Legitimizing Immigration Control: A Discourse-Historical Analysis

Abstract

Austrian immigration authorities frequently reject the family reunion applications of immigrant workers. They justify their decisions not only on legal grounds but also on the basis of their own often prejudiced judgements of the applicants' ability to `integrate' into Austrian society. A discourse-historical method is combined with systemic-functionally oriented methods of text analysis to study the official letters which notify immigrant workers of the rejection of their family reunion applications. The systemic-functionally oriented methods are used in a detailed analysis of a sample of rejection letters while the discourse-historical method allows this analysis to be intertextually connected to other related genres of discourse and strategies of argumentation, and to the history of post-war immigration in Austria generally.

Words at Work: Constructing a Labour Conflict

“…Snow and Benford (1988: 200-202) conceptualize three core pillars of conflict: 1-diagnostic framing identifies a problem, attributes blame or causality, and identifies the key actors; 2-prognostic framing offers a solution and identifies strategies, tactics and targets; 3-motivational framing provides a call to arms, or rationale for action while inspiring an urge to act among members and supporters. In exploring how she urged action among members, we use the four archetypal legitimation strategies identified by Van Leeuwen (2008) and Van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999): authorization, rationalization, moralization and mythopoesis.…”

“…SMO scholars recognize that speakers must legitimate their messages (Snow and Benford, 1988: 202;Chiapello and Fairclough, 2010: 273). Van Leeuwen (2008: 105-123) and Van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999) outline four archetypal legitimation strategies for collective action: authorization, rationalization, moralization and mythopoesis. In inspiring action, a speaker may appeal to some or all of these strategies.…”

Argumentation meets adapted cognition: Manipulation in media discourse on immigration

“…For example, (12) and (13) represent conformity authorisation strategies based on the fallacy of ad populum whilst (14) and (15) represent authorisation strategies based on the fallacy of ad verecundiam (van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999). But this begs the question, of course, what makes these fallacies effective in the first place?…”

“…Among the various fallacies they identify I wish to flag up two in particular: ad verecundiam and ad populum. These two fallacies underpin what van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999) refer to as 'authorisation' and 'conformity authorisation' strategies respectively. They justify discrimination on the basis that a particular course of action is right if a certain person or group of persons believes it to be right or if everybody believes it to be right.…”

“…Reisigl and Wodak 2001;van Dijk 2000a/b;van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999;Wodak 2001;Wodak and Sedlak 2000). Especially in the discourse-historical approach, analysis is conducted against the theoretical background of pragma-dialectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992) and in particular the notions of fallacy (e.g.…”