, Jugnet, and Lansari 2021) that derive from intensification. Emotional expressivity correlates with the speaker's attitude to p, which may rank high either along a scale of ignorance or incongruity. Iconic expressivity enacts emotion when a scale of performativity is involved. It is mostly associated with storytelling sequences inserted in the narrative. Both types of expressivity are attested in TED talks. In sum, really questions and wh-the hell questions contribute to achieving joint attention (Battich & Geurts (2020) in the knowledge-sharing process based by arousing the addressee's interest. The disconfirmation of prior expectations is intended to create an anticipation on the part of the addressee.

ispartof: Traduire la Criminalité: la représentation discursive du crime organisé pages:76-104 ispartof: pages:76-104 status: published

This paper investigates popularizing features in the recent Knowledge Dissemination (KD) genre of TED talks, a series of speeches aimed at a non specialist audience. TED speakers are experts in their field – often top level academics or from important research institutes – but are also people who have had remarkable experiences or accomplished outstanding achievements. These short talks are made freely available on the web by TED, a non-profit organisation devoted to disseminating ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’ , and involve a wide variety of domains, ranging from the humanities to science and technology. The evidence, collected from a large corpus of transcribed recordings of TED talks, is discussed here with reference to the textual processes employed in popularizations in order to relate abstract and complex information to the audience’s everyday life and experience. In particular, the corpus of TED talks is examined in relation to aspects such as argumentation, rhetorical structures and discourse organisation, drawing on the methods and instruments of corpus linguistics, textual linguistics, pragmatics and genre analysis.

This paper introduces Antonio Piga’s monographic volume “Towards a New Communication Policy. Sottotitolo: The Evolution of Communicative Strategies in the EU”. In his book Antonio Piga explores the evolution of communication strategies implemented by the European Union in response to the legitimacy crisis and to the 2005 ‘referendum fiasco’ and focuses on the privileged role played by discourse in the construction of a sense of European identity. Discursive practices are, as maintained by critical discourse analysts, “socially constitutive” (Fairclough 1992, 2003; Wodak et al. 1999; Wodak 2007; Chouliaraky/ Fairclough 2001; Fairclough/Wodak 1997), in the sense that they contribute to processes of social change in which the social identities or ‘selves’ associated with specific institutions are redefined and reconstituted (Fairclough 1992: 137). Changes in the way the EU represents itself discursively are analyzed in relation to the potential of new information and communication technologies, with particular reference to the Europa website, the EU’s main communication channel as well as the leading communicative tool for the promotion of aggregation between citizens of Europe (Balirano/Caliendo 2008). Recent studies on participatory democracy (Weber et al. 2003; Chadwick/May 2003; Dahlberg 2001) have concentrated on the potential of new modes of information and communication to enhance public endorsement (Caporaso/Wittenbrinck 2006; Chadwick 2006). According to Howard (2006), the so-called ‘new media’ have engendered a global communication revolution that is leading to the construction of new political, cultural and identity-related domains. The discourse analysis conducted by Antonio Piga takes on a longitudinal slant as it is based on a corpus of informative and popularizing texts made available by the EU to the general public between 2001 and 2009 via the EUROPA website. The analysis mainly aims to track down significant changes in the “interactional routine” (Fairclough 1989: 98) between citizens and institutions during the time span under investigation. For the purpose of his analysis, the author identifies the new discursive patterns that are being adopted by the institutions in more recent informative publications (especially after the 2005 clamorous referendum failure) in order to fuel democratic participation and confer upon the EU the legitimacy and the acceptability required for citizens to identify with it.

International audience