36.1969, Calls: Elad-Silda (Studies in Linguistics and Discourse Analysis) - Special Issue "Narratives in (Digital) Political Discourse" (Jrnl)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1969. Wed Jun 25 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1969, Calls: Elad-Silda (Studies in Linguistics and Discourse Analysis) - Special Issue "Narratives in (Digital) Political Discourse" (Jrnl)

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Date: 25-Jun-2025
From: Melissa Martin-Kemel [melissa.martin-kemel at univ-lyon3.fr]
Subject: Elad-Silda (Studies in Linguistics and Discourse Analysis) - Special Issue "Narratives in (Digital) Political Discourse" (Jrnl)


Journal: Elad-Silda (Studies in Linguistics and Discourse Analysis)
Issue: Narratives in (Digital) Political Discourse
Call Deadline: 15-Oct-2025

Editorial committee: Melissa Martin-Kemel (Lyon 3 Jean Moulin
University), Bérengère Lafiandra (Lyon 3 Jean Moulin University),
Alma-Pierre Bonnet (Lyon 3 Jean Moulin University).
Operating within the fields of narratology, political studies and
discourse analysis, this special issue of Elad Silda aims to
contribute to our understanding of how narratives frame the political
debate today. As “one verbal technique for recapitulating past
experience” (Labov & Waletzky 1967: 13), narratives constitute a
cognitive activity (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2012: 5) that is partly
subjective and may have an emotional (Reisigl 2021) and persuasive
(Polletta 2006) effect on the story recipient. This perlocutionary
effect of the narrative format makes it highly relevant to the study
of political discourse.
Scholars have long recognised the special relationship between
narratives and politics (De Fina 2017; Seargeant 2020). Atkins and
Finlayson (2012) explain that, over the past 40 years, narratives have
become ubiquitous in political rhetoric. Shenhav (2006) defines a
“political narrative” as “one that emerges from a formal political
forum, such as a parliament, a cabinet, party meetings or political
demonstrations, or as narrative produced by politicians and public
officials in the course of their duties”. De Fina (2017) claims that
there are two main trends for the study of such narratives, and these
will constitute the main axes of the special issue, though other
approaches can be envisaged:
 - One trend is interested in the “master narratives” underpinning
political discourse, which reveal the “overarching structures that
underlie and organize discourse and interpretation” (De Fina 2017).
These narratives influence the way our brains interpret political
issues and thus frame the way we perceive reality (Seargeant 2020).
Political debate can thus be envisaged as a battle of narratives
(Spencer and Oppermann, 2020) in which the ultimate goal is to
effectively “control the narrative”. Papers dealing with the
construction of such narratives, with ways of assessing their
influence, or with specific methodologies for their study as well as
the integration of the concept of narrative into existing discourse
analysis frameworks, as proposed by Forchtner (2020) for instance, are
welcome. The analysis of narrative boundaries (Cordero and Frei 2024)
and the creation of discursive identities, by celebrating the in-group
and denigrating the out-group (Wodak 2015), are also of great interest
to this issue.
 - The other approach deals with political narratives as “a set of
everyday discourse practices” (De Fina 2017: 233), or anecdotes, which
are favoured in political discourse today because they are “seen as
representing a non-argumentative, more common-sense and therefore more
grassroots inspired mode of conveying political views” (Ibid: 239). We
invite contributors to discuss the discursive and emotional influence
of such narratives on political communication in general but also on
the construction of a powerful ethos for leaders who can depict
themselves as caring about the lives of other people, or as having
overcome difficulties – and learned from them – and thus as being
entitled to the status of hero/ leader/ guide of a community.
In addition, many linguists (Wehling 2016; Richardson 2004; Reddy
1993; Palmer 1981) have contributed to our understanding of how
narratives in political discourse make use of metaphors that shape
both thought and communication in the political realm. Their works are
fundamental for anyone interested in the intersection between
linguistics, cognitive science, and political science, which is why
all these topics may be addressed as well. In their classic study
Metaphors We Live By (1980) Lakoff and Johnson highlighted how
metaphors structure our understanding of complex political concepts. A
generation later, Charteris-Black (2005; 2007) analyzed how political
figures resort to metaphorical language to influence voters by
“telling the right story”. Thus, proposals may wish to examine how
metaphors nurture narratives in political discourse in salient
examples of “master narratives”, “scenarios” (Musolff 2016),
“anecdotes”, and political life-writing (memoir and biography) in the
Internet age.
This special issue intends to question the persuasive power of
narratives in political discourse and we therefore welcome theoretical
as well as methodological proposals, but also case studies (UK and US
2024 elections, European elections, populist discourses in Spain,
Italy, Germany, Turkey, China, etc.), which will broaden our
understanding of this holistic and ubiquitous rhetorical device, and
how it might constitute an important conveyor of political ideologies,
often unnoticed or underestimated because of the narrative format. As
a linguistic oriented journal, special attention will be given to the
construction of the corpus, the theoretical framework and the
methodology applied. Multimodal approaches and studies on digital
communication will be particularly appreciated.
Submissions should include an abstract (300 to 500 words, excluding
references) as well as a short biography and should be sent to:
Melissa Martin-Kemel <melissa.martin-kemel at univ-lyon3.fr>,
Bérengère Lafiandra <berengere.lafiandra1 at univ-lyon3.fr>,
Alma-Pierre Bonnet <alma-pierre.bonnet at univ-lyon3.fr>
Key Dates:
Submission of abstract: 15 October 2025
Notification of acceptance: 30 October 2025
First version: 1 March 2026
Reviewing process: 30 April 2026
Final version: 30 September 2026
Publication: November 2026
The journal ELAD – SILDA, Studies in Linguistics and Discourse
Analysis, is intended as a forum for linguistics and discourse
analysis from a multilingual perspective, based on the use of
authentic data, especially corpora. It is an Open Access journal of
linguistics, published by the Centre d'Études Linguistiques - Corpus,
Discours et Sociétés of the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3. It
publishes original research articles in the field of linguistics and
discourse analysis, after a process of double-blind peer-review.
For more information on the Aims & Scope, please refer to:
https://publications-prairial.fr/elad-silda/index.php?id=984.
Language: English is favoured but other languages can be used
(Elad-Silda accepts articles in Arabic, Chinese, English, French,
German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian).
For full list of references, please see the journal website.

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis




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