Peace Talks: Indexical Master Tropes and Their Potential for Conflict in the Construction of National Identity
Peace Talks: Indexical Master Tropes and Their Potential for Conflict in the Construction of National Identity

Summary/Abstract: This paper employs discursive constructivism to delineate four rhetorical paradigms of nationalist discourse and to compare their potential for conflict. It proposes a four-fold typology which sees the intuitive tropes of antithesis and simile, and the counterintuitive metaphor and irony as structuring principles for national self-images. These are four modes of constructing a cultural deixis, that is, a relationship between national self and its cultural other. The paper argues that the frequency and magnitude of nationalistic conflicts may be minimized by the steady and widespread counter-enculturation of the non-conflictual discourses of analogical (simile-based), metaphoric, and ironic nationalisms. This argument is illustrated with examples from modern and recent Romanian history, but may be taken to epitomize the condition of most postcommunist European nations.

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