Analysis of Political Discourse in Turkey

The course aims to understand and explain the political language used in the modern Turkish political scene. The lectures - for which the knowledge of the Turkish language is not required - focus on the use of political language so as to promote ideologies as well as political actions that are applied in the political field and they all impact on the daily life of citizens.

The concentration on this stems from the well-known fact that social structures shape and are shaped by social practices and vice versa. Thus, social structures, social practices and the actions mediating between them (i.e. social structures and practices) are in a dialectical relationship with each other. Likewise the elements of social practices are in a dialectical relationship with the 'rhetoric which is one of the elements of social practices which are in a dialectical relationship' (as cited in Chouliaraki and Fairclough, Discourse in Late Modernity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999, p. 1). And precisely when cultural norms and practices produce quite different experiences it is then that people  understand the language in a different way.

The material to be analyzed will be drawn mainly from official documents, from newspaper articles and interviews and from relevant videos ( the whole material is translated into Greek).

Upon successful completion of the course, the student will have acquired a critical understanding of these communication skills related to a specific cultural environment. This critical ability will be developed firstly, through the presentation of relevant textual and visual material, secondly, through the analysis and the opinion exchange on this material and finally, through the assignments that the students will be asked to develop and write.

As a result of this, the students will acquire  a specific ability -that can be used in analysis-focused professional fields- to analyze the news and information related to the aforementioned "cultural environment".

FIRST UNIT
• INTRODUCTORY CONCEPTS
• THE RELATIONSHIP OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE: INTRODUCTORY THEORIES
• "RHETORIC" AND "DISCOURSE"
• IDEOLOGY AND "DISCOURSE ANALYSIS"
• BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS
________________________________________
SECOND UNIT
• UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN TURKEY
• THE "TURKISH REALITY" I
• THE MEDIA IN TURKEY AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH POLITICS
• LANGUAGE POLICIES IN TURKEY
• THE "TURKISH REALITY" II
________________________________________
THIRD UNIT
• APPLICATION OF THE KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED FROM THE FIRST AND SECOND CYCLE (PRINTED MATERIALS)
• APPLICATION OF THE KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED FROM THE FIRST AND SECOND CYCLE (VISUAL MATERIAL)
• OVERALL ASSESSMENT-CONCLUSIONS

Bozdağlioğlu, Yücel. (2003). Turkish foreign policy and Turkish identity: a constructivist approach. New York: Routledge (κεφ. 3).

Cassirer, E. (1946). Language and Myth. New York: Dover Pub. (κεφ. 1).

Chomsky, Ν. “On Language and Culture”.

Dickinson, K. (2014). “Where Language Is Ripped Apart: Absence and Illegibility in Bilge Karasu’s The Garden of Departed Cats.” Critical Multilingualism Studies 2:1 (2014): pp. 106-128. ISSN 2325-2871.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/turkey-erdogan-akp/531468/ (πρόσβαση 16 Φεβ. 20).

Kandioti & Saktanber. (2002). Fragments of Culture. London/New York: I.B.Tauris (κεφ. 5))

Lewis, G. (1999). The Language Reform. Oxford: Oxford University Press (κεφ. 10 και 11).

Parla, Jale. 2008. “The Wounded Tongue: Turkey’s Language Reform and the Canonicity of the Novel.”

Yavuz, M. Hakan. (2019): Understanding Turkish secularism in the 21th century: a contextual roadmap, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

The lectures’ duration is two hours delivered with the help of PowerPoint presentations, internet material (theory and ‘workable’) and the discussion upon these. During the semester ‘working’ exercises are handed out to the students whereas the final term paper aims at the consolidation not only of the theoretical knowledge but also the overall acquired knowledge.

YES

The students’ assessment is made throughout the semester on the basis of their participation to the educational process and their response to the ‘working’ exercises. The final assessment and grading is realized through the final term paper (100%) for the completion of which students are asked to combine the acquired knowledge and their research capabilities.