Legitimating past actions through strategic manoeuvring : a framework for integrating the discourse-historical approach and pragma-dialectics

This thesis is mainly interested in the legitimation of controversial past actions and/ or decisions. The thesis examines the discursive means used to regain legitimacy in contexts of controversy. The thesis approaches Hassan Nasrallah’s argumentative discourse from an interdisciplinary perspective. It, therefore, proposes a model for incorporating pragmadialectics into the analytical toolkit of the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). Moreover, insights from cognitive pragmatics, in particular research related to epistemic vigilance, are incorporated into the model. The main objective of the model is to investigate the construction of in/out-groups through carrying out argumentative analysis. To this end, four speeches delivered by Nasrallah at moments of heightened controversy are analysed based on the proposed model and the procedural steps for implementation. The findings are then discussed in order to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed model and Nasrallah’s retrospective argumentation.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Ph.D.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Lancaster University

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Authors dc:creator

• El Nakkouzi, Rania
• Hart, Christopher