Language and Politics

The intrinsic link between language and politics has long been recognized (for example, Aristotle wrote ‘… that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech’ (Politics, 1, 2)). It remains a broad, flourishing, and highly contested area of academic study. On the one hand, it analyses how politicians use language, applying approaches which range from traditional rhetoric to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). On the other hand, it is also concerned with the political dimension that is arguably inherent in the use of all language.

Language and Politics, a new title the Routledge series, Major Themes in English Studies, addresses the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of this rapidly growing and ever more complex corpus of scholarly literature. Edited by John E. Joseph, a prominent scholar in the field, and author of the subject’s leading textbook, this new Major Work from Routledge brings together in four volumes the foundational and the very best cutting-edge scholarship to provide a synoptic view of many of the key issues and current debates.

Volumes I and II collect the best and most influential work on the language of politics. These two volumes include the key work analysing political texts or arguing that political language is inherently propagandistic. Especially in recent years, the fundamentally political nature of language has been reasserted and Volumes III and IV gather the essential scholarship examining how language itself is politically constructed or used.

Language and Politics is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.