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Debating the European Union Transnationally – Wikipedians’ Construction of the EU on a Wikipedia Talk Page (2001-2015)

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Debating the European Union Transnationally – Wikipedians’ Construction of the EU on a Wikipedia Talk Page (2001-2015) Debating the European Union transnationally – Wikipedians’ construction of the EU on a Wikipedia talk page (2001-2015) Susanne Elisabeth Kopf Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics and English Language Lancaster University April 2018 2 Vienna (AT), 10 April 2018 I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. Susanne Kopf 3 Abstract This thesis deals with the construction of the European Union (EU) as negotiated among contributors to the English Wikipedia between 2001 and 2015. It focuses on the Talk Page (TP) which accompanies the Wikipedia article on the EU and provides a space for Wikipedia contributors to discuss controversial issues regarding the article. The EU has received considerable attention in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), addressing e.g. questions regarding language policy and discourses surrounding topics connected to the EU (e.g. Muntigl, Weiss, & Wodak, 2000; Unger, Krzyżanowski, & Wodak, 2014; Wodak, 2007a). However, private individuals’ attempts to make sense of the EU when facing the task of defining it have hardly been touched upon. In this context, Wikipedia constitutes an ideal repository of data as it has recorded debates on the institution since 2001. Taking a corpus-assisted approach (cf. Baker, 2006), I examine how contributors from various backgrounds have grappled with their understanding of the EU. Additionally, this study explores aspects of Wikipedia since this collaboratively created encyclopaedia has received little research attention. Taking the EU on Wikipedia as a starting point, this thesis presents a foray into how Wikipedia can be approached from a CDS perspective. That is, on the one hand, it identifies central aspects of this website’s structure and addresses policies that guide Wikipedia operations and thus shape Wikipedia data. On the other hand, it examines the site’s societal impact/relevance and evaluates to what extent it can function as a transnational public sphere. Findings suggest that a substantial part of discussions amongst Wikipedians addresses the classification of the EU along the continuum between confederation and unified country, depending on different views concerning member states’ sovereignty. Wikipedia’s policies and the nature of the debates further suggest that the TP can, to some extent, serve as a transnational public sphere. 4 Table of Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 10 1.1 Research Questions ............................................................................................. 11 1.2 Background, Existing Research on the EU and Rationale for this Study ........... 13 2 Theoretical Background: Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) ................................. 24 2.1 Discourse ............................................................................................................. 25 2.2 Discourse and Ideology ....................................................................................... 27 2.3 Critique ............................................................................................................... 29 2.4 Context ................................................................................................................ 30 2.4.1 Four Levels of Context ............................................................................... 31 2.4.2 The Explanatory Power and Limitations of Contextualisation ................... 33 2.5 Computer-Mediated Communication in the Age of Web 2.0 ............................. 34 2.5.1 Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Studies ... 35 2.5.2 Web 2.0 and Social Media – Extending Wodak’s Third Level of Context 38 3 The Third Context Level – Wikipedia, the Free Online Encyclopaedia ............... 42 3.1 Research on Wikipedia ....................................................................................... 42 3.2 An Encyclopaedia by Virtue of Policies and Technological Affordances .. ……44 3.2.1 Wikipedia Site Structure ............................................................................. 50 3.2.1.1 The Article Page .................................................................................. 51 3.2.1.2 The Talk Page ...................................................................................... 52 3.3 Wikipedia and Society ........................................................................................ 56 3.3.1 Wikipedia’s Reach and Impact ................................................................... 56 3.3.2 Wikipedia as an Emerging Transnational Public Sphere? .......................... 63 3.3.2.1 Defining the Public Sphere .................................................................. 64 3.3.2.2 The Internet as a Transnational Public Sphere .................................... 66 5 3.3.2.3 Wikipedia as a Transnational Public Sphere ....................................... 68 4 Data and Methodology ........................................................................................... 75 4.1 Data Selection ..................................................................................................... 75 4.2 The Talk Page ..................................................................................................... 78 4.2.1 Data Treatment ............................................................................................ 78 4.2.2 Macro-Propositions ..................................................................................... 80 4.2.3 The Topic Clusters ...................................................................................... 85 4.3 Methods of Data Analysis – a Corpus-Assisted Approach ................................. 89 4.3.1 Combining Corpus Linguistics and Other Analytical Tools ....................... 90 4.3.2 Corpus Linguistic Tools .............................................................................. 92 4.3.3 Additional Tools of Textual Analysis ......................................................... 93 4.4 Choosing Subcorpora for Analysis ..................................................................... 99 5 Data Discussion – What is the EU? ..................................................................... 101 5.1 “The EU is …” – Quibbling over Words? ........................................................ 102 5.1.1 The EU as Country .................................................................................... 102 5.1.2 The EU as Federation ................................................................................ 112 5.1.3 The EU as Confederation .......................................................................... 118 5.1.4 The EU as Supranational and/or Intergovernmental Entity ...................... 124 5.1.5 Other Terms .............................................................................................. 127 5.2 Negotiating Sovereignty ................................................................................... 129 5.2.1 The EU’s Sovereignty ............................................................................... 130 5.2.2 The Member States’ Sovereignty .............................................................. 135 5.3 Interim Conclusion ............................................................................................ 144 6 Data Discussion – EU culture and language(s) ................................................... 147 6.1 The EU and Culture .......................................................................................... 147 6 6.1.1 An EU Culture? ......................................................................................... 149 6.1.2 Potential Cultural Elements Shared across the EU ................................... 159 6.2 The EU and Its Language(s) ............................................................................. 167 6.2.1 The EU’s Official Languages ................................................................... 168 6.2.2 The EU’s Lingua Franca and Wikipedia’s English .................................. 170 6.3 Interim Conclusion ............................................................................................ 176 7 Data Discussion – History of the EU ................................................................... 178 7.1 Nazi Germany as a Precursor to the EU? .......................................................... 178 7.2 The Driving Forces Behind the EU’s Creation ................................................. 187 7.3 Interim Conclusion ............................................................................................ 191 8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 193 8.1 Findings – Research Question A ....................................................................... 193 8.2 Findings – Research Question B ....................................................................... 200 8.3 Limitations and Outlook ................................................................................... 204 Glossary .......................................................................................................................... 207 References ....................................................................................................................... 207 Appendix A ....................................................................................................................
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