MA thesis Merijn Kooijman Stylistic choices and perceived attitudes of Nigel Farage and Guy Verhofstadt

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2017

Author:

Merijn Kooijman Supervisor:

Maarten van Leeuwen

[

STYLISTIC CHOICES AND

PERCEIVED ATTITUDES OF

NIGEL FARAGE AND GUY

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1 Introduction

Since the early 90’s of the 20th century, so called Euroscepticism began to rise among citizens within the European Union, mainly as a reaction to the Maastricht Treaty (Eichenberg & Dalton, 2007, p.42) and the initial no-vote at the referendum in Denmark against the treaty. This ‘no’ gave rise to the possibility to seriously doubt the EU, or The Treaty of Maastricht, back in 1992.There was the

growing wish for other referenda in other European countries (e.g. Ireland, France, The Netherlands). Nowadays, the pro-/anti-Europe debate might be even more relevant, given the recent issues

regarding migrants/refugees, the Brexit and indirectly because of Trump’s presidency. Since the pro- and anti-dichotomy is ubiquitous in and outside European politics and more than ever a booming topic, it is interesting to see how politicians that are considered anti- or pro-European express this anti- or Europeanness through their ways of speaking. Two generally considered anti- and pro-Europeanists are Nigel Farage (anti) and Guy Verhofstadt (pro). They are considered to have a pro- and anti-European attitude, according to the public (i.e. ‘general opinion’, media and press). The following excerpt from the Dutch news1 shows the anti-European reputation Farage has. It is a fragment of an item about the referendum in Great-Britain about whether Britain should stay in the EU or not.

(1) Voice-over2: Of course he walks in front, UKIP-leader Nigel Farage, the most famous

anti-EU-face of Great-Britain.

Farage: It’s just this monster in Brussel we are not terribly keen on.

Verhofstadt is often described as a Europhile3 or Euro-federalist4. The following excerpt is from GeenStijl (2016), a Dutch news site:

(2) The train driver of the Eurocratic Train to the East has got a message for you.

Here, Guy Verhofstadt is meant as being ‘the train driver of the Eurocratic train to the east’. By that, he is depicted as a man in control of a big machine (Europe) that will inevitably drive on. Out of this message it can be distilled that GeenStijl thinks of Guy Verhofstadt as a rather pro-European politician, which is an attitude GeenStijl doesn’t seem to like.

A confirmation of the anti- and pro-European reputation of both politicians, also striking to see, is how they describe each other within two debates5 in the European Parliament:

(3) Verhofstadt6: So I believe that in reality (…) you, Mr Farage, are against Europe, and it

is not in this way that we shall have more European cooperation.

1

NOS Journaal (2016).

2_{Example (1), (2) and (3) are translated from Dutch} 3

E.g. Independent (2016).

4

E.g. Breitbart (2016).

5

These debate contributions are also included in the corpora of both politicians that is analysed in this research.

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(4) Farage7: I do not know how this will play out but at least, Mr Verhofstadt, there is a

chance of peace, and I know that you represent the kind of political class who believe that global influence can be achieved only through bombing. Well, luckily – unlike extreme EU nationalists like yourself – British democracy has proved that nation-state parliaments can actually made people rethink.

Verhofstadt is showing his own pro-Europeanism (‘we shall have more European cooperation’), while at the same time, he is claiming that Farage is anti-European. Farage does more or less the opposite: he gives a pro-national (as opposed to European) standpoint, while at the same time, he claims that Verhofstadt is an extreme EU nationalist (pro-Europeanist).

Contemporary research in stylistics proposes that style is a major factor in the construction of a perceived attitude. In this view, style is defined as the linguistic choices someone makes. For

instance, in politics, Van Leeuwen (2015) has shown that small linguistic features in political debates contribute to the perceived ‘populistic attitude’ of Geert Wilders and the perceived ‘elitist attitude’ of Alexander Pechtold, two Dutch politicians. Since there are many judgements about both Farage’s as well as Verhofstadt’s anti- and pro-European attitude in the media, it is interesting to see how their linguistic stylistic choices might contribute to those judgements. In this research, I will therefore answer the following research question:

What stylistic choices do Nigel Farage and Guy Verhofstadt make in the European Parliament that contribute to their perceived anti- and pro-European attitudes respectively?

I will answer this question by stylistically analysing two corpora that contain debate contributions in the European Parliament by each politician between 2010 and 2016 that have the state of the EU as a topic or the European unity in general. In the two corpora, stylistic devices are identified in two ways. Firstly, stylistic devices that are successfully linked to pro-/anti-attitudes in other research can be considered relevant to this research as well and will therefore be analysed. Secondly, a checklist method (Leech & Short, 2007, p. 61) is used to identify other stylistic devices in the corpus that might also contribute to the pro-/anti-European attitudes of both politicians.

This specific structure and methodology of the research is a key part of the relevance of it. Although using a checklist and generally trying to keep a wide scope while identifying possibly relevant stylistic features is a method that has been proposed many years ago as a partial solution to the subjective nature of linguistic stylistic research (e.g. Leech & Short (2007, p. 61)), it is definitely not a standard procedure in linguistic stylistics (Van Leeuwen, 2014, p. 226). This research could show the value of actually using a checklist. Namely, as Van Leeuwen (2014, p. 237-238) argues, using a checklist could be valuable for multiple reasons. Firstly, the stylistic analysis could become less ad hoc than when no checklist is used. Secondly, the checklist has a heuristic function: using a checklist could prevent relevant stylistic features to be overlooked8. This research tests these advantages of using a stylistic checklist and see if and how they apply.

This research thesis kicks off by discussing the principles of modern linguistic stylistics in section 2.1. Section 2.2 then addresses other research that already successfully linked specific stylistic features to

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From the Motion of censure on the Commission (debate); Verhofstadt (2014).

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From the Situation in Syria (debate); Farage (2013).

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an anti- or pro-attitude and are therefore deemed to be interesting for this research as well. After introducing the corpus (3.1), section 3.2 shows the process of the checklist analysis and presents the final list of stylistic features that will be analysed further. This final list contains the stylistic features that were found in previous research (section 2.2) plus the checklist findings. Sections 3.3.1 to 3.3.6 discuss the exact operationalisation and definitions of each analysed stylistic feature. These sections also contain the (qualitative and/or quantitative) corpus analyses of each stylistic feature. Based on these results, the research question will be answered.

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2 Theoretical framework

2.1 Principles of modern linguistic stylistics

2.1.1 Style as a meaningful choice

Although the field of linguistic stylistics is diverse nowadays, in modern stylistics, style is often considered to be a meaningful choice9. Style is a choice. Roughly, this assumption is based on the fact that utterances can always be paraphrased by using different words, syntax, or text structure. A speaker always has different linguistic options to construct what he wants to say, while talking about the same reality. Single linguistic features, on multiple levels10 in a text (Verdonk, 2006, p. 203), show that choices have been made. These choices can be made consciously or unconsciously. Choices must have been made, because a speaker always has other possibilities in which he could have formulated the same arguments or standpoints (in the case of a political debate). The inevitable availability of other formulation options makes a specific construal of a situation subjective by definition, because another person could have made other stylistic choices to describe the same situation (Van Leeuwen, 2015, p. 14). Examples (1) and (2) illustrate that language use requires linguistic choices:

(1) [description of a hotel of which 50% of the rooms are occupied by guests] a. Only half of the rooms are vacant.

b. Only half of the rooms are booked.

(2) [description of 100 people standing in front of the parliamentary building, holding up banners]

a. There is riffraff outside not agreeing with the current policy.

b. There is a massive demonstration going on against the tyrannical regime.

For both examples, it can be agreed on that sentences a and b could possibly be a fitting description of the given situation. They are representations of the same reality. However, it is very doubtful if a and b have the same meaning.

Linguistic stylistics argues that those linguistic choices do indeed not have the same meaning and are semantically not interchangeable (Verhagen, 2007). That is, 50% ‘vacant’ is not the same as 50% ‘booked’. Also notice how in (2a), no demonstration is mentioned, while there is no mentioning of any kind of people in (2b). All sentences construct the given situation in a different way; within modern linguistic stylistics, this is called construal (Langacker, (2000, p. 26-27) & Verhagen (2007))

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Within modern linguistic stylistics, a multitude of approaches to style can be distinguished. Namely, style as a possible form for a specific content, style as a choice (of specific patterns) and style as a deviation from the norm. Each of those pose certain problems. Those approaches and their problems are further described in Renkema (2004, p. 148-150). For this research, I will zoom in on the style as a choice approach to style, since this approach is commonly used in contemporary stylistic research.

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Due to the fact that a given situation can be linguistically construed in different ways, evaluations of those situations in the light of the different construals will also be different. That is, the conclusions that can be drawn from a sentence will be different if different linguistic choices have been made. E.g. the evaluation of an hotel that is ‘only half vacant’ is that this amount of bookings is a positive thing for the specific hotel, while the evaluation of ‘only half booked’ is that this amount of bookings is a negative thing for the hotel. The evaluation of the people holding up banners in example (2a) is rather negative. Someone who totally agrees with fragment (2a), concluded that the people holding banners are ‘riffraff’ and is thereby probably also more focused on when the ‘riffraff’ will leave, instead of when ‘the current policy’ will be changed or revised. Fragment (2b) pushes more towards the conclusion that ‘the tyrannical regime’ might fall or towards the conclusion that a bloody clearance of the demonstration will occur.

Besides those presuppositions of possible evaluations, based on cognitive linguistic insights, there is also experimental linguistic research that proves that different linguistic representations sort out different evaluations, that have a different effect (e.g. Fausey & Boroditsky (2010), Holleman, Kamoen & De Vreese (2013, p. 31)). For instance, Fausey & Boroditsky (2010) shows that when participants are presented different linguistic representations of the same negative action, the participants will judge more negatively on the actor of this negative action when the actor is displayed as an agent than when the actor is not linguistically present (E.g. ‘She ignited the napkin’ vs. ‘The napkin ignited’).

2.1.2 Micro and macro level

Now that it is established that style is a choice that has certain (persuasive) effects, it is good to look at the aim of modern linguistic stylistics. The following quote by Leech & Short (2007, p.11) is a good introduction to a possible aim of stylistics:

(3) Stylistics (…) is rarely undertaken for its own sake, simply as an exercise in describing what use is made of language. We normally study style because we want to explain something (…).

In other words, linguistic stylistics aims to relate linguistic choices to broader phenomena. Linking linguistic features to language transcending terms is called linking micro (linguistic) level terms to macro level terms (Anbeek & Verhagen, 2001, p. 23). Linguistic stylistics aims to ‘explain’ how linguistic choices contribute to the impressions of a piece of discourse as a whole.

As already touched upon in the introduction, Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 89-148) is a good example of how the linguistic choices of a speaker (micro level) contribute to more general impression (macro level) of a piece of discourse as a whole. In this research, Van Leeuwen shows how the linguistic choices of two politicians (Alexander Pechtold and Geert Wilders) in the Dutch parliament contribute to the impressions that those two politicians are respectively in- and outsiders in the Dutch politics (macro). He does so, for instance, by analysing the use of linguistic choices that let the voting public ‘enter a debate’ by the use of verbs of cognition, the amount of exclusive and exclusive use of ‘we’, and other linguistic constructions.

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To identify the (micro level) stylistic choices that were relevant to his research, Van Leeuwen (2015) made use of a stylistic checklist. A stylistic checklist is a tool to identify stylistic features that are already in a piece of discourse (Verhagen, 2001, p. 1). According to Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 87 – 88, 177 – 178), using a stylistic checklist has multiple advantages. Two big advantages of using a stylistic checklist that Van Leeuwen (2015) mentions, are that a stylistic checklist has an heuristic function and that the bottom-up analysis will be more systematic and less ad hoc (than just ‘checking’ without checklist).. These two claimed advantages will now be shortly discussed along the lines of Van Leeuwen’s (2015) research.

In Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 112 – 120) the use of a stylistic checklist made the analyst conclude that placing entities like ‘the people’, ‘the voters’, ‘the citizens’ etc. in a subject position is a stylistic feature that contributes to Wilders’ perceived ‘distant attitude’, distant from politics, closer to ‘the citizens’. Here, the fact that Wilders often places these entities in subject position can be seen as a reflection of Wilders’ distant attitude; Wilders unconsciously actually feeling ‘distant from politics’, while also making well-considered linguistic choices to achieve maximum effect. According to Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 177 – 178), this stylistic feature might not have been found if a checklist hadn’t been used; the heuristic functionality (Van Leeuwen, 2015, p. 236) of the checklist might have forced the analyst to keep a wide scope, which led to finding this stylistic feature.

Secondly, Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 88) claims that working with a stylistic checklist made his analysis less ad hoc. That is, in stylistic research that aims to link stylistic choices with macro level impressions that does not make use of a checklist, the selection criteria for including specific stylistic choices in the analysis might be unclear. Why did the researcher include specific stylistic choices in his analysis? A reader of such a research can often hardly tell the answer to that question. According to Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 88), using a stylistic checklist does not totally tackle this problem, because a researcher always has to choose the ‘relevant’ stylistic features in the end, but a checklist analysis at least gives a reader some insight in how the analysed stylistic choices were identified.

Linking stylistic choices on the micro level to macro level impressions is also an essential part of this research. After all, the research question is how the stylistic choices (micro) of Farage and

Verhofstadt contribute to the perceived attitudes (macro) of the two politicians. To be able to link stylistic choices to the perceived attitudes, the specific stylistic choices that could contribute to those perceived attitudes must be known. To identify the relevant stylistic choices, a stylistic checklist will be used along the lines of Van Leeuwen (2015). Since the macro level impressions of this research are different from the impressions in Van Leeuwen (2015), it can be expected that the relevant stylistic choices that resulted from the checklist analysis will be different as well. As such, this research is also a test-case for Van Leeuwen’s (2015) claims on the advantages of using a checklist, as discussed above. The specific checklist that is used and the checklist analysis will be discussed in section 3.2.Although using a checklist might have the advantages discussed above, it would be a shame to not include stylistic features that are already known to contribute to pro-/anti-(European) attitudes into the analysis in the first place. Therefore, existing literature in the field of linguistic stylistics applied to politics will also be scanned on relevant stylistic features in a top-down manner (theory applied to the object of research). This literature scan resulted in two relevant stylistic features, which will be discussed in section 2.2.

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The complete list of identified relevant (and irrelevant) stylistic features will be discussed in section 3.2.

2.2 Stylistic indicators for an anti- or pro-European attitude

This section contains the stylistic features that were discovered by looking at existing literature. This literature was collected at different university courses, by searching through the UL online catalogue on topical and linguistic keywords11 and by looking through references of other papers/articles. The two stylistic features that were found to be relevant to this research were metaphors and the use of the personal pronoun ‘we’. These two stylistic features and their link with pro-/anti-European attitudes will be discussed shortly in the following sections.

2.2.1 Metaphors

A stylistic feature that might contribute to a perceived anti- or pro-European attitude is the use of metaphors. Namely, metaphors often contain a positive or negative evaluation towards an entity. That entity can be ‘Europe’. Musolff (2004) shows that within European politics, there is an active metaphor that presents Europe, the E.U. or nation-states within as a human being that can be ill, be cared for, be healed, deteriorate, et cetera. ‘Consequently, metaphors describing an institution as ill are used for critical judgements, and the promise of recovery, care or, if need be, medical treatment is valued positively’ (Musolff, 2004, p. 97). Kövecses (2010, p. 290) shows another metaphor, in which the political structure of the E.U. is portrayed as a building. Namely, the Maastricht Treaty and the Euro are seen as a fundament that can be built upon. The evaluations of these metaphors can be pro-European or anti-European (e.g. ‘Europe is healing from the crisis’ vs. ‘Europe is dying a painful death’; ‘The E.U. is built upon great trust‘ vs. ‘The fundaments of the E.U. are rotting’). If Verhofstadt and Farage use positive or negative evaluations of Europe conveyed through metaphors, this might contribute to their perceived pro- or anti-European attitude.

2.2.2 Personal pronouns

A recurring theme nowadays within linguistic stylistics is the construction of a specific identity by the use of pronouns. For instance, by using ‘we’, a speaker can implicitly show who he associates himself with. The context can often show what people or groups a ‘we’ or ‘they’ in a text refers to. Thereby it can be determined who is included in the in-group and who is excluded from the in-group and is in the out-group. Good examples of such analyses are Cramer (2010) (Europeanness) , Crawford (2015) (Britishness), Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 146 – 148) (Distance to politics/society) and De Fina, A. (1995) (Individuality and expertise).

For instance, Crawford (2015, p. 744) argues that in a speech to encourage Scotsmen to vote ‘no’ in the Scottish referendum and thereby stay part of United Kingdom, David Cameron is constructing a situation in which Scotland is intrinsically included within the United Kingdom by using sentences like ‘we have built a United Kingdom that also coheres around the values embodied in standing up for freedom and democracy around the globe.’, as if ‘we’ is a uniform entity, including Scotland and himself. By doing so, Cameron is creating the concept of Britishness. Taking the whole speech into consideration, the use of ‘we’ here is odd, or ‘rhetorically strategic’ (Crawford, 2015, p. 746), because

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Some of the used linguistic keywords: ‘linguistic indicators attitude’ ‘indexing Europeanness’, ‘linguistic contributors attitude’. Some of the used topical keywords: ‘Farage language use’, ‘Verhofstadt language use’, ‘pro-European language’, ‘anti-European language’.

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earlier on in Cameron’s speech, Cameron focussed on the multi-nationality and diversity within the United Kingdom. Thereby he (Crawford, 2015, p. 744 – 745) impales Cameron on his own sword, so to say. He used the content of the speech and stylistic (pronoun) choices to show the inconsistency in Cameron’s speech.

Cramer (2010) links pronominal use, especially the use of ‘we’, to Europeanness. She argues that in speeches by a Turkish minister, the former MP of Denmark and the President of the European Parliament, those three politicians all show their degree of Europeanness, the degree to which they claim to have a European identity. For the Turkish minister most of the uses of ‘we’ are retraceable to ‘we, as Turkey’ and therefore he shows a strictly non-European identity (Cramer, 2005, p. 634). On the other hand, the Turkish minister is also being put in the out-group by the pronominal use by Danish MP, because the MP connects ‘we’ with non-Islamic. Based on this research, it can be expected that Farage would refer to Europe (or something European) as ‘we’ less times than Verhofstadt does. Verhofstadt would want to place Europe in an in-group, while Farage would want to put Europe in an out-group, a group that Farage (and/or his group) is not part of.

Concretely, it can be expected that the entities within the in-group will be different for both politicians, because, as the abovementioned examples show, ‘we’ can be used to whom a speaker associates himself or others with.

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3 Methods and results

In this section, the corpus, methods and results of this research are discussed. The methods and results are categorized by stylistic feature. The stylistic features discussed in sections 3.1 and 3.2 are thought to be interesting for this research, based on other studies/literature, as discussed in section 2.2. The stylistic features discussed in the other sections (3.3 – 3.6) are thought to be interesting for this research, based on the analysis with the stylistic checklist, as will be discussed in section 3.2.

3.1 Corpus

The corpus consists of speeches from 2010 to 2016 by Guy Verhofstadt and Nigel Farage in the European Parliament. All speeches have in common that anti-/pro-European standpoints have been brought forward in them.

Those standpoints are brought forward particularly often in the debates following the State of the Union, an annual speech held by the president of the European Commission, in which the plans of action by the European Commission for the upcoming year are presented to the European

Parliament. The European Commission holds the legislative power within the European Union. Since the State of the Union is not focussed on a specific subject, but covers the plans of the European Commission on a more general level, the debate on the State of the Union is the ultimate possibility to defend or attack the idea of a European Union as a political entity. Therefore, all debate contributions by Guy Verhofstadt and Nigel Farage in the debates on the State of the Unions from 2010 to 2015 are included in the corpus12.

Aside from the State of the Union debates, other debates are included in the corpus. For the sake of fair comparison, the topics of the debates taken into the corpus, are kept roughly the same. This means that if a speech by Farage on the topic of migration flows is taken into the corpus, the speech in that same debate held by Verhofstadt, is included in the corpus as well. However, Farage did not participate in every debate in which Verhofstadt participated and vice versa. Although this could be problematic, especially for the quantitative parts of this research, this problem is partly tackled by the topics of the single-politician debate contributions all being quite uniform, topically (they all somehow feature the future of Europe).

Apart from the State of the Union debates, all other speeches can roughly be divided into two groups: speeches that address the future of Europe (Future of Europe, presentation of the program of the new Commissioners) and speeches in which Europe is somehow opposed to another country or problem (Hungary, Greece, migrants, et cetera). The former can be seen as another ideal moment to present ideological political pro-/anti-European standpoints on a general level, in the same way the State of the Union debates are a good occasion for that. The debate contributions in which Europe is opposed to something else, are good moments to emphasize the unity and identity of Europe or on the contrary, emphasize that a certain problem is caused by diversity within Europe; a

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In 2014, no State of the Union had been held, because of the start of a new term in the European

Commission. Debate contribution 9 (in the appendix) can be regarded as complementary for the State of the Union, since the new Commission (Juncker) presented its plans in it.

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diversity that is not addressed by the European Union. The following fragments from speeches show occurrences of both:

Unaddressed diversity (from debate contribution 15F):

(1) Farage: And I am minded that there is a new Mrs Thatcher in Europe and he is called

Frits Bolkenstein. And he has said of this parliament - remember he is a former Commissioner: 'It is not representative anymore for the Dutch or European citizen. The European Parliament is living out a federal fantasy which is no longer

sustainable.’ How right he is. Emphasizing unity (from debate contribution 11V):

(2) Verhofstadt: However, we have also made mistakes ourselves. I think the most

important error – and we have to recognise this today, before the Greek Presidency – was made in December 2009 by not immediately backing Greece, and it was

compounded in January 2010 by talking openly about a Greek exit. That gave rise to grave consequences, with a long period of financial instability. The two-year period of financial instability in Europe was created because we were not more open and solid with Greece. We gave the impression that countries could leave the eurozone and that countries could even leave the euro system and the European Union.

In both fragments, the topic of the debate is a problem that faces the EU. Farage sees the economic crisis of 2013 in Cyprus as an opportunity to focus on how the EU does not represent the EU citizens and Verhofstadt argues how the EU as a whole had failed to ‘stay open and solid with Greece’ (and thereby implicitly claims that the EU should have done so).

In short, all debate contributions adopted in the corpus have the following features in common: - A pro-/anti-European standpoint has been brought forward in it. In this research, the terms

pro-/anti-European standpoints comprise both pro-/anti-European standpoints on a more fundamental or ideological level, as well as standpoints that are pro or against a certain Europe wide policy or law.

- The topic of the debate in which the debate contribution is uttered, concerns a big Europe wide issue. (specific topics like fishing on Bluefin tuna or bullfighting in Spain are not included.)

- The debate contribution is originally held in English (translations are kept out of the corpus, because linguistic choices of the translator could distort the outcome of the analysis.)13 To take away possible vagueness about if the corpus consists of speeches or

interventions/contributions in debates, it must be said that most interventions/contributions in debates within the European Parliament can actually be considered speeches. Namely, the European Parliament has 751 members and if all those 751 members would be allowed to debate in an

interactive way (by interrupting, asking new questions, et cetera), debates in plenary would take

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It should also be noted that Dutch, French or German parts of Verhofstadt’s speeches are sometimes included in the corpus for the sake of intelligibility of the speeches, but will not be analysed. Farage only speaks English in his speeches.

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ages. Therefore, interventions in the Parliament are often small speeches with a limited amount of interaction.

The fact that debate contributions are subjected to such a narrow time limit makes that debate contributions in the European Parliament are always well-prepared and often read out from a paper. This is almost necessary, because the speaking time a politician has, is based on the amount of chairs that’s politicians party or fraction holds in the Parliament14. This means that if Farage or Verhofstadt wants to make a powerful, persuasive debate contribution, they have to cram in all this persuasive power into one speech and thereby weigh out very carefully what they will or will not say

beforehand15. Due to the short amount of time, they have to make their (stand)points quickly. All debate contributions in the corpus are transcriptions from the website of the European

Parliament16. Those transcriptions are, however, not strictly literal. Grammatical errors, (accidental) word repetitions and hitches are kept out of the transcripts or are corrected.

The corpus of Farage contains 10.044 words, spread out over 19 debate contributions. The corpus of Verhofstadt contains 13.835 words, spread out over 14 speeches.

All debate contributions are numbered, so that it is easy to refer to the debate contributions by their numbers (e.g. 2V = State of the Union 2013 by Verhofstadt, 12F = Economic governance 2011, by Farage). An overview of all debate contributions is attached to this thesis (appendix 1).

3.2 Checklist analysis and final list

In section 2.2, the first two stylistic features that may possibly contribute to the perceived attitudes of both politicians were identified by using existing literature. As discussed in section 2.1.2, a stylistic checklist was used to identify more stylistic features that possibly contribute to the perceived attitudes on top of the features identified in section 2.2 in order to keep a wide scope. The checklist that is used for this research is the stylistic checklist by Leech & Short (2007, p. 61). This checklist is attached in appendix 3 of this thesis. The checklist consists of four categories with each category focussing on a different level of language; A, lexical categories, B, grammatical categories, C, figures of speech and D, context and cohesion.

The checklist was used along the lines of Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 36 – 39). Firstly, the stylistic

differences between the two politicians’ corpora were identified by using the checklist bottom-up, as an heuristic tool (Van Leeuwen, 2014, p. 228). Secondly, from the list of identified differing stylistic features, the ones that might contribute to the perceived pro- or anti-European attitudes were decided upon in a top-down manner.

The first phase of the analysis revealed multiple stylistic differences between Verhofstadt and Farage. The differences in stylistic features that were identified are shown in table (1).

(Table 1)

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This explains the fact that all speeches by Farage are shorter than Verhofstadt’s speeches. The EVD/EVDD fraction (Farage) holds fewer chairs than the ALDE fraction (Verhofstadt).

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E.g. Farage had 4,5 minutes of speaking time in the State of the Union debate of 2013

(http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=AGENDA&reference=20130911&secondRef=SIT&lang uage=EN#)

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Stylistic feature Checklist

3.3 Operationalisation and results

The statistical significances of the quantitative results presented in this section were calculated by using log likelihood. This is a method that enables a researcher to effectively compare the

frequencies of specific phenomena in two corpora, even if these frequencies are relatively small (Vis, Sanders & Spooren, 2009, p. 415). Concretely, the calculations were done by using the log likelihood calculator19. Significance is indicated in the frequency tables by an asterisk and a bold font.

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The other stylistic features were considered to not contribute to the pro-/anti-European attitude. Some of these features will be discussed shortly in the discussion.

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The coding was done in Atlas.ti 7, a computer software for qualitative text analysis, that also happens to be useful for generating quantitative data. The past tense (section 3.3.5) was coded by using an automated tagger (cf. note 49).

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3.3.1 Metaphors

Definition and operationalisation

For this research, a metaphor is defined as ‘a linguistic representation that results from the shift in the use of a word or phrase from the context or domain in which it is expected to occur to another context or domain where it is not expected to occur, thereby causing semantic tension’ (Charteris-Black, 2004, p.21).

For identifying metaphors in the corpus, the method proposed by Charteris-Black (2004, p. 35) was used. Firstly, candidate metaphors were identified by critically reading the speeches. Then, these candidate metaphors were checked on three criteria, also proposed by Charteris-Black: the linguistic criterion, the pragmatic criterion and the cognitive criterion. This means that a candidate metaphor contributes to a semantic tension (linguistic criterion), it has an underlying persuasive purpose to influence opinions (pragmatic criterion) and it causes a conceptual shift (cognitive criterion)

(Charteris-Black, 2004, p. 21). The metaphor analysis in this research is a qualitative analysis in which the source domains and their implications for the target domains are discussed. Namely, according to Charteris-Black (2011, p. 18), ‘metaphor provides a frame through which words from a literal source domain are used to interpret a lesser known, abstract target domain.’ Every found metaphor source domain (‘health’, ‘building’, ‘etc.) and its evaluation will be discussed in the light of a pro- or anti-European attitude per politician.

Results

Both politicians make considerable use of metaphors. The most striking and clear occurrences will be discussed further per politician.

The first remarkable use of metaphors by Farage that contributes to his perceived anti-European attitude that will be discussed is his use of building metaphors. In Farage’s metaphorical world, there are roughly two buildings: Europe and everything associated with it (excluding individual nations), and nation states. As one would expect, the former is being evaluated negatively, while nation states are being evaluated positively within the building metaphors he uses.

(3) The euro which you believed would give us monetary stability has done the very opposite, it was a misconstruction from the start, and it's pretty clear that youth unemployment, at nearly 50% across the Mediterranean, is probably nearly double what it would have been as a direct result of the misconstruction that is the euro. (2F)

Fragment (3) is an example of Farage framing ‘the euro’ in a negative way by using a building

metaphor. Namely, ‘the euro’ is a ‘misconstruction’, a constructing that is faulty and therefore might collapse. Firstly, he indirectly quotes the ‘you’ who had evaluated the euro positively by the use of ‘stability’. Farage himself then stays within the terms of this metaphor and counters the positive evaluation by giving a negative evaluation by calling the euro a ‘misconstruction’ twice. By using the words and metaphorical domain of the addressee, turning those words and domain around, he bashes the addressee with it ‘on its own terms’; Farage creates metaphorical contrast.

Fragment (4) is an example of Farage’s other (positively evaluated) building, which he introduces in the same debate contribution.

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(4) It is democratic nation states in Europe that are stable and will not go to war with each other. (2F)

This metaphor is quite simple: nation states actually are ‘stable’ and will not collapse, as opposed to ‘the euro’ in fragment (3), according to Farage. How this stability in the source domain can be interpreted within the target domain is probably explained in the final part of the sentence: ‘stable’ nation states are nation states that ‘will not go to war with each other’.

Back to the European building, it is interesting to look at other features of buildings that Farage brings forward. Namely, Farage’s European building has the looks of a prison, and is designed by architects. The following fragments (from different debate contributions) show these features.

(5) But what you want to do is to say, right, we have a European Union and what we're going to have to do now is to have more of it. So as an architect - and you're one of the key architects of the current failure - what we're going to do, even though everything to date has been wrong - we're going to do more of the same. (4F) (6) (…) she saw that this [i.e. the European Project] was a very dangerous design. (15F) (7) (…) they too are trapped in the euro prison. (3F)

As fragment (5) shows, the ‘you’ (Head of Commission) is considered to be an ‘architect’. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with being an architect, the use of the word ‘architect’ contributes to the negative evaluation of the European Union. Namely, architects are usually in charge of the design of buildings and although an architect could choose to involve other people in this process, he has the sole right to determine the looks and structure of a building. So, if this underlying

presupposition of the word ‘architect’ is transferred back to the target domain, by using the word ‘architect’, Farage is implicitly claiming that the European Union is an imposed project, imposed by its designers.

Fragments (6) and (7) also point at this deliberateness in imposing by the European Union. The euro is depicted as a prison and as having a very dangerous design. In fragment (7), the presupposed deliberateness is conceived within ‘prison’. Namely, Farage could have said something like: ‘they are too trapped into the euro cave’ or ‘they are too trapped under the ice of the euro’. These

alternatives both presuppose no entities deliberately locking ‘them’ up: ice and a cave have no inherent function of trapping people under/inside it. A prison is intentionally designed to lock people in. This intentionality is also addressed metaphorically in the context of the nation state building in fragment (8).

(8) Your obsession with creating20_{this Euro state means that you're happy to destroy}

democracy. (19F)

In fragment (8), the intentionality (‘your obsession’) in design is not displayed through a building metaphor, but it shows the relationship between the ‘architects’ and the other building, (nation

20

In this fragment, ‘creating’ can also be seen as a building metaphor (embedded within the ‘obsession’). However, for the sake of clarity, only the metaphor that is discussed is underlined. This also goes for other fragments that happen to contain important stylistic features, besides the ones discussed at that point.

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state) ‘democracy’. The designers are ‘happy’ to destroy a building that is considered to be stable (in fragment (3)).

Farage’s European building also has a base. Fragment (9) vaguely describes the ‘base’ of the European building.

(9) I believe the whole European project is based on a falsehood. (8F)

Although it’s hard to imagine what ‘a falsehood’ could look like in building terms, it’s not hard to imagine that there is something wrong with a building based on it. However, Farage also suggests a design for a positive Europe (in his opinion).

(10) (…) we must try to build a Europe. I want a Europe, but a Europe based on trade, a Europe based on cooperation, a Europe based on us sitting round the table and agreeing sensible rules on crime and the environment. (16F)

The foundations of Farage’s Europe are ‘trade’, ‘cooperation’, ‘us sitting round the table and agreeing sensible rules on crime and environment’. This is interesting, because all these things are dynamic processes, while ‘foundations’ of buildings always seem to be definite and static. Note that in fragment (10), the building metaphor itself has no negative evaluation for Europe. The only negative message towards Europe (according to Farage) within fragment (10) is the fact that fragment (10) is not yet the case nowadays. (Europe is based on other things that Farage probably does not approve of.)

Besides the building metaphor, Farage also uses other source domains to display Europe in a

negative way. Fragment (11) portrays pro-European ideology/politics as a plant or root of a plant that is growing aggressively.

(11) And the intolerance is so deep that when we get referendums in France, the Netherlands and Ireland that reject your view, you see it - as a political class - as a problem to be overcome. So I'm very worried about the whole root of this Union. There is a new [euro-21] nationalism that is sweeping Europe. (4F)

In fragment (11) there is a kind of (hidden, implicit) entity, a ‘deep root’ that ‘sweeps’ Europe. It is hard to pinpoint the exact referent(s) of these hidden entities. They are in fact, deep roots, which are invisible. This vagueness could very well be invoked on purpose by Farage, given Farage’s tendency to address the alleged undemocratic/unaccountable nature of the European power. By hiding who is in charge, Farage might create a sense of opaqueness around European decision-making.

(12) (…) a project which, however noble its original intentions, has gone rotten. (7F) Fragment (12) also shows a plant/root metaphor. This occurrence is remarkable because of the fact that ‘rotten’ implies that the ‘project’ also had a non-rotten, healthy state. This is an implication you

21

It is unclear whether this is added by the transcriber or actually said by Farage; the brackets are included in the original transcript. However, the addition ‘[euro-]’ is essential for the understanding of the sentence: Farage is not using ‘nationalism’ to mean anything ‘national’, but only the ideals of having one united Europe (as if it were a nation).

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wouldn’t particularly expect from an anti-European perspective. Fragment (13) shows that health metaphors22 can also have this implication of ‘a possible healthy state’.

(13) (…) I know that you'll never ever admit to that, and the euro I think will die a very slow and painful death. (2F)

Still, it can be argued that the health metaphor in fragment (13) contributes to Farage’s

anti-European attitude. Namely, it is interesting to interpret the implications that ‘a very slow and painful death’ has in the source domain and then transfer these implications to the target domain. ‘Slow’ can be interpreted as a slow decline in value of the Euro. The implication of ‘painful’ is way harder to interpret in the target domain, because the ‘Euro’ is not an entity that can experience the consequences of its own decline in value. It can be argued that the use of ‘painful death’ here contributes to Farage’s anti-European attitude, because it implicitly focusses on the (negative) consequences of a decline in value of the Euro and those consequences can be ‘felt’. Fragments (14) and (15) are other examples in which metaphorical patients undergo/feel the consequences of the Euro/the ‘Euro dream’.

(14) Untold millions must suffer so that your Euro dream can continue. (19F)

(15) France is now severely diminished, trapped inside a currency from which, frankly, it cannot recover (…) (7F)

In fragments (14) and (15), the metaphorical patients are the people and the nation France. Fragment (15) in particular implies that nation-states have a healthy state, a state in which they do not suffer from ‘Europeanness’. It is also striking to see the explicit contrast Farage makes in (14) and (15) between the sickness (‘Euro dream’/’a currency’) vs. the patients (‘untold millions’/’France’). Both the negative metaphorical evaluation of Europe as well as this strong contrast seem to contribute to Farage’s perceived anti-European attitude.

On the other hand, fragment (16) is an example of Farage using a health metaphor in which he explicitly excludes the possibility of a ‘healthy state’.

(16) (…) the common currency [i.e. the euro], this ill-conceived political attempt to force people into a monetary union without ever asking any of them whether they wanted to be there. (5F)

In fragment (16), the implication of a healthy state of ‘a common currency’ is explicitly tackled by the fact that it is ‘ill-conceived’, meaning it was already ill from the beginning. This thereby excludes the possibility of ‘the Euro’ ever becoming something positive, which is a very anti-European evaluation. Fragments (17) to (19) show some occurrences of other metaphors Farage used. Their overarching feature is that they all evaluate Europe negatively.

Journey (ship):

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Sometimes, the exact source domain of a metaphor is unclear. For instance, it cannot be said with certainty whether fragment (4) inevitably has a building metaphor in it, or whether ‘stable’ is to be interpreted as stable health. However, in the light of an anti-European attitude, it is not that relevant whether it is a building metaphor or health metaphor; the importance lies in the negative evaluation of Europe.

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(17) (…) the EU Titanic has now hit the iceberg. (16F)

(18) Mr President, we are embarked upon a course of almost unbelievable stupidity. (6F) Europe is an animal23:

(19) It was a great liberation for us and of course once having been bitten we didn't join the euro project thank goodness. (3F)

Some final interesting remarks to make are that within the journey (ship) metaphors, the ship will probably have a captain. Again, this captain is kept implicit. Also, the Titanic comparison could be interpreted as an accusation of hybris, unjust feelings of invincibility. Note that this hybris can easily be compared with ‘the Euro dream’ in fragment (14), since both point at being in a state in which someone is blind for the consequences of something (asleep and/or blinded by the prospects of great success).

Verhofstadt also uses multiple metaphors, of which some seem to be opposite versions of the metaphors used by Farage, as will be shown. Verhofstadt uses building metaphors that evaluate Europe positively.

(20) (…) by doing so we establish once and for all real European democracy in which the voters are deciding what is happening and it is not by accident that it is

happening. It is the result of the long, long way that we have walked together24, it is the result of the Convention we established in 2001 (…) (10V)

‘Real European democracy’ is probably a positive thing (according to Verhofstadt). Therefore, in fragment (20), ‘the Convention’ can be interpreted as a foundation for the building, ‘real European democracy’ that is built upon it. Also, the establishment of real European democracy could very well be another foundation to build upon even further in the future. Verhofstadt is building Europe more often. As fragment (22) shows, he also explicitly calls specific decisions/law-making ‘building blocks’.

(21) You will not restore that transfer mechanism if we do not establish a real Banking Union with a single resolution mechanism based not on national resolutions but on the proposal from the Commission. (11V)

(22) (…) a proposal for a single financial supervisor, which is one of the three building blocks for a banking union. But what I do not understand is why the Commission is not also taking the initiative on the other building blocks that are needed to solve this crisis. (3V)

In fragment (21), Verhofstadt implicitly positively evaluates ‘that transfer mechanism’, because saying that it can be restored implies that it has a good, functioning state, which is not the state in which it is now, but does exist, and did exist once. Whether ‘restore’ points at a health metaphor or a building metaphor is open for debate (cf. note 22), but the positive evaluation is clear. Also, since

23

Also note Farage mentioning the ‘monster in Brussels’ in the first fragment in the introduction section.

24

Cf. note 20. In this fragment, ‘we have walked together’ is a journey metaphor. However, for the sake of clarity, only the metaphor that is discussed is underlined. This journey metaphor by Verhofstadt is discussed shortly at the end of this section.

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‘restore’ is accompanied by other building metaphors (‘establish’ and ‘based’), it seems to fit the context as a building metaphor.

In Verhofstadt’s debate contributions, the looks or features of Verhofstadt’s Euro building are not as clear as the appearance of Farage’s buildings. However, fragment (23) gives some clues.

(23) And what the independent analysis, produced in the City of London, shows is that the breakup of the euro would create an economic meltdown in Europe, and that the first victim of that would be Germany, naturally. (20V)

Here, the ‘euro’ is depicted as a building (something that can be broken up) and it this building seems to be a nuclear reactor. It should be said that the Macmillan Dictionary (online) presents two

definitions of ‘meltdown’: the first one is within the context of a nuclear reactor and the second one is a meltdown within a financial situation. However, whether the meaning of ‘meltdown’ in fragment (23) is purely metaphorical or not, is not very relevant for interpreting the pro-European evaluation of it. Moreover, there are signs within fragment (23) that it is actually metaphorical here25. The evaluations of the metaphor in fragment (23) are multifaceted. A nuclear reactor produces power, which is, in itself, a good thing. However, a nuclear reactor is also often considered to be dangerous. Verhofstadt counters this danger by implying that only breaking it up would lead to the feared ‘meltdown’, which would see Germany as its first ‘victim’. Translated back to the context of the euro, Verhofstadt implies that the euro should not be abolished, because only if it would be abolished, it would have severe, negative consequences.

Besides the building metaphors discussed above (and reoccurrences of that same metaphor in the same manifestation), no other pro-European building metaphors were found. Other metaphors Verhofstadt used that could contribute to his perceived pro-European attitude were health metaphors, fighting metaphors and journey metaphors.

(24) This is a crisis about the euro, about the European Union and, in fact, a crisis today about the existence – the vital existence – of the European Union. (4V)

(25) There is ‘the 28’, there is Schengen, there is the euro, there is the patent, there are the opt-ins and the opt-outs, the enhanced cooperation, the derogations – it is chaos at the moment – and Europe needs one strong heart to survive in the future. (7V) (26) I think that what is killing the Union today is that Union à la carte (…) (21V)

Portraying Europe as a human being, something vital that needs a ‘strong heart to survive’ and can be killed has multiple pro-European evaluations. The presence of these metaphors is in line with Musolff (2004), as discussed in section 2.2.1. The first positive evaluation is simply that ‘Europe lives’. The European Union is assigned a parameter that abstract things don’t usually have: abstract things aren’t alive, nor death. Presenting Europe as a living creature or human being makes the abstract thing (E.U.) more knowledgeable and tangible. Furthermore, saying that ‘Europe needs one strong heart’ frames the notion of centralised power in a way that it is needed by definition. As soon as a reader or listener accepts the implication that Europe is a living creature (which is implied by ‘strong

25

Namely, the context of another building metaphor (‘breakup’), the specific mention of ‘victims’ and the fact that Verhofstadt explicitly mentions ‘economic meltdown’, in which ‘economic’ was not necessary if

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heart’), he can hardly deny the necessity of that creature having a heart, which can be seen as the central core that makes the body and its other organs function properly. If Verhofstadt would have said something like ‘Europe needs one centralised power that rules all individual countries’, this necessity of having just that would not have been obvious in itself, but just Verhofstadt’s opinion. Arguing for more centralised European power can easily be interpreted as pro-European.

Another metaphor that will be discussed is a fighting metaphor that Verhofstadt happens to use to distance himself from the anti-European/Eurosceptics (both are Verhofstadt’s words).

(27) But I think it should be more between Eurosceptics, who think that you can put the world outside your borders, and European forces, and I hope that all the pro-European forces can be united to beat the Eurosceptics. (2V)

(28) And I want to tell these people in these two big groups, and maybe in other groups, that by doing so what they are doing is intending to side with the anti-Europeans. (10V)

In fragments (27) and (28), Verhofstadt does several things. He displays the debate in the Parliament as if it is a fight between two sides. Also, apparently, one of the two sides could win (and thereby overrule the other side). It should be said that both sentences are from debate contributions that are partly about upcoming elections. Nevertheless, Verhofstadt could also have said something like ‘and I hope that all the pro-Europeans can be united to vote ‘yes’ for the upcoming candidate

commissioner.’ This way, the ‘forces’ and the ‘beating’ would have been left out. By including these words and thereby introducing this fighting metaphor, Verhofstadt implies that there is a strong rivalry between the two groups and he doesn’t simply want to win the elections, he wants to beat his opponents. This can easily be interpreted as a sign of an anti-anti-European attitude, to say the least. Finally, Verhofstadt also uses journey metaphors. Fragments (20) and (29) are some good examples of this.

(29) Parliament urged European leaders many times to end the standstill on Europe, to move forward, to quit protectionism and nationalism (…) (5V)

The journey metaphors in fragments (20) and (29) contribute to Verhofstadt’s perceived pro-European attitude, because they presuppose two things: there is a goal or direction and the way forward = the way to an ideal Europe. The fact that these metaphors presuppose these pro-European things contribute to Verhofstadt’s perceived pro-European attitude. Moreover, nationalism/anti-Europeanism is framed as ‘standstill’ contributes to Verhofstadt’s anti-anti-European attitude. To wrap up this section, it is good to shortly compare the metaphor use of both politicians. Table (1) gives a rough overview.

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(Table 1)

Health Building Journey

Farage Pro-European =

sickness Nation-states = patients

Euro = dying and killing Pro-European = destruction EU = a prison that is undemocratically designed by a designer Nation-states = strong fundament for cooperation Euro = misconstruction Pro-European decisions = course to the iceberg Pro-European ideology = (fake) dream destination

Verhofstadt Europe = alive, sick, in need of a heart/care Nation-states = organs Europe = building Conventions/treaties = fundaments Euro = generating energy as long as it is stable Pro-European decisions = moving forwards (More) centralised European power = direction/destination Nationalism = standstill

Table (1) shows that there is not one single overlap in how Farage and Verhofstadt present European entities/things within their metaphor use. However, it is interesting to see that both politicians use roughly the same source domains to bring their points across. This is in line with the claims by Musolff (2004), presented in section 2.2.1.

3.3.2 Personal pronouns; who is we?

Definition and operationalisation

To show how the use of ‘we’ contributes to an anti- or pro-European attitude, the referents of occurrences of ’we’ are determined by interpreting them in their context. As Cramer (2010, p. 623) states, it is impossible to know the referents of personal pronouns without knowing the context in which a text is uttered. The results of this analysis will consist of comparisons of the referents specific occurrences of ‘we’, refer to. To determine the referents of ‘we’, the referents of other personal pronouns sometimes also need to be determined. Therefore these referents are also determined when it is necessary or adding to the analysis.

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Results

In Farage’s debate contributions, roughly three types of ‘we’ seem to be used. A ‘we’ that excludes the European Commission/Council, a British ‘we’ and a ‘we’ that vaguely refers to ‘a European trend’/’European history’.

Farage has a habit of explicitly excluding the Commission (and/or the Head of Commission) or Council from the group he is in. Fragment (30) is another good example of this.

(30) I thought and hoped it was all just a bad dream, but today we have got you, Mr Barroso. (13F)

In fragment (30), it should be noted that who is part of ‘we’ exactly is not very important (and contextually vague). The crucial thing is that Barroso (HoC) is not a part of the in-group. In fact, in Farage’s corpus, there is not one single occurrence of Barroso or any other Member of Commission (or Member of Council) being part of Farage’s in-group. They are consequently excluded (mainly within ‘you’), at least when Farage is speaking as himself (and isn’t using any sort of indirect speech or quote).

Fragment (31) is an example of Farage also excluding the Council from his in-group.

(31) Mr President, here we are, on the edge of a financial and social disaster, and in the room today we have the four men who were supposed to be responsible. Yet we have listened to the dullest, most technocratic speeches I have ever heard. You are all in denial. (12F)

In fragment (31), Farage includes the President and the listeners within the Parliament within in-group (also by referring to ‘the room’). The only persons that cannot possibly be included within Farage’s ‘we’ (in fragment (31)) are ‘the four men who were supposed to be responsible’, which are four Members of Council, including the President. It is unclear where ‘you’ refers to, precisely, although it can be assumed that ‘the four men’ are also part of the ‘you’. In fact, it seems that ‘You are all in denial’ can be paraphrased as: ‘Everyone agreeing with those dull, technocratic speeches is in denial’. Farage almost presents it as if it is the choice of the listener to be addressed by ‘you’ or not. This use of ‘you’ contributes to Farage’s anti-European attitude, because ‘you’ comprises

‘everyone pro-European’ in a sentence wherein this ‘pro-Europeanness’ is framed as ‘being in denial’. The fact that the legislative power of Europe (European Commission and European Council) is kept out of Farage’s group makes for the fact that Farage might not want to associate himself with this legislative power. By explicitly not including the legislative powers in his in-group, he excludes himself from the decision-making process within the European Union. Whether this self-exclusion (from decision-making) actively contributes to Farage’s anti-European attitude, is questionable, because not being a part of something does not entail being totally against that thing. However, by excluding himself from the decision-making institution, Farage does lay a solid foundation to criticise the decision-making process and decisions further, because he can safely assume that he won’t thereby indirectly criticise himself.

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The second type of ‘we’ Farage uses is an in-group of Britishness. Farage only uses this type very sporadically, but the occurrences of it definitely seem to contribute to his perceived anti-European attitude as well. Fragment (32) is an example of this26.

(32) Mr President, this point is often made, namely that a country like Britain is only 62 million people and are we not better off being part of a big European club so that we can have more of a voice on the world stage? (4F second part)

In fragment (32), ‘we’ cannot refer to ‘a big European club’, so it probably refers to ‘British people’ (Farage included). The interesting point about this use of ‘we’ is that fragment (32) is pointed at another Member of Parliament (through addressing the President of Parliament27), who happens to be a Brit too (Andrew Duff), just like Farage himself. This use of British ‘we’ can be explained as contributing to an anti-pro-European attitude, because it focusses on Britishness (individual nation) instead of Europe as one entity (which is a rather pro-European strife)28.

The final type of ‘we’ use by Farage is a vague one that seems to refer to European politics/European history as a whole. Fragment (33) gives a good example of this.

(33) The difficulty is that they chose the wrong target. Monnet and Schuman decided – and this view is shared today by Mr Barroso, Mr[nbsp ]Cohn-Bendit and others – that it was the existence of the nation state that led to war and therefore we had to abolish the nation state. Actually, what we should have focused on, post-1945, was not the abolition of states (…) (8F)

It is hardly possible to pinpoint the exact referents of the two occurrences of ‘we’ in fragment (33). It can be argued that the first ‘we’ is retraceable to ‘Monnet and Schuman’ and does not actually include Farage himself. Then, the interpretation is that ‘we’ is to be interpreted within indirect speech, within the ‘decision of Monnet and Schuman’29. The second ‘we’, however, is even more vague than the first one. Namely, Farage could not have been a part of the post-1945 Europeans, because he was only born in 1964, but still Farage is giving an alternative to what is done: ‘what ‘we’ should have done’. Fragment (34) shows another occurrence of this ‘European historical ‘we’’.

(34) We may have made one of the biggest stupidest collective mistakes in history by getting so worrying about global warming. (2F)

Again, it is impossible to interpret this ‘we’ as if Farage is actively a part of it, because Farage has always been sceptical of climate change, so he never actually made the ‘mistake’. In fragments (33) and (34), the effect of this odd use of ‘we’ seems to be that Farage presents himself as a victim of the general will/general opinion; this is/was common sense, so he cannot have thought otherwise. By

26

Fragment (19) in the metaphor section is also a striking example.

27_{Addressing the President of Parliament seems to be a convention within the European Parliament.} 28

An objection against this interpretation of the ‘we’ in fragment (32) could be that Farage possibly always includes his addressee in his in-group, just as long as that addressee isn’t part of the European

Commission/Council. However, this is not the case. Namely, in debate contributions 11F and 18F, in which Farage addresses the Greek and Hungarian Prime Ministers, respectively, his addressees are both not included in Farage’s in-group.

29

The fact that Monnet and Schuman ‘decided’ upon a fact, according to Farage, also blurs the line between reality and fantasy, because you technically cannot make something true by deciding it is true.

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using ‘we’ in this way, Farage implicitly points at the inevitability/self-evidence of collective ideology. In fragment (33), this seems to contribute to his perceived anti-European attitude, because it gives the impression that ‘abolishing the nation state = solution’ was the only correct, common sense thought to think, which in turn implies that it was ‘not done’ to think critically on pro-European ideas. This agitation against the inevitability of ‘pro-European common sense’ also seems to be in line with the implications of Farage’s metaphors that pro-European ideas are ‘deep rooted’, ‘ill-conceived’ and based on ‘rotten’ fundamentals.

Now, we will turn to Verhofstadt’s use of personal pronouns. Verhofstadt’s use of personal pronouns and the way it might contribute to his perceived pro-European attitude seems to be less complex than Farage’s case. Verhofstadt’s use of ‘we’ is often less vague than Farage’s use of ‘we’, because the context often points at the referents of ‘we’. Fragment (35) is a good example of this.

(35) However, we have also made mistakes ourselves. I think the most important error – and we have to recognise this today, before the Greek Presidency – was made in December 2009 by not immediately backing Greece (…) (11V)

In fragment (35), ‘we’ can only refer to the whole Parliament (including Verhofstadt himself) and the Commission. Namely, the decision/error ‘not to immediately back Greece’ was a decision that was made on a European level, meaning that both the European Parliament and (ultimately) the Commission have had their influence on that decision. So, in fragment (35), Verhofstadt associates himself with the Commission. This inclusion of the Commission is crucially different from Farage’s personal pronoun use, who does not include the Commission.

There are even instances in the corpus in which Verhofstadt addresses ‘you’ (HoC), while he includes that ‘you’ within his own in-group in the same sentence. Fragment (36) shows this.

(36) Secondly – and there was not enough of this in your vision of the future – we need a more integrated Eurozone (…) (2V)

While addressing something that was missing or lacking the vision of Verhofstadt’s addressee (HoC), Verhofstadt still manages to keep the addressee within his own in-group. Fragment (36) implies that basically everyone, including Barroso (HoC) needs ‘a more integrated Eurozone’. There are also sporadic occurrences of Verhofstadt excluding his addressee from his in-group. When he does so, it seems to be the case that only Verhofstadt and his fraction is within the in-group. Fragment (37) is a clear example of this.

(37) I want to tell you that we fully back the content of that letter. (9V)

Fragment (37) can impossibly be interpreted the same way as fragment (36). Namely, if the addressee (‘you’) would have been part of the in-group, that would mean that that addressee already backs the content of that letter, leaving no reason for Verhofstadt to tell him that. Here, ‘we’ probably refers to ALDE, Verhofstadt’s group in the Parliament.

Besides ‘ALDE’ and ‘the whole Parliament and Commission’, Verhofstadt also creates other in-groups. He sometimes excludes ‘Eurosceptics’ and he often uses a very inclusive ‘we’, of which the whole of Europe could be a part. Fragment (38) shows this eurosceptics exclusion.