Qui sont ces Turcs qui frappent aux portes de l Union européenne ? La construction discursive de l identité européenne au miroir de la Turquie

Abstract

Eurooppalainen identiteetti esiintyy tiheästi sekä akateemisissa tutkimuksissa että arkikielessä, mutta sen sisältö ja muotoutuminen näyttäytyy yhä epäselvänä. Väitöstutkimuksessa selvitetään empiirisen diskurssianalyysin keinoin miten ja millainen eurooppalaisen identiteetin diskurssi ranskalaisessa ja suomalaisessa lehdistössä rakentuu Turkin EU-jäsenyyttä käsittelevissä teksteissä. Tutkimus muodostaa siten kuvaa kielenkäytön, kollektiivi-identiteettien, median ja sosiaalisen todellisuuden suhteesta.

Diskurssi nähdään sosiaalista todellisuutta rakentavana, kielenkäytössä rakentuvana ja ilmenevänä versiona todellisuudesta. Tutkimuksen lähtökohtana on, että eurooppalaista identiteettiä ja sen kriteerejä ei pidetä annettuina, vaan ne määrittyvät diskurssissa. Toisin sanoen työssä esitellään identiteetille kielenkäytöllä tuotettuja sisältöjä. Olennaista ei ole ainoastaan se mitä sanotaan, vaan myös miten se sanotaan, koska diskurssi nojaa tiettyjen merkitysten rakentamiseen kielenkäytössä ja niiden vakiinnuttamiseen vallitseviksi ja lopulta niin sanotuksi totuudeksi. Analyysi osoittaa, että koko aineistossa esiintyy yllättävänkin yhdenmukaisia kielenkäytön tapoja, jotka rakentavat eurooppalaista identiteettiä: aineisto ilmentää siten kansallisten diskurssien sijaan yhtä eurooppalaisen identiteetin diskurssia.

Turkin toiseuden rooli identiteettidiskurssissa on olennainen: Turkki sijoitetaan jatkuvasti ei vain unionin, vaan myös Euroopan ulkopuolelle ja syynä Turkin erilaisuudelle esitetään enemmän tai vähemmän implisiitisti uskonto. Eurooppalaisen identiteetin diskurssissa Eurooppaa (kulttuurisena, historiallisena tai maantieteellisenä käsitteenä) ja unionia ei eroteta toisistaan, vaan Eurooppa esiintyy yhtä aikaa poliittisena ja kulttuurisena käsitteenä, joka muodostaa siteen poliittisen integraation ja identiteetin välille.

Tämänhetkisessä EU-kriisissä eurooppalainen identiteetti voi tuntua utopistiselta, mutta väitöskirja osoittaa, että Turkin EU-jäsenyys mahdollistaa yhtenäisen eurooppalaisen identiteetin rakentumisen kielenkäytössä sekä Ranskassa että Suomessa kielenkäyttö on identiteetin kannalta olennaista. Zygmunt Baumanin mukaan toiseus on niin olennainen osa kollektiivi-identiteettiä, että ilman heitä ei ole meitä : tämän tutkimuksen tulosten perusteella voitaisiin puolestaan eurooppalaisuudesta todeta, että ainakin silloin kun on he , on olemassa myös me .

European identity often appears in academic research and in everyday language, but it still remains ambiguous what it actually means and how it is formed. This study examines the construction, manifestation and content of European identity through the means of empiric discourse analysis.

The corpus is composed of texts on Turkey s EU membership process in Finnish and French daily newspapers (Le Figaro, Le Monde, Helsingin Sanomat, Aamulehti) in four distinct periods in 2004-2009. Turkey s potential membership forms a special context for the construction of European identity: Turkey has occupied the role of Other in European history and otherness is considered an integral component of collective identities.

The main hypothesis is that the corpus reveals a discourse of European identity, which is grounded on Turkey s otherness. In this study, discourse is defined as a version of reality constructed in language use, which constructs social reality. The aim of the study is to find out how and with what sorts of linguistic tools is the identity constructed in discourse. A comparative corpus is meant to investigate if there can be found one, cohesive discourse or if it was more accurate to talk about discourses and identities in plural.

The theoretical framework of this research is composed of three elements. Discourses manifest themselves through language and under the conditions it sets forth. In consequence, the micro-level of the theory is based on linguistic concepts, which compose the foundation for the empirical analysis. In addition to defining the concrete manifestations of discourse sign, utterance (énoncé) and text , the description of meaning and concepts related to meaning become essential. I ended up distinguishing a contextually neutral linguistic meaning from a meaning in use , the latter being essential when analyzing discourse: it is linked to context and partially built on connotations and the implicit.

Discourse analysis forms the macro level theory, which allows linking the linguistic analysis to the construction of social reality. Due to the diversity of discourse analysis, it is essential to define the concept of discourse thoroughly. In this study it is used in two meanings. The object of research is a discourse of European identity, which is defined as a specific way of conceptualizing and constructing the social reality in language use: meanings and concepts are defined from a specific ideological point of view. Ideology may become naturalized in discourse as knowledge , the implicit holding an essential role in this process. On the other hand, the concept of discourse is also used as a tool of classification when referring to the discourse type of the corpus as journalistic discourse, which then divides into different genres. Journalistic discourse and genre help to describe the corpus and the context in which the texts are produced and interpreted.

The third theoretical aspect is formed by identity and otherness, which not only describe the socio-cultural context of the object of research and the corpus but also outline what is analyzed in corpus. In this study identity is seen from a poststructuralist point of view as a constantly changing phenomenon constructed in discourse and based on difference, which adapts individuals thinking and action. No given criteria is designated to European identity: instead, the point is to describe the contents that have been produced and which form part of the context of discourse. It is the discourse that defines the (dominating) criteria for the identity.

The linguistic categories, which rise in the corpus as particularly significant in the discourse of European identity are the participant and process types manifesting categorization, metaphors and implicit. However, the implicit is not analyzed apart because it is often difficult to pin down in text and it is essentially intertwined with the two other categories. Therefore it is constantly taken into consideration in the description of the analysis.

The empirical analysis shows that the discourse of European identity has common, specific features: the whole corpus shows coherent ways of using language, which contribute in the construction of identity. The coherence of the discourse can be regarded as somewhat surprising: the discourse of identity seems to cross national borders and the differences between the two countries mostly regard the occurrence of different phenomenon. Thus, it can be said that the corpus manifests one discourse of European identity instead of national discourses.

The analysis of participants and processes shows that in the discourse European identity is closely related to the concept of Europe and the contrasting categorization of Europe and Turkey. The difference between Europe and Turkey is constructed both with syntactic structures and semantic content attached to the categories. Indeed, there can be seen a semantic change in the meaning in use of Europe; in the discourse of European identity it is both a political and a cultural concept, thus forming the tie between political integration and identity. The exclusion of Turkey from Europe is systematic and it seems to rely mainly on religion, which is (more or less implicitly) presented as a source of fundamental difference.

The analysis of metaphors shows similar elements for the construction of identity: the corpus manifests extensive (and surprisingly coherent) metaphorical conceptualizations, in which the construction of identity relies not only on the exclusion of Turkey from Europe, but also on the concretization of Europe and on constructing an emotional dimension to it. The exclusion of Turkey is still an absolute and a natural state of things, thus naturalizing the discourse of European identity as knowledge or the truth .

The third essential discovery is the fundamental role of implicit in the discursive construction of identity: it is exactly through implicit that ideology becomes naturalized in discourse. Implicit enables to express ideology in texts that appear to be factual, thereby enforcing the discourse of European identity by presenting the meanings that it constructs as self-evident truths.

In the study it is shown that semantic concepts form the bridge between discourse theory and linguistic analysis since discourse relies on constructing specific meanings in language use and on establishing them as dominant and finally as the truth . Hence, this study offers tools for the discursive analysis of collective identities and fills some of the empirical deficiencies both from the point of view of European identity and that of discourse analysis. It also forms an image of the relationship between language use, collective identities, media and social reality.