A pragmatic analysis of populis* in French and Spanish parliamentary debates

Shchinova Shchinov, Nadezda [UCL]

This comparative study analyses quantitatively and qualitatively the occurrences of the term populis*—i.e., populism(s), populist(s)—in two datasets containing parliamentary debates that took place in 2019 in the French National Assembly and the Spanish Congress of Deputies. The study investigates populism as a keyword in discourse (Kranert, 2020; Schröter et al., 2019; Williams, 1985) and aims to determine the uses, the meanings, and the pragmatic functions of this widely employed polysemic term claimed to be the "main political buzzword of the 21st century (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017, p. 1). The token populis* is a search word that allows for a comparative analysis of the following terms: populisme(s)/populiste(s) in French and populismo(s)/populistas(s) in Spanish. First, I examine the discursive contexts in which populis* occurs in order to determine the frequency of occurrence and the collocations of populis* in each dataset. Second, I focus on a sample of concordance lines and examine who labels whom as populist and what is the pragmatic function of this label. The study shows that in both datasets, the term has a variety of uses and meanings. However, there are some differences regarding the choice of the linguistic form of populis* and the collocations in French and Spanish parliamentary debates. In both datasets, the terms are mainly employed with a negative value linked to different pragmatic functions. Used with a negative connotation, discourses containing populis* disqualify political opponents, but not necessarily label political actors that are classified as populist in academia. Moreover, discourses disqualifying and stigmatising "populism" or "populists" are linked to other concepts, such as nationalism, terrorism, communism, which differ depending on the political leanings of a political actor. In addition, self-legitimisation occurs in discourses that, on the one hand, target an opponent and, on the other hand, self-position as an anti-populist response. However, there are instances of populis* with a positive value in discourses concerning different conceptions of democracy. Used with a positive implied meaning, instances of populis* appear together with references to "the people" and contain metalinguistic comments on the definition and the use of both "populism" and "democracy".