Discourse analysis and austerity : critical studies from economics and linguistics / edited by Kate Power, Tanweer Ali, Eva Lebdušková.

In the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, governments around the developed world coordinated policy moves to stimulate economic activity and avert a depression. In subsequent years, however, cuts to public expenditure, or austerity, have become the dominant narrative in public debate on economic policy. This unique collaboration between economists and linguists examines manifestations of the discourses of austerity as these have played out in media, policy and academic settings across Europe and the Americas. Adopting a critical perspective, it seeks to elucidate the discursive and argumentation strategies used to consolidate austerity as the dominant economic policy narrative of the twenty-first century.

Intro; Half Title; Series Information; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of contents; Figures; Tables; Contributors; Foreword; Foreword; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Interdisciplinary* approaches to austerity discourses: A case study in why and how economists...; Part I Approaching austerity through discourse; 1 Deep interdisciplinarity and responses to crisis; Systems; Deep interdisciplinarity; Semiotics: Saussure; Political economy disciplines and Marx; Conclusion; References

2 Austerity and the eclipse of economic alternatives: The theoretical terrain of neoliberal economic crisis narrativesThe legacy of the Great Depression: Framing austerity and economic possibility; Crisis discourse reprise: Austerity in the wake of the economic and financial crisis of 2008; Conclusion; Notes; References; Part II Historical perspective; 3 Austerity in the Commons: A corpus critical analysis of austerity and its surrounding grammatical context in Hansard ...; 1. Sociopolitical keywords; 2. Methods, frameworks and theoretical considerations; Corpus Linguistics

Critical stylisticsCombining corpus linguistics and critical stylistics; 3. Data and methodology; 4. Austerity, its roots and revivals; 5. Frequencies of austerity across Hansard 1803-2015; 6. How austerity is named; NP + preposition + austerity; [pre-modifier +] austerity + noun (Table 3.3); Unmodified austerity; pre-modifier + austerity; austerity + post-modifier; Hyphenated austerity; 7. How austerity behaves; Cases where austerity is being described; Cases where austerity is doing something; Cases where unmodified austerity does something; 8. Equating and contrasting austerity

Constructing equivalenceConstructing opposites; 9. Conclusions; Notes; References; 4 'Less State' in austerity: A concept masking the central agent of neoliberal policies; 1. Definitions, theoretical background and method of analysis; Definitions; Theoretical background; Method of analysis; 2. The case studies: Austerity in the near past, in the recent past, and the more-or-less 'now'; 1975-1983: Dictatorship, 'strong State,' and the silencing of alternatives; 1983-1990: Inflation and monetary instability; 1990-2008: Financialization, deregulation, and central planning of the mess

2008-2017: The debate on the neoliberal State3. 2008 onwards. A re-narration: Double bind tactic; 4. Conclusion; Acknowledgements; Notes; References; 5 Discourses of crisis and representation of Greece in a period of austerity; The discursive construction of crisis in media political discourse; Greece in the international press; Methodology and data; Prominent discourses in The Spectator; Representations of Greeks and Greece in The Spectator; Prominent discourses in New Statesman; Representations of Greeks and Greece in New Statesman; Discussion; Conclusion; Notes; References

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