Abstract
This article explores the representation of the Greek national elections in a British broadsheet newspaper and their recontextualisation through the prism of crisis. I focus on speech representation as a recontextualisation device that serves as a bridge between speech production and text consumption. Specifically, the paper addresses the discursive framing of the crisis by focusing on the ‘speakers’, namely the social actors who are represented as speaking, the actions in which they are involved and the power role relationships established between them. I argue that a polarised image of crisis is constructed and that the framing of the Greek elections in this particular broadsheet results in double-voicing that positions Greece as either dependent on or independent of Europe. This double-voicing seems to contribute to the maintenance of domination and social control and helps sustain dominant discourses circulating in the broader socio-cultural context.
Introduction
The dual Greek national elections that took place in May to June 2102 were represented by the media as a milestone in the ongoing Greek/European financial crisis which has prevailed in the European and global financial and political arena since 2008. A great number of publications have illustrated that news media play an active and complex role in the formation of consensus with regards to public issues such as the European financial crisis (Stråth and Wodak, 2009; Talbot, 2007), as it is the role of the media to not only inform, report or entertain, but also to turn their reports into ‘occasions for reflection and potentially for action on the part of their publics’ (Chouliaraki, 2010: 608; Silverstone, 2007). One of the main linguistic mechanisms through which events that took place in a distant spatiotemporal context are dramatised and recontextualised, is speech representation (henceforth SR). In particular, intertextual analysis, that is the dependence of texts upon other texts, can be seen as the bridge between text and discursive practice, in the sense that it refers to the relationship between the processes of production of a text and the processes of its interpretation and consumption (Fairclough, 1995: 75).
The aim of the present study is to provide a qualitative linguistic analysis of SR in articles published in The Guardian/The Observer, reporting events that took place throughout the period of the Greek national elections. I explore the ways in which the Greek elections are recontextualised in the British context through the prism of crisis. In particular, I focus on the representation of voices and the overall positioning of the social actors involved (Van Leeuwen, 1996), namely the Greek people and the European Union (EU)/international elites. This includes the represented relationship between social actors and the social actions assigned to them. I argue that through these SRs, a polarised image of crisis is constructed. At the same time, I observe a double-voicing in the discursive framing of the crisis that either promotes or undermines the dependence on and/or independence of Greece from Europe. I therefore argue that this framing serves to re-establish power relations and helps sustain social inequality in the broader socio-cultural context.
I embark upon a discussion of the vital role of the media in constructing crisis worlds. Then, I address SR as a phenomenon that enables interconnection between words and worlds, resulting in a plurality of voices that are selected, juxtaposed and/or highlighted depending on the reporter’s communicative goals. After a presentation of my data, I analyse extracts of newspaper articles that include different types of SRs. The analysis is structured in terms of social actors whose voices are reported, the represented speech acts and the discourses that are realised through the framing of the original words in the reporting context. My concluding remarks bring together issues raised in the analysis and aim to address the overall recontextualisation of the Greek crisis in the British context.
Crisis and the media
Ironically, the term ‘crisis’ originates from the Greek word κρίνω (krino), that is ‘to judge’, which embeds, among others, the notions of ‘decide’, ‘distinguish’ and ‘determine’. Following Stråth and Wodak (2009: 27), I understand crisis as embedding its original meaning: a decisive/judging moment in time where everything is in question and during which critical decisions that will determine the future need to be made. Thus, the term crisis involves a lack of predictability of the future. Within this concept, in periods of crisis with a European dimension, the value basis of Europe is negotiated and potentially transformed through the overlap of competing discourses and contentious values that are at times promoted, enforced and/or rejected through language, for example media language, the language of politics, etc. (Stråth and Wodak, 2009: 17). Some of these values are, among others, what is presented as good or bad, right or wrong (Stråth and Wodak, 2009: 16; Wodak, 2009: 18) and, I would add, who is accountable or not for the represented experiences. Wodak argues that crisis situations are often reduced to these simple and polarised images of good or bad that relate to normative and dogmatic concepts (2009: 18). Drawing on this very lack of predictability of the future, at times of crisis with a European dimension, the media oscillate between images of Europe with a positive and images of a negative value load (Stråth and Wodak, 2009: 16). The selection of events to be reported as news as well as news sources are important aspects that contribute to the representation of events as crises or to the construction of a certain image of crisis on the part of media producers.
As far as news values are concerned, namely the selection and structure of events in terms of noteworthiness, some of the determining factors are negativity, recency and relevance (Bednarek, 2006: 16–17; Bell, 1991). The coverage of the dual Greek national elections was of primary news value in the British news at the time the elections were taking place, obviously because of recency – the more recent the event reported, the more noteworthy – but, importantly, in terms of negativity: the negative ideological climate surrounding Greece, which had been under financial reform and austerity measures since 2008, brought the country to the front page news of British newspapers on several occasions throughout these years. Within this negative climate, the Greek national elections were framed as a milestone in Greek financial and political history. The noteworthiness of the elections was also presented as relevant to the British public sphere: decisions made in Athens would turn out to be relevant to and potentially affect Britain due to the framing of the elections through the prism of European financial crisis that sees both Greece and Britain as members of the EU.
With regards to news sources, it is by now a truism that newspapers tend to favour the powerful elites (Bell, 1991: 59; Richardson, 2004: 45) as they are limited to reporting the opinions of ‘legitimized’ sources, which results in a ‘predominantly establishment view of the world’ (Fairclough, 1995: 49). This is also reflected in the commitment of journalists to the ‘capitalist modes of production’ which govern the process of news reports (Richardson, 2004: 35, 2007: 44). Although it is widely acknowledged that journalism is driven by values of marketisation (Bourdieu, 1998; Stråth and Wodak, 2009: 31), journalists are important actors on the stage of politics as they are able to co-construct the political agenda and hence the ‘relevance of a specific event as crisis – or not’ (Stråth and Wodak, 2009: 31). To this end, they are elite figures, along with politicians, scholars, writers and bureaucrats (Van Dijk, 2008: 4). At the same time, ‘language gains power by the use powerful people make of it’ (Wodak, 2001: 10), so special attention should be paid to the ways the language of powerful people becomes responsible for construing social inequalities and sustaining relations of domination. A critical analysis of media language, which is endorsed in this study, seeks to uncover these opaque relationships of power, control and dominance. As Van Dijk aptly points out, ‘power abuse can only manifest itself in language use where there is the possibility of variation or choice, such as calling the same person a terrorist or a freedom fighter, depending on your position and ideology’ (2008: 4). It is this particular variation and choice in the representation of words and voices that is explored in this article. Specifically, the voices that are represented, the forms of representation (direct, indirect, etc.) and their connection to the rest of the text all relate to choices that are strategically made by journalists, depending on, among other things, their ideological positioning which, as I will argue, serves to construct a particular perspective on crisis.
SR and recontextualisation
The relocation or transfer of words from an anterior spatiotemporal context to a posterior one is a widely researched phenomenon that has been assigned a range of terms, depending on the theoretical standpoint of research. I adopt the term speech representation, compared to the traditional reported speech, as report implies an unproblematic relationship between the original words and the represented ones (Short et al., 2002). This does not hold true for most of the data where speech is involved, as it is unlikely that the transfer of words from one context to another comes without changes. I also use SR compared to the more generic intertextuality, as this article focuses specifically on the representation of speech, namely words produced by figures directly or indirectly involved with the Greek general elections, which are then transferred to writing. I will still employ intertextuality as an overarching term that captures the dependence of texts/talk upon other texts/talk, produced in different spatiotemporal contexts; this includes, as I explain below, not only the interrelation and constant interaction between texts/talk, but also between underlying discourses and/or embedded ideologies (see also Boukala, 2014).
The idea of interconnectedness between words or texts has its roots in the philosophy of language (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986; Kristeva, 1980). Take, for example, Bakhtin’s heavily quoted words:
Any concrete utterance is a link in the chain of speech communication of a particular sphere […]. Every utterance must be regarded primarily as a response to preceding utterances of the given sphere. (1986: 91)
This suggests, among other things, that language is intrinsically contextual. Every utterance is in ongoing interaction with previous or future utterances and, thus, it is always interpreted in relation to these other texts/utterances that have shaped it. Along with utterances come discourses and ideologies which, in turn, overlap with one another and eventually challenge subjectivity. In fact, the very process of interpretation, which requires a compilation of voices from different contexts, constructs the language user’s subjectivity (Kristeva, 1980: 68). To this end, language is filled with ‘dialogic overtones’ and is always multi-voiced (Bakhtin, 1986: 92).
Given the embeddedness and interconnectedness of text and talk, the process of representing someone’s words inevitably carries the subjective contribution of the reporter. When context, temporal and spatial loci change, words acquire new meanings because meanings are formed in use. This process has been described as re-accentuation or recontextualisation (Bakhtin, 1986: 89). Recontextualisation is never a pure transfer of meaning though; instead, changes are inherent (see Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999; Van Leeuwen and Wodak, 1999). Even in direct forms of SR, where the report seems to be faithful to the original words, due to the maintenance of deictic elements (e.g. space, time and person deixis) that signal the perspective of the original speaker, the perspective of the reporter still persists. In indirect reports this additional perspective is apparent, due to deictic changes, whereas in direct forms it is concealed.
The apparent faithfulness to the original words renders SR a powerful tool that can be used for different communicative purposes, including dramatisation, vividness, argumentation, distance from or involvement with the represented words and, consequently, with the stance or viewpoint embedded in these words (see Georgakopoulou, 1997; Holt, 1999; Lampropoulou, 2012). In print media, for example, when journalists use scare quotes, they appear as animators of the views authored by others (Goffman, 1981: 144). In general, media institutions claim to be neutral in that they include in their reports a plurality and diversity of voices and this presupposes faithfulness to the original words. But the selection of voices, their ordering, the allocation of speaking space and the ways voices are woven together are decisive and involve some kind of decision and control (Fairclough, 1995: 64). Within this concept, SR is an effective evaluative device that highlights the point of an argument and/or a story and embeds the narrator’s or speaker’s view/stance.
According to Bell (1991), news producers aim at constructing effective and tellable stories which resemble conversational narratives in that they are governed by the same rules: they have similar structure 1 and reflect the storyteller’s viewpoint. The latter takes, among other things, the form of evaluation. SR is one of the main evaluative devices that contributes to the tellability of stories by adding, among other things, vividness and dramatisation to a displaced experience. In fact, the ways events are represented, the positioning of the characters and their assigned speaking space all involve a process of selection which, inevitably, lies with the reporter. At the same time, SR, due to the very fact that it interconnects words (original and reported) and worlds (of the original interaction and the represented one), can be regarded as an important device between news production and consumption. The ways reports are framed through SR and the ways they are aimed to be interpreted reflect and sustain the ideological viewpoints of print media institutions. Within this concept, the aim of this study is to reveal the mediating role of SR, as manipulated by newspaper reporters, in the recontextualisation of the Greek elections and the construction of crisis worlds. It should be noted here that I do not aim to make comparisons between original quotations and reported ones, as I hope to have clarified that any process of recontextualisation is a selective one on the part of the reporter. This means that the fact that the reported text deviates – to a more or less extent – from the original speech is taken for granted. The aim is to analyse the framing of the original words, namely their placement in the story, the reporting verbs and the meta-commentary, in order to show how the protagonists of crisis (e.g. Greek people, elite figures, austerity) are positioned and how this positioning contributes to a broader representation of crisis.
Data
My data comprises 11 articles that were published in The Guardian/The Observer during the period 6 May to 17 June 2012, before and after the first and second rounds of the Greek national elections that took place on 6 May and 17 June 2012, respectively. The articles under analysis are all hard news stories in that they consist of ‘events that have occurred or come to light since the previous issue of their paper or programme’ (Bell, 1991: 12). They were all published in the newspapers’ main sections under ‘top stories’ and were retrieved from the online version of the newspapers, although they also appeared in the respective hard copies. Of these, two were published just after the first round of elections (7–15 May 2012), four just before the second round (15–17 June 2012) and five just after the results of the second and final round (18–20 June 2012). Overall they comprise 10,135 words, of which approximately 5000 words are representations of speech, including reporting phrases and meta-commentaries. This high frequency shows that SR is an essential aspect of news reports that, as I will show in the analysis, serves multiple functions. In particular, in the analysis part, I discuss typical excerpts which include the representation of voices of different key social actors: the Greek people and the EU elites. I also deal with voice representations relating to austerity measures, a benchmark in the representation of crisis. Through analysis of the representation of the main protagonists of crisis (including austerity), I aim to show that the overall positioning of the EU elites and the Greek people serves to legitimate austerity and sustain discourses of domination and control. Before proceeding to the analysis, it is worth discussing the political standpoint of the newspapers under scrutiny and their target audiences.
The Guardian and The Observer are considered representative of the broadsheet press, also known as ‘serious’ or ‘quality’ press (see Mautner, 2008; Richardson, 2004: 36; Semino and Short, 2004: 24). The audiences of broadsheet newspapers are ‘predominantly educated, professional, economically and politically powerful individuals and groups’ and, thus, the newspapers’ content and agenda reflect the preferences of their respective audiences (Richardson, 2004: 36; Worcester, 1998: 42). Specifically, The Guardian and The Observer (belonging to the same parent company, the Guardian Media Group) share a tradition of liberal politics and independent journalism and are thus expected to offer their audiences a wide variety of – even contradictory – voices and perspectives without expressing strong editorial opinion. This conviction is the main reason why articles from these specific newspapers have been selected as data for this study. That said, there are obvious limitations with regards to the agenda and the content of journalistic texts, as news producers are driven by values of capitalism which determine the nature of their products (see discussion in the Crisis and the media section, earlier; Richardson, 2007: 77). It is therefore worth exploring the textual products, specifically the voice representations employed by the social liberal press to build up crisis stories, and the contradictory values, namely independent journalism versus capitalism, that may underlie their specific textual choices.
Represented speakers
In the 10,135-word corpus, I identified 62 instances of SR. The high proportion of SR in this data, that is half of the total word count, confirms the importance of the inclusion of a range of voices in the construction of an effective story and the powerful role of SR per se in the relationship between news production and consumption. These 62 instances were first counted in terms of the speakers whose voices are represented.
Table 1 shows that the majority of voices represented in the data under analysis belong to EU elites. These include leading figures in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Central European Bank, as well as government leaders of EU countries which are not under financial reform, such as Germany, the UK, Austria and France. The voices of EU elites count for 48.4% of the overall number of occurrences. Greek political figures are also ‘entitled’ to a voice in the representation of Greek national elections (25.8%), as they play a protagonist role in this context, but they are less frequently represented compared to EU elites. The voices of ordinary Greek citizens – what I call voices of the Greek people – are represented by 6.5%, a considerably low number in relation to the decisive role their vote is presented to have played in the elections, and consequently to the formation of the political and financial sphere. The voices of ‘experts’ such as political analysts or economists are allocated 11.3%. Finally, there were a few instances where SR could not be attributed to a certain figure or person as there is ambiguity in the agent whose words are reported – what I tag as ‘unknown’, for example ‘many feared to be…’ or ‘it is said’. I discuss the impact of this type of representation in the analysis section.
Distribution of SR by speaker.
Overall, these numbers confirm previous findings in that newspapers tend to favour official or ‘legitimised sources’ – in this case, through the speaking space they allocate to them – whereas ordinary people’s views are mostly presented as reactions to news and are less preferred, as if they are entitled to their experiences but not their opinions (Fairclough, 1995: 49; Scannell, 1992). In fact, references to elite sources serve a ‘legitimising function, supporting the author’s point of view and bolstering his credibility’ (Mautner, 2008: 42). Having provided an outline of SR in my data, in terms of represented actors, I will now turn to the framing of specific voice representations and the discourses reproduced in the broader socio-cultural context.
The Greek people
The results of the first round of elections on 6 May 2012 are reported in an article published in the Guardian main section on 7 May, entitled Greek voters vent anger towards austerity at ballot box. The headline counts as an abstract (Bell, 1991); it encapsulates the point of the story and places the Greek people, the voters, in the centre of action. The action is presented as a release of a pre-existing anger towards austerity. Austerity here is a noun, a process without an agent, as the emphasis is placed on the very action of anger and, in turn, on the subject of anger rather than the recipient. In the lead Parties that passed unpopular belt-tightening measures punished by electorate at ballot box, the immediate recipient of the act of anger, and, in turn, the agent of austerity, is revealed. What is more, the mental/expressive process of anger is transformed into the more material process of punishment; the agent of the act remains the same, namely the Greek electorate. Here we have transitive action in the form of passive construction that foregrounds the recipient of the action who was not mentioned in the headline. The subject of the action is repeated, though, for purposes of emphasis: it is the electorate, namely the ordinary Greek people, who punished their governors. It is worth discussing the voice representations that accompany this article whose opening invokes a call to responsibility. Following the provision of information with regards to the background of the elections and a hint of the results, the voice of Tsipras, leader of the left-wing Syriza party, is represented:
Extract 1
2
<1.‘This is a message of change, a message to Europe that a peaceful revolution has begun’,> said Alexis Tsipras, who heads Syriza, a coalition of radical left and green groups that took 16.6% of the vote – the second largest share. <‘German chancellor Angela Merkel has to know that the politics of austerity have suffered a humiliating defeat.’> The reaction from Brussels and the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, which have provided bailouts worth €240bn, was <2.silence.>
Tsipras’s words are represented in plain direct speech with no apparent interference on the part of the reporter. The result of the elections is presented as a message sent by the Greek population to the international lenders. The message is given as that of a change in a pre-existing situation, namely the compliance of the Greek population to austerity measures. The result of the elections is further constructed as a peaceful revolution, implying that the change in this pre-existing social order is a dramatic one. Then, in the absence of a reporting verb, Tsipras is dramatically represented as denouncing the practices of Angela Merkel, who is chosen to be mentioned for the first time in this article. Merkel appears as the representative figure of austerity and eventually as the defeated party following the election results. The elections are thus metaphorically constructed as a game that resulted in victory for the Greek population and in the loss of not only local political figures, as mentioned in the lead, but also of European, thus more global, elite figures represented by Merkel. Interestingly, Tsipras’s words are juxtaposed with the speech reaction on the part of the international creditors that is encapsulated in one word: silence. They are therefore presented as remaining dumbstruck after Tsipras’s provocative statement.
The effects and impact of Tsipras’s words are highlighted through the dramatisation created by the direct form of representation. It appears as if the reporter lets Tsipras speak on his own and, at the same time, allows the audience to draw their own conclusions based on the represented words (Lampropoulou, 2012: 19). Both the content and the framing of his words – including the way they are represented, their positioning (in relation to each other and to the overall article) and their juxtaposition with what precedes and what follows, contribute to the representation of the Greek people as powerful, independent and capable of reversing an existing social order. This is reinforced by active constructions in the headline and the lead which place the Greek population in a foregrounding position, emphasising the role they play in the action represented, namely punishment (see also Richardson, 2004: 57). In turn, the international creditors appear as defeated. It should be noted that their voices are absent from the whole article. It follows that a reverse of power relations is put forth here that sees the Greek people standing up to international elites; the Greeks are presented as strong enough not only to fight and eventually win, but also to punish. This represented victory is heightened if we take into consideration the asymmetrical power relations between winner and defeated party: it is weak, ordinary people who managed to punish the strong and powerful international lenders. Obviously, what is also highlighted here is the power of the vote per se. Finally, the concept of punishment implies some kind of moral responsibility for the acts committed by the international elites, so the actions of the Greek population are also legitimated through the way the different voices are represented, positioned and juxtaposed.
This is the only time power roles are reversed in this data, however. In what follows, I discuss the voices of international elites and the subsequent positioning of the Greek population/country as dependent on and/or independent of the EU/international lenders.
EU/international elites
As already discussed, it is the voices of powerful elites that are predominantly represented and, apart from the previously mentioned article where their voices are not heard, it is mainly the perspective of the elites to which the readers are exposed. In order to examine the framing of these 30 SR instances, I first looked at the social actions represented and, in turn, at how the elites and the Greek people are positioned through the represented actions and at the established relationship between the two.
In 19 out of 30, that is in more than half of the SR instances, EU/international elites warn or urge Greece to stick to its deals, in the form of transitive actions, either in active or passive constructions. In an article published on the front page of The Observer on 16 June 2012, one day before the second round of the elections, the impact of the potential election results on the global financial sphere unfolds. In the headline World Bank warns that euro collapse could spark global crisis, emphasis is placed on the consequences of a potential euro collapse. The combination of the words global and crisis multiplies a widely accepted negative situation, namely crisis, and places it at a global level. This implies that crisis is local, in other words limited and controllable for the time being. The agent of the warning, the World Bank, is also foregrounded, hence its credibility is validated, whereas the recipient of the warning is not yet mentioned. The lead Europe ‘facing Lehmans moment’ says outgoing head Robert Zoellick as Greeks are warned over key election helps the reader attribute specific actions to specific people. The choice of ‘Lehmans moment’ establishes intertextual connections with the largest bankruptcy in the USA and brings into this context discourses of poverty and collapse of the global economy; this highlights the criticality of the situation and contextualises the importance of the upcoming Greek vote. The voice representations included in this article are those of Zoellick, Merkel and other European leaders.
Extract 2 As Greek voters go to the polls in elections that could determine the future of the eurozone, Zoellick told the Observer <28.he was advising emerging nations to ready themselves for the consequences of events in the single-currency area.> German chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday <29.ruled out renegotiating Greece’s bailout, saying the country must stick to its deals with international lenders.> Unofficial polls suggest the conservative New Democracy party is ahead of the anti-austerity Syriza.
After contextualising the situation in a three-line paragraph that is not included here, Zoellick’s words, represented in indirect speech with the apparent involvement of the reporter, underscore the global dimension of the represented crisis: events that currently take place at a more local level, in the single-currency area, can potentially threaten nations outside the eurozone. Note that there is no hedging in the way the words are represented, signalling some kind of proximity to the situation to ready themselves, so there will be consequences and the recipients need to be prepared. The introduction to Zoellick’s words is also worth discussing: As Greek voters . . . eurozone. This counts as contextualisation/background information for the subsequent words. In this sentence, Greek elections are once again brought to the fore and their decisive nature, in terms of the future of the eurozone, is explicitly given. Within this frame, Zoellick’s expertise comes directly after this background information to highlight, potentially, the even wider dimensions (than the European) of the situation ensuing from the election result. So the weight falls on Greeks to decide not only the future of Europe, but potentially the future of the globe.
We are then given a report of Merkel’s words, again in indirect speech, that raise a different but relevant matter: that of renegotiating Greece’s bailout terms. The choice of the reporting verb rule out prepares for a negative development of the proposition that follows – renegotiating Greece’s bailout. At the same time, it constructs Merkel as a powerful and firm negotiator because the decision appears irrevocable. The ensuing speech report saying . . . lenders is presented as explanatory to the previous claim; it includes the categorical modality must stick, signalling absoluteness and strength of opinion. Also here, the country of Greece is substituted for the more animate Greeks through objectivation/spatialisation (Van Leeuwen, 1996: 59). Greece is the subject of the action described and, at the same time, the patient/object of the decision previously given. These processes of activation and passivation contribute to the establishment of power roles. At the same time, the country is positioned in a negative way, as it appears to be potentially unable to commit to its deals and is thus unreliable. The overall framing of Merkel’s and Zoellick’s words, apart from establishing power roles with regards to who has control over the crisis, contributes to the reproduction of disciplinary discourse that sees Greece as the digressive and undependable child of Europe. At the same time, it serves to legitimate the decisions taken from above, namely austerity measures, due to the very fact that Greece is presented as potentially deviant. As Van Leeuwen argues, ‘deviation almost always serves the purpose of legitimation: the failure of the deviant social actor confirms the norms’ (1996: 65). The following extract, from the same article, includes similar discursive representations:
Extract 3 Several European leaders <31.urged Greeks to stick with the euro>, including Spain’s prime minister Mariano Rajoy and Jean-Claude Juncker, who is Luxembourg’s prime minister and head of the group of eurozone finance ministers. <32.‘If the radical left wins [in Greece] – which cannot be ruled out – the consequences for the currency union are unforeseeable’,> Juncker told the Austrian newspaper Kurier. <33.‘I can only warn everyone against leaving the currency union. The internal cohesion of the euro zone would be in danger.’>
First, we are given a representation of voices of several European leaders in an indirect form, specifically in the form of a narrator’s representation of speech act (Semino and Short, 2004: 11). This is a form of report that is closer to the perspective of the reporter than to the original words because of the deictic changes involved, as well as the lack of specificity in the content of the reported words, compared to traditional indirect speech. The fact that the producers of the original words are several European leaders rather than a specific person detracts from its apparent faithfulness, thus it is clear that the words are edited. The reporting verb urged predisposes a lack of flexibility in the propositional content of the subsequent act to stick. Greeks are again the objects of this strong recommendation. The option of not sticking to the euro is presented as open and it appears associated with the election of an anti-austerity government. This is clarified in instance 32, which is given in a direct form and counts as a reiteration of the previously summarised report. Through the represented words of the head of the eurozone group of finance ministers, there is a direct association of the potential election results with a commitment to the euro currency. It is worth discussing the positioning of these words in the overall article. They are placed at the very end, so readers are left with the voices of the European leaders urging Greeks to stick to the euro. It can be argued that these last two SR instances constitute the coda, namely a conclusive comment that reinstates the point of the story and reflects on the results of the previously reported actions (Lampropoulou, 2012: 156; see also Georgakopoulou, 1997: 130–131). To this end, it embeds an evaluative function relating to the stance and viewpoint of the institutional voice underneath.
Through the framing of the above represented words, power relations are also reinstated; these construct European leaders in a superior position and the Greek population as inferior, dependent on the former’s actions. The framing of the words of all elite figures, particularly the choice of reporting verbs warn, rule out and urge, guides readers towards an interpretation which is negative for Greece. What is more, Greece is positioned as ‘one’ against ‘many’: throughout this article, every individualised social actor or expert/member of the elite (Van Leeuwen, 1996: 49) takes turns to offer an expert view on the country’s situation, so that Greece is further passivised and its weak and fragile position is reinforced. At the same time, the critical situation of the country is dramatised: Greeks are faced with an either/or decision, namely in or out of the eurozone, which concerns not only their country, but also the rest of the world. It follows that a polarised version of crisis is constructed, as the complex process of elections is reduced and simplified to an either/or decision (see also Wodak, 2009: 18). In addition, what is presented as a local and detached – for the time being – ‘problem’ may expand and affect the world in which the report is framed. Such a representation contributes to the legitimation of the potential election of a pro-bailout government and, consequently, of a bailout agreement per se. What is absent from the article is a presentation of the local consequences of this legitimised result. Although the impact of a local decision on the global sphere is addressed, the opposite scenario, namely the impact of global decisions on the local population, is concealed. Similar discourses are enforced in the following extracts, which revolve around austerity measures.
The austerity
On 18 June 2012, an article entitled Greek elections: voters give Europe and single currency a chance reports the results of the second round of elections. The headline again places the Greek population in a foregrounding position and carries a positive message, signalled through the word chance, with regards to the impact of the Greek vote on the rest of Europe. As discussed in the previous section, the Greek national elections were contextualised in a polarised image: in or out of the euro. Within this concept, it becomes evident already from the headline that the election result favours a pro-bailout government. The article includes representation of the voices of the right-wing party leader Antonis Samaras and those of Eurogroup officials.
Extract 4 <36.‘The Greek people voted for the European course of Greece and that we remain in the euro’,> Samaras declared. <36.‘This is an important moment for Greece and the rest of Europe.’ Athens would honour its commitments made in exchange for rescue loans from the EU and IMF> … <39.All the signs now are that, despite the tough talk in the election campaign, the Europeans will shift to relaxing the terms of Greece’s bailout, while emphasising that the broad conditions have to be met.> <40.‘I can well imagine that the schedule will be discussed again’,> said the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, <40.suggesting that the timeline set for Greece’s budget deficit reduction programme will be eased.> <41.Belgian officials made similar noises.> <42.The heads of the European Commission and Council also pledged ‘to stand by Greece as a member of the EU family and of the Euro area’.>
While all the previous stories represented a negative atmosphere around the Greek elections, this article builds an overall positive message for the future of the country and the eurozone. Samaras’s words present the election result as proof of Greece’s loyalty to Europe and appear as a challenge to the circulating discourses of doubt and disbelief concerning Greece’s commitment to its deals with Europe.
The positive atmosphere created by the headline and the representation of Samaras’s speech is taken up in the SR of other European leaders in instances 39–42. Whether directly (instances 40, 42) or indirectly (instances 39, 40, 41), the representation is that of an easing and relaxing perspective on Greece’s deficit reduction programme on the part of Europe. The last instance (42) is worth discussing both in terms of form and content. Although scare quotes are used that imply faithfulness to the original words, both the reporting verb pledged and the represented actors the heads . . . Council are the reporter’s choices that favour a particular interpretation of the original words. The attribution of the representing words to stand by Greece to more than one speaker (the heads of the European Commission and Council) highlights a joint supportive tone that is intended to be created. This is also generated through a parataxis of five instances of speech reports attributed to different sources that still convey the same message: that of support. Finally, the reporting verb pledged signals a commitment to the proposition stand by . . . area. It should be noted that this is the first and only time in this data set that a collective European identity is constructed: Greece is sympathised with by the EU elites and is treated as an in-group – a member of Europe that deserves help and support.
It follows that there is a change of discourse between the current article produced after the final election result and those previously discussed, written before 18 June. This comes with a reallocation of social actor attributes and the ensuing social relations. With regards to social actors, the ruthless and superior elites become sympathetic in-groups. Those who urge, warn and rule out negotiations shift to relaxing and pledge to stand by. The unreliable, digressive out-groups turn to honour their commitments and, thus, qualify as in-groups. In terms of timing, moments of tension are converted to moments of ease and relaxation. This change of discourse from ‘Grexit’ to ‘Grecovery’ is not surprising, given that the election result is the one that tallies with the political and economic agenda of the powerful members of the EU. I would argue that this change of discourse – one that comes with changes in the representations of social actors, actions and power relations – contributes to the overall legitimation of austerity. In particular, a negative situation with dire consequences for the Greek population, which tends to be backgrounded in the previous analysed SRs, is now turned into something positive and legitimated as common sense (see Chouliaraki, 2010: 610). As a result, it ends up being naturalised and taken for granted: sticking to the euro and the eurozone is associated with hope, while the requisites associated with such a commitment are backgrounded. Within this concept, it is worth discussing the choice of words collocating with austerity throughout the whole data set. Although the word anti-austerity is frequently used to exclusively represent Tsipras and the party he represents, European leaders and the Greek centre/right-wing parties are constructed as pro-euro, pro-European or, rarely, pro-bailout. The terms pro-euro and pro-European convert the negative weight of the act associated with austerity into something positive. It therefore seems that by presenting a unifying Europe and by claiming a collective European identity, austerity is euphemised. To this end, the primary interpretation is that submitting to austerity is not just the only possible way, but also the right way to go for Greece.
Concluding remarks: The elites, austerity and the Greeks
The dynamic nature of SR in serving as a bridge between text production and consumption is an important tool in the language of print media, employed for multiple purposes. It works as a recontextualisation device for words, voices and perspectives by bringing together the contexts of the original interaction and the reporting, without explicitly revealing the identity of the reporter, as s/he appears as the animator of the words authored by others. However, the overall representation and framing of these words, voices and perspectives presuppose some sort of decision and control that point to certain ideological positions held by an institutional voice. In this article, I have analysed how the speech of the Greek people and of powerful elites is represented in articles published in The Guardian/The Observer during the period of the dual Greek national elections. I particularly looked at the representation of social actors, their assigned actions, the represented relationships and how these contribute to the discursive framing of the Greek/European crisis. I explored power relations in the represented acts and the ways austerity measures are legitimated in the agent–patient relationship established between Greece and Europe.
The analysed SRs invite us to interpret the Greek national elections in light of a polarised image of crisis, drawing on antithetical values and represented situations: in or out of the eurozone, powerful or powerless, dependent or independent social actors, collective or individualistic Europe (Krzyżanowski et al., 2009), local or global problems. To this end, this study builds on existing work in that it shows that ‘polarised discourse structures play a crucial role in the expression, construction, confirmation and hence the reproduction of social inequality’ (Van Dijk, 2008: 5). Specifically, with regards to power roles the Greek people are, overall, constructed as powerful and agentive as far as their vote is concerned – hence, independent to decide their future and, consequently, the future of Europe, a perspective that tallies with the newspapers’ social liberal line. On the other hand, through the reproduction of a disciplinary discourse, they are positioned as passive recipients of European orders and, importantly, as strictly dependent on Europe. So, although the Greek vote is presented as a matter of choice or will, the represented strict ties to its European and international lenders cancel out this image. What is more, following the result of the last round of elections, confirming the popularity of a pro-bailout government, the prevailing negative discourse changes: the negative climate is turned positive and the election result appears again as a matter of decision and choice. I would therefore argue that there is double-voicing with regards to the represented role relations between Greece and Europe that revolves around the overlapping notions of dependence versus independence and powerful versus powerless, and helps maintain dominant discourses of Grexit or Grecovery in the broader socio-ideological context.
To summarise, I hope to have shown that a combination of text and discursive practices builds up the notion of crisis. One of the main linguistic mechanisms is SR; its employment in this particular data set exhibits double-voicing and enables the overall recontextualisation of the Greek national elections in these two particular British broadsheets through the prism of a polarised image of crisis. The result is legitimation of the practices of the EU elites and, consequently, maintenance of social inequality in the broader socio-cultural context.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Ruth Wodak and Jo Angouri for inviting me to contribute to this volume and to Greg Myers, Argiris Archakis, Kostas Dimopoulos and Vasilis Leontitsis for inspiring discussions on the politics of Greek crisis.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.