EU discourse: Polyphony and unclearness

The present article discusses the relevance of studying EU political discourse in a linguistically based polyphonic perspective. The claim is that polyphony is a fruitful approach in the sense that it reveals different types of hidden interaction and thus uncovers implicit and unclear messages. Examples are taken from two speeches given by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, on Europe and European integration, speeches which can be characterised as ‘visionary speeches’. A selection of linguistic features indicating the presence of different voices in these speeches, which are formally monological, will be presented. The analysis will thus help to identify the nature of the postulated unclearness in political discourse and to make explicit the complex relationship between text and context. The theoretical framework used for analysing the speeches will be linguistic polyphony as developed in the ScaPoLine theory.