The ideological construction of European identities

The ideological construction of European identities

A critical discourse analysis of the linguistic representation of the old vs. new Europe debate

Christine S. SingWU Vienna University of Economics and Business

1. Introduction

The swift rush of political events does not usually leave room for memorable phrases. Yet the notoriously unforgettable words — ‘You’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s old Europe.’ — issued in 2003 by the then American Secretary of Defense caught the imagination of newscasters on either side of the Atlantic. In the ensuing media representation of what came to be known as the ‘old vs. new Europe Debate’ the socio-political identities of a series of European countries were constructed in terms of their political relations both with the US and between themselves. As a result, these remarks not only deepened the rift between various European nations, which were to be antagonized into cate gories of a pro-American ‘new Europe’ vs. an anti-American ‘old Europe’, but also entailed thought-provoking political developments.

The divisive potential inherent in the attributes ‘old’ and ‘new’ was also taken up by the late Susan Sontag in her acceptance speech for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade later on in the same year. In her succinct observations on the political climate Sontag elaborates on the complexity of the opposition of old and new. While she maintains the fundamental and indisputable gap between the European and American experience resulting from significant political, cultural and historical differences, she also underlines the singularity of this antagonism. Unlike other pairs of opposites the clash of ‘old’ and ‘new’ touches on the very essence of human experience.

On the other hand, there is also a clear political dimension to this dichotomy. For a number of historical and political reasons the American nation has from the onset self-identified as a ‘new nation’ of the ‘new world’. In the process, the appro-priation of newness implied the dissociation from the Old World to the extent

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that it gradually gave rise to a set pattern of antagonist frames, e.g. [new vs. old] (for a more detailed discussion, see Sing 2008). Subsequently, the framing of polit-ical events in terms of newness was frequently used to derive a sense of superior-ity over the established political order, or ‘old order’ for short. Thus newness as a label serves to promote a positive self-presentation. Crucially, this concept has a strong experiential basis in relating to a specific geographical location, the new world, and thus has significant geo-political implications for the construction of an American (national) identity.

Many foundational issues in American history (…, the geo-political implications of nation-building, …) involve differing ideals and notions of space. Quite literally, space or, more accurately, its ‘warring’ ideological appropriations formed the arena where America’s search for identity (national, political, cultural) has been staged. (Benesch 2005: 19)

In terms of foreign policies, the geographical location framed America’s stance towards the Old World in terms of the doctrine of the two hemispheres — the New World/Western hemisphere vs. the Old World/Eastern hemisphere — during much of the nineteenth century. Constructing the new American nation as posi-tively detached from Old World entanglements further entrenched the process of self-identification by virtue of newness. In this respect, newness implies difference that is derived from geographical distance.

In general, spatiality is pivotal to the construction of identities to the extent that Blommaert (2005: 221) refers to space as the overarching motif in histori-cal and identity narratives. More precisely, he (ibid.) argues that ‘space provides a framework in which meaningful social relationships, and the events can be anchored and against which a sense of community can be developed […]’. Thus spatial relations function as an important reference system according to which events, tendencies, developments or ideas can be located spatially in relation to one another. As a consequence, space and spatial reference are not merely sterile arguments used for the organisation of socio-political systems. On the contrary: this space is typically ‘filled with social, cultural, epistemic, and effective attri-butes’ (Blommaert 2005: 222) and thus serves as the basis of the social represen-tations that account for groupmembership and identity. As a result, the positive self-presentation in terms of newness also echoes some of the mechanisms that have been identified as component parts of socio-political ideologies. Van Dijk (1998: 8) argues that ‘ideologies allow people, as group members, to organize the multitude of social beliefs about what is the case, good or bad, right or wrong, for them [original emphasis], and to act accordingly.’ To this list we might add the concepts ‘old’ and ‘new’, since they can clearly also serve as attributes to define group-membership as we shall see below.

The ideological construction of European identities 1

It is against the background of these observations that the chapter proposes to analyse the discursive construction of an old vs. new Europe, respectively. The representation of these European identities will be argued to be embedded in ide-ological discourse structures, which themselves derive from a set of conceptual metaphors that channel the processing of these structures. For that purpose the first sections of this study will briefly outline the theoretical and methodological foundations on which the analysis is based. The ensuing sections will focus on the analysis of the data compiled for this study consisting of the context of Rumsfeld’s remarks that sparked off the debate, the speeches delivered at the UN Security Council meeting as well as the representation of events by The Guardian. The dis-cussion will be rounded off by linking the debate back to the framing of American foreign policy discourse in terms of newness.

2. Theoretical and methodological foundations

2.1 Theoretical framework

Resulting from a number of historical and political developments, the positive evaluation of newness in combination with the negative evaluation of oldness fossilised into a set pattern, which is reminiscent of what Hawkins (2001: 32) refers to as ‘iconographic frames of reference’, i.e. ‘a common mode of textual rep-resentation which represents simplistic images of our experiences and does so in a way to underscore familiar values [emphasis added]’. The effect of iconographic reference is to establish a powerful conceptual link between the referent and a particular value judgment. The notion of iconographic reference of course echoes van Dijk’s (1998) well-known group-based approach to ideology involving a

very general polarisation schema defined by the opposition between Us and Them [which] suggests that groups and group conflicts are involved, and that groups build an ideological image of themselves and others, in such a way that (generally) We are represented positively, and They come out negatively. Positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation seems to be a fundamental property of ideologies. (van Dijk 1998: 69)

Ideological discourse structures may on the surface primarily achieve the reduc-tion of (undesirable) complexities, yet it is the level of discourse processing that is most crucial for uncovering the hidden ideologies of political reasoning. For this reason it is vital to assume that

[…] some mental processes must exist which link text production and text comprehension to both explicit utterances, text and talk as well as to social phenomena. This becomes most apparent while analyzing phenomena such as

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attitudes towards language (behaviour), as well as stereotypes and prejudices held about specific social groups. Moreover, when studying identity constructions or narratives of the past, we are confronted with perceptions, beliefs, opinions and memories as essential parts of these discursive processes; of course, all these notions (such as ‘collective memories’ or ‘imagined communities’) inherently label cognitive processes which need to be spelled out [emphasis added] […]. (Wodak 2006: 180)

Thus, the study of ideologies should also involve the level of the cognitive rep-resentation of discourse. The term ‘cognitive representation’ is understood as the ‘experiential complex’ that a sentence or portion of discourse evokes in the listener (Talmy 2000: 21). It is at this level that Conceptual Metaphor Theory (henceforth CMT) provides an important input for the analysis of (ideological) meaning construction. Analyzing political ideologies by virtue of conceptual metaphors invites several interesting parallels. As Wodak (ibid.) observes, cogni-tive processes cannot be studied directly, neither can ideologies. Both processes can only be studied across time in identifying the specific entailments and infe-rences of conceptual metaphors on the one hand, and the socio-political changes resulting from ideological tensions on the other. As a consequence, the pola-rization inherent in ideological discourse structures appears to be operative on the conceptual level itself. Correspondingly, Goatly (2007: 163) has identified the interaction of conceptual metaphors, or ‘metaphor themes’ as he refers to them, as potential ideology-bearing and -producing conceptual structures to the extent that they form metaphorical oppositions. These may give rise to an ideological tension when both are attributed positive evaluations, which may even result in a reversal of the conceptual metaphors in question (Goatly 2007: 164).

Another essential aspect that Goatly brings to attention is the fact that categori-sation underlies all human discourse practices including ideological discourse. This holds for both ongoing categorisation and ready-made categories as derived from the metaphor category is divided area. In political reasoning this metaphor is a cognitive tool that can be used to enforce authority over another entity: The power of categorisation also implies the power to give reality and verisimilitude to the entity designated. It is thus pivotal to the discursive construction of socio-political realities as it depends on the effective representation of relevant segments of these realities. The adequate representation of this socio-political world is thus the key discourse activity of political groups according to which they exploit the descrip-tive and emotive levels of meaning in using concepts that simultaneously signify and evaluate.

Efficient categorisation is important in yet another respect. The categories of perception are decisive in conceptualising the political world. The stronger


the rivalry between alternative options, the more important this is: The wider the discourse opportunities the narrower the discourse choices. As Reis (1993) observes, a sense of diversity encourages the proliferation of ideologies:

[B]y its nature and by reason of cultural circumstances, ideology ends up by being unthinkable when singular [original emphasis]. […] to study the ideological field is to look at a space of opposing senses [emphasis added] and proliferating ideological discourses which, different as they are, confront and engage one another; so, only by abstraction can one speak of a cohesive ideology internally coherent and susceptible of systematic description. (Reis 1993: 2)

If we conceive of ideology as ‘a space of opposing senses’, any attempt at providing a totalising representation of political actors, action and events appears to be ill-fated. Whenever ideologies fail to provide adequate social representations, oppos-ing ideologies will inevitably aim to occupy the ideological space available.

[…] because ideologies are associated with the human seeking of a comprehensive explanation of the world, hiatuses are regarded as anathema among adherents of a world view; hence ideological communities find ways and means to meet the possibility that an outgroup or an innovator will recategorize experience and call attention to a heretofore unconceived and therefore worrisome gap in doctrine [emphasis added]; […]. (Brown 1978: 134)

In the light of today’s ‘mediatised political discourse’ (Fairclough 1998) the opportunity of discursively constructing the (future) political identity of Europe was too rare to be missed. The ‘gap in doctrine’ that presented itself as ‘uncharted territory’ since the end of Communist rule could be strategically filled by either the US or the politically dominant member states of the European Union, which was then at the point of its largest expansion to date. The enlargement also entailed a discussion of the changed political relations within the EU and raised the issue of leadership within the EU. Other cases in point debated at the time were the transatlantic relations of an enlarged European Union including mili-tary alliances as a number of the then candidate countries were also about to become members of NATO.

2.2 Methodological framework

While ‘CDA in all of its various forms understands itself to be strongly based in theory’ (Meyer 2001: 17), there has also been a strong commitment to empirical analysis. Nonetheless, the unclear distinction between theory and methodology has continued to constitute one of the discipline’s major caveats. In part, this haziness

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results from the fact that CDA has also frequently positioned itself as both a theory and a method. Following its renewed ‘manifesto’ CDA can be understood as

a method for analyzing social practices with particular regard to their discourse moments within the linking of the theoretical and practical concerns and public spheres just alluded to, where the ways of analyzing ‘operationalize’ — make practical — theoretical constructions of discourse in (late modern) social life, and the analyses contribute to the development and elaboration of these theoretical constructions (Chouliaraki & Fairclough 1999: 16)

Multidisciplinary by definition, CDA’s methodology feeds on various other fields such as the social sciences as far as empirical methods are concerned. In other words, there is no such thing as ‘a well-defined empirical method but rather a cluster of approaches with a similar theoretical base and similar research ques-tions’ (Meyer ibid. 23).

One such common denominator is the tripartite analytical framework con-sisting of the interrelated stages of description (which is sometimes referred to as identification), interpretation and explanation. The description/identification stage is concerned with formal properties, i.e. whether the features under inves-tigation are present in a given text and whether or not there is a tension between them. The interpretation stage is the locus of meaning construction and involves establishing meaningful relationships between textual, cognitive and pragmatic factors that act as constraints. Finally, the explanation stage typically revolves around the relationship between discourse and context, more precisely ‘the social determination of the process of production and interpretation, and their social effects’ (Fairclough 2001: 22). What is more, the explanation stage directly relates to the bidirectionality of discourse as social practice, invoking CDA’s tenet of mutually influential relations between discourse and world. From this angle, cur-rent discourse conditions and their prevalence for specific discursive formations are an inevitable product of past power struggles and can only be understood when these are uncovered.

This present study also subscribes to this methodological framework, placing the emphasis on the input that CMT provides at the level of discourse process-ing. The analysis proposes to close a gap in that it will focus on the interpretation stage. While CDA has made use of conceptual metaphor theory, it has not suf-ficiently recognized the input Cognitive Linguistics provides at the interpretation stage in particular. While this focus by no means excludes the other stages, it con-centrates on the analysis of the cognitive representation of ideological discourse structures.

As a consequence, the analytical tools used include a combination of CDA and CMT methodolgy. The synergy of CDA and CMT has been fruitfully


exploited whenever it has been incorporated into the research question itself, for example in Charteris-Black’s (e.g. 2004, 2005) framework of ‘Critical Meta-phor Analysis’. It appears to be the case, however, that a mixed methodology consisting of both qualitative and quantitative methods has proved to be the most insightful. Given this chapter’s focus on categorisation issues the in-depth qualitative analysis of relevant example passages of the data collected will be supplemented by a quantitative, corpus-based analysis. A corpus consisting of 162.829 words was compiled for the purpose of the analysis. This corpus includes all articles from The Guardian dating from 2003 and referring to ‘old Europe’ and ‘new Europe’.

The analytical procedure is governed by the two-fold aim of the study. On the one hand, the strategic uses of the adjectives ‘new’ and ‘old’ as collocates of Europe are analysed. It is argued that their uses can be grouped into two broad, strongly opposing categories due to the adjectives’ enhanced experiential, relational and expressive values. Fairclough (2001: 92f.) attaches three types of values to formal features. A formal feature’s experiential value relates to knowledge and belief sys-tems in general. Secondly, the adjectives ‘old’ and ‘new’ can be assumed to possess a set of relational values in that they establish socio-political relations in discourse. Since ‘new’ in particular is ideologically charged within American political dis-course, it is also frequently used to discursively construct relations between agents and participants of political discourse, most recently in the old vs. new Europe debate. Finally, the adjectives are also imbued with an expressive value, indicating the positionality on behalf of the producer of political discourse. Thus the cate-gorisation of a given entity or event as ‘new’ (as opposed to old) simultaneously implies an evaluation, which as a matter of perspective relies on the subjectivity of the discourse participant’s position.

On the other hand, the analysis aims to uncover the ‘hidden’ meanings of ideological discourse structures in spelling out the cognitive processes underlying meaning construction. This largely occurs on the basis of highly pervasive con-ceptual metaphors that account for the cognitive representation of discourse. One such metaphor is category is divided area, which is argued to be at the centre of ideological reasoning and hence is inscribed in the conceptualisation process itself. As a consequence, the analysis proceeds as follows.

Section 3.1 is concerned with the in-depth qualitative analysis of the contro-versy’s most crucial texts. It involves examining the most important metaphors underlying the argument and revealing the strategies of political communication as identified by Chilton (e.g. 2006). Section 3.2 focuses on the representation of the debate in The Guardian, which took up some of the ideas originally raised in the political debate and elaborated on them. Therefore the identity construction pro-cess is further entrenched and modified on the basis of the ideological opposition

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of ‘old’ and ‘new’ instilled into the debate from an American foreign policy per-spective. Accordingly, the pattern of evaluation that characterised the debate fol-lowed the mode of iconographic reference that newness and oldness have had in American foreign policy discourse. As a result, the discursive construction of two conflicting European identities has occurred on the basis of ‘old’ and ‘new’ as labels determining group-membership.

3. Analysing the construction of European identities

3.1 The old vs. new Europe debate

The old vs. new Europe controversy is first and foremost an illustrative example of the in-built tensions of transatlantic relations. While in its core the contro-versy appears to be aimed at achieving hegemony in Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of Communism, it is also related to distinct modes of American foreign policies, i.e. whether or not it takes a unilateral or multilateral approach, for instance. The notable difference between these two modes is that the former relies on top-down, US-driven decision-making processes while the latter builds on the parity between coalition partners who try to reach mutual agreement on foreign policy issues.

In the period predating the debate the United States had been attempting to construe a casus belli for invading Iraq and effecting a regime change. Yet the motions put forward by the US in the UN Security Council were not well received by large parts of the international community. Thus it became clear that in order to obtain a UN mandate there would have to be more engaging arguments. Throughout the most controversial phase in the lead-up to the inva-sion of Iraq in March 2003, the Bush Administration had been desperately seeking to build a case for invading Iraq. In the build-up to the military operation the argument presented by the US and UK drew on the claim that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction and thus presented a threat to world peace. As the opposition rose, the Bush administration was increasingly pressurized. The pent-up anger and frustration were first publicly vented by Donald Rumsfeld during a briefing at the Foreign Press Centre in Washington on 22 January 2003.

Accordingly, the analysis takes as its point of departure Rumsfeld’s criticism of the role France and Germany had been playing up to this point. Their opposi-tion to military action in Iraq without a UN mandate earned them the title ‘prob-lem countries’. Compounding the insult the then American secretary of Defense continued by referring to these countries as ‘old Europe’, which instantaneously


became an issue of contention and provoked an outcry particularly in the coun-tries concerned. The relevant passage reads as follows:

(…) You’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s old Europe. […] If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the centre of gravity is shifting to the East. And there are a lot of new members. (…)(…) But you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They’re not with France and Germany on this, they’re with the United States. (…)

As an in-depth analysis of the entire text is not germane to my focus here, I will only draw attention to a number of contextual cues available for the interpreta-tion of this passage. Firstly, Europe as a political entity and territory is specified in terms of military alliance. Secondly, ‘old Europe’ is used as a relational term in that its political clout is regarded as subsiding in favour of the aspiring candidate countries. The political obliteration of ‘old Europe’ is highlighted by the use of the adverb ‘today’ as a temporal point of reference, reinforcing the ‘outdatedness’ of ‘old Europe’, i.e. driving home the impression that it is ‘out of touch’ with con-temporary political developments. Its weakening influence is construed as a move from centre stage to the periphery, if not backstage due to an ongoing process of political change (‘shifting’). This reference to the pending EU enlargement, which also coincided with accession to NATO (at least for some of the countries con-cerned), is represented as tipping the power balance towards the new members. At the cognitive level, this is achieved in terms of spatial concepts, ‘centre’ vs. ‘periph-ery’ which are mapped as conceptual opposites on the basis of the following meta-phors: central is important vs. peripheral is unimportant.

Moreover, ‘old Europe’ is a relational term in another respect. It describes the fickleness of political alliances, in which the issue of ‘who’s-side-you’re-on’ is crucial. Rumsfeld makes clear two things: not only are France and Germany representatives of a bygone period and thus outdated, they are also outnumbered and outweighed by other European countries that side with the US. The double reference to the amount of newcomers and other member countries in terms of ‘a lot of new members’ or ‘vast numbers of other countries in Europe’, draws on the conceptual metaphors more is good and quality is quantity. In fact, these metaphors are examples of multivalent source domains creating ideological equa-tions in the sense of Goatly’s (2007) account. The more is good equation results from more is up plus good is up, for example.

Strategically, ‘old Europe’ is also a relational term in that it categorises and thus divides one political entity from another. By means of the conceptual meta-phor category is divided area the linguistic representation of the political outline of what constitutes the core of Europe is achieved. The dividing line establishes an in-group of loyal supporters on the one hand and places France

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and Germany in the out-group. Essentially, language is used here as a means to establish and maintain clear hierarchies. Deployed in such a way, political texts are a device for demonstrating and preserving power. For this reason this function or rather strategy, is also referred to as ‘coercion’ (Chilton & Schäffner 1997: 211ff; Chilton 2006: 45). Political actors ‘act coercively through language in setting agendas, selecting topics in conversation, positioning the self and others in specific relationships, making assumptions about realities [emphasis added]’ (Chilton 2006: 45). Yet this is not the only strategic objective identifiable in this short extract above. In the absence of shared backgrounds the risk of centrifugal dynamics which threaten to undermine the basis of consensus is particularly high. This is why a common denominator has to be discursively constructed by, for example, evoking such a thing as ‘new Europe’, suggesting that there are values which everybody belonging to this ‘community’ shares. Such a construct clearly has identificational momentum in that it serves the purpose of delimit-ing group members from outsiders. As a strategy it achieves the twin objectives of legitimisation and delegitimisation within the same text. While legitimi-sation involves positive self-presentation, e.g. highlighting past achievements and successful leadership, delegitimisation implies that ‘others (…) have to be presented negatively, and the techniques include the use of ideas of difference and boundaries, and speech acts of blaming, accusing, insulting, etc.’ (Chilton 2006: 46). Finally, it also refers to a political and economic assembly of coun-tries that are predominantly situated in western to central continental Europe. Thus the location and its spatial extensions are of utmost political significance. Finally, Rumsfeld can be said to exert discourse control in misrepresenting ‘old Europe’ by selecting ‘old’ as a defining property of this part of Europe in order to brand it with the most negative label permissible in American foreign policy discourse. Chilton (2006: 46) acknowledges this vital function of political com-munication when he refers to it as representation as opposed to misrepresenta-tion. The vital cognitive effect of highlighting or profiling preferred referents while backgrounding dispreferred ones is of course peculiar to the partiality of metaphorical mappings.

All in all, this approach is well known as ‘divide et impera’, which is essen-tially a power-political scheme designed to gain and maintain a position of power by driving a wedge between opposing political forces, which are then unlikely to accumulate power equal to one’s own. Indeed this could be inter-preted as a move to stifle any attempt at a concerted European foreign policy from the onset.

Nonetheless, these strategies proved to be only semi-successful as the public debate heated up subsequently and reached a culmination at the UN Security Coun-cil meeting of 14 February 2003, in which the chief weapons inspector Hans Blix


presented a much anticipated report on Iraqi possession of WMD, which it was assumed would clarify the situation in favour of a US spearheaded invasion. How-ever, things were not evolving in the direction of US interests. Hence there was mounting pressure when the Council members responded individually to Blix’s report. The speeches delivered by Colin Powell, the then Secretary of State, and Dominique de Villepin, the then French Minister of Foreign Affairs, constitute the provisional peak of the debate.

The following two passages are extracted from their responses to Blix’s report that had failed to provide any conclusive evidence that the Iraqi regime was indeed developing WMD. As a result, Blix’s report not only appeared to suggest that there was at that particular point of time no genuine casus belli but also appeared to be corroborating ‘old Europe’s’ rationale which, amongst other things, implied playing for time in granting another ultimatum by which the Iraqi regime was to comply. The first passage is taken from de Villepin’s address; the relevant lines have been highlighted.

In this temple of the United Nations, we are the guardians of an ideal, the guardians of a conscience. The onerous responsibility and immense honour we have must lead us to give priority to disarmament in peace.

This message comes to you today from an old country, France, from a continent like mine, Europe that has known wars, occupation and barbarity. A country that does not forget and knows everything it owes to the freedom-fighters who came from America and elsewhere. And yet has never ceased to stand upright in the face of history and before mankind. Faithful to its values, it wishes resolutely to act with all the members of the international community. It believes in our ability to build together a better world. (…)

In referring to the United Nations in terms of religious expressions (‘temple’) and to the members of the Security Council as ‘guardians’, de Villepin instils a moral component into the argument. Moreover, he links moral action to the experiential knowledge accumulated by the European continent’s specific history in order to legitimize ‘old Europe’s’ course of action, which is geared towards cooperation and diplomatic action rather than competition and military action. He thus invokes another important ideological opposition, cooperation vs. competition, which is reflected on the cognitive level as relationship is proximity/cohesion as opposed to freedom is space to move and competition is a race (see also Goatly 2007: 177).

Crucially, however, de Villepin appropriates the label ‘old’ and reframes it as a positive attribute, suggesting the experience and wisdom of oldness. Thus he corroborates oldness as a positive property in the self-presentation of his coun-try of origin. This construal results from the underlying metaphorical opposition being new is being in a state of ignorance vs. being old is being in a state

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of knowledge and simultaneously serves as a strategy of representation and legitimization.

The following passage represents Colin Powell’s immediate response to both de Villepin’s address and Blix’s report and thus constitutes the matching counterpart:

[…] I’m very pleased to be here as the secretary of state of a relatively new country on the face of the Earth.

But I think I can take some credit sitting here as being the representative of the oldest democracy that is assembled here around this table. Proud of that. A democracy that believes in peace, a nation that has tried in the course of its history to show how people can live in peace with one another, but a democracy that has not been afraid to meet its responsibilities on the world stage when it has been challenged; more importantly, when others in the world have been challenged, or when the international order has been challenged, or when the international institutions of which we are a part have been challenged.

Powell retaliates against de Villepin’s attack by reframing the argument and once more reclaiming oldness as a positive property. Introducing the changed frames of reference ‘on the face of the earth’ in order to shun the comparison with Europe on the one hand, and switching country for the political system of that country (by means of conceptual metonymy) on the other, he reasserts his authority. In both instances, the entities in question, country and democracy, are personified in terms of the conceptual metaphors a nation is a person and democracy is a person. Both personified entities are equipped with superior properties: they are constructed as morally and physically sound, ready to stand up and fight injustice (in brief: a both competitive and responsible political actor). And both appeal to the experience and knowledge positively associated with oldness. Thus the legitimisation strategy used in this showdown is essen-tially the same, drawing on moral strength, responsibility and a commitment to peace.

Having thus contextualised the origins of the controversy and having pointed out the most central aspects that have framed the debate I will now turn to the representation of the debate in the media, taking The Guardian as a representative example. As will be demonstrated, the initial distinction was not only taken up by the political commentaries in The Guardian but was also expanded on, resulting in the construction of two European identities.

3.2 The construction of European Identities in the Guardian

Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of the expressions ‘new Europe’ and ‘old Europe’ in absolute numbers of hits in the Guardian corpus throughout the entire year of 2003.


40Distribution Old Europe vs. New Europe

35

30

25

20

Num

ber o

f mat

ches

Occurrence in months

15

10

5

0

January

Febru

aryMarch April

MayJu

neJu

lyAugust

Septem

berOcto

berNovem

berDece

mber

New Europe

Old Europe

Figure 1. Distribution of ‘new Europe’ vs. ‘old Europe’ in the Guardian corpus

When expressed in absolute numbers there is a larger number of strings matching the notion of ‘old Europe’, totalling 111 hits altogether. In contrast, the notion of ‘new Europe’ is represented by a total of 94 matching strings throughout the entire corpus. As far as the development of the two terms is concerned, Figure 1 illustrates the frequency of these terms throughout the entire year. The frequency count corroborates the assumption that the debate peaked in February and fizzles out towards the end of the year. It is also in this month that the discrepancy in fre-quency between these terms is most strongly pronounced. Interestingly, the peak of ‘new Europe’ is in May, and to a smaller extent, in July. The increase in media coverage in May can be accounted for by the event of another European Conven-tion during which issues such as the European Constitution were discussed.

3.2.1 The discursive construction of old EuropeIn political discourse, the adjective ‘old’ is associated with an outdated political order, typically one overcome by revolution, and hence is linked to reactionary political forces. Similarly, the term ‘old Europe’ is anything but a political neologism itself. It has been used in the context of the Restoration and has been a recurrent theme during expansionist eras of American politics in the attempt to counterbal-ance the political weight of a united Europe.

The responses identified in the political commentaries of the Guardian corpus indicate that there is general disengagement from Rumsfeld’s remarks. The result of a corresponding concordance search (see Table 1) reveals the range of lexical items that appear to the right and left of the search term. This minimal linguistic context provides compelling evidence of two interrelated aspects: Not only is there

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a strong connection made to Rumsfeld as the source of this phrase, but the politi-cal correspondents also critically distance themselves from it. Thus the notion ‘old Europe’ is viewed as exclusively representing an American standpoint vis-à-vis the countries concerned, which are ‘old Europe in Mr Rumsfeld’s description’. The personalisation further substantiates the view that it is first and foremost Rums-feld’s opinion, albeit in his function as a representative of the Bush Administra-tion. Conversely, the commentaries frequently involve a negative characterization of Rumsfeld, as ‘abrasive’, ‘offensive’ or through the punning use of ‘rum’. In either case, the question of what is to be understood by ‘old Europe’, namely France and Germany, is entirely left to the definition proposed by Rumsfeld.

Table 1. ‘Old Europe’ in terms of meta-communicative discourse

denouncing them as ‘Old Europe’, and talking up its other alliesOld Europe, as Donald Rumsfeld calls us,

Rumsfeld, dubbed Germany and France ‘old Europe’ because of their refusal to endorse France and Germany were denounced as ‘old Europe’ by the American defence secretary

famously dubbed ‘old Europe’ by the abrasive US defence secretary, the indignity of being labelled ‘old Europe’ by Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush’s

question the US project, primarily France and Germany, ‘the old Europe’, dismissing them as unimportant.the strident voices of those who denounce ‘old Europe’ from one corner or Christian

infuriated France and Germany - old Europe in Mr Rumsfeld’s descriptionprovocatively labelling the French and Germans as ‘old Europe’. In Mr Hoon’s view, Rumsfeld is a

disparagingly referred to France and Germany as ‘Old Europe’ in an attempt to isolate themto rethink his now infamous ‘old Europe’ jibe, which imperiously divided the

Mr Rumsfeld’s ‘Old Europe’ jibe may have provoked he dismissed the anti-war climate of ‘Old Europe’, meaning the French and German

Rumsfeld’s dismissal of France and Germany as ‘old Europe’, Mr Schröder said the proposals what Donald Rumsfeld called ‘old Europe’. Mr Bush feels vindicated by

the US wherever it leads, fits the description ‘old Europe’ much better than Germanya clear dig at the so-called ‘old Europe’ of France and Germany

Twisting Donald Rumsfeld’s jibes about ‘Old Europe’ on their headbrought the pejorative label ‘old Europe’. Overall, the outcome was symbolic

dismissal of their cherished alliance as representing ‘old Europe’ So heated was the response to Donald Rumsfeld’s offensive dismissal of the ‘old Europe’. The US, even as the lone superpower,

to condemn it as ‘old Europe’. There is no greater insult in Rumsfeld’s dissing them as ‘old Europe’, while talking up the ‘new’ eastern

Mr Rumsfeld has disparagingly dubbed ‘old Europe’ will boil over today then dismissed them as ‘old Europe’. Yesterday’s appeal, orchestrated by

Furthermore, the distancing evaluation encountered in the large majority of the concordances for ‘old Europe’ is part of what Fairclough (1992: 122) has referred to as ‘metadiscourse’. Thus the negativity of the remarks is frequently highlighted through the meta-linguistic level of analysis. Cases in point are verbs such as ‘to dub’, ‘to label’, ‘to refer to’ and ‘to call’ on the one hand, or ‘to denounce’, ‘to dismiss’ on the other. The negativity of the phrase is further entrenched by


the use of adverbs such as ‘provocatively’, ‘disparagingly’, ‘imperiously’, and, for example, adjectives like ‘pejorative’ or ‘offensive’. Similarly, nouns such as ‘descrip-tion’, ‘label’ or the more disparaging ‘dismissal’ and ‘jibe’, for instance, suggest that the impact of the remarks was both strongly felt and was generally considered as inappropriate.

From a cognitive perspective, the attitude and behaviour towards the coun-tries of ‘old Europe’, but also to those of ‘new Europe’ as we shall see below, could be argued to invoke what Lakoff (2005) terms the strict father morality.1 Conversely, the representation of the ‘problem countries’ could be regarded as an application of this metaphorical reasoning according to which France and Germany would be conceptualised as disobedient, critical children who question the authority of their father. However, this view contrasts with the conceptualisation of ‘old Europe’ in its entirety that is both consistent and coherent throughout the corpus. Thus the rationale behind the remarks rather points to a different interpretation. While ‘old Europe’ is indeed frequently personified, it is rather constructed as an aged individual, lacking in strength and vigour (see also below).

According to the data listed in Table 1 the categorisation of ‘old Europe’ appears in complete agreement with Rumsfeld’s original remarks and thus almost exclu-sively refers to France and Germany. This is in sharp contrast to the classification of ‘new Europe’ that varies to a much larger degree as will be shown below. The only exceptions to this narrow categorisation of ‘old Europe’ occur in specific situative contexts: either when singling out one country, particularly France, from the ‘axis of France and Germany’, or when contrasting ‘old Europe’ with ‘new Europe’.

Initially, I mentioned that it is the transatlantic relations that serve as a basis for category membership. For this purpose the concordance search for ‘old Europe’ was specified, including larger portions of context, which for the purpose of listing

1. The system of conceptual metaphors forming part of the strict father morality is one of two possible realisations of the complex metaphor moral accounting. This highly pervasive metaphor entails that morality is conceptualised in economic terms and thus instils quan-titative reasoning into the qualitative realm of morality (Lakoff 2005: 62). The strict father morality, associated with the Republican Party, may be regarded as a morality of reward and punishment, building on what Lakoff (ibid.: 65) refers to as ‘folk behaviorism’. According to this model punishing a disobedient child for violating strict moral rules while praising her for obeying these rules will eventually lead to moral improvement if not rectitude, i.e. the child will internalize the rules and will adhere to them. On the other hand, the nurturant parent morality (ibid.: 112f.), which is assumed to characterize the Democrats’ standpoint, is grounded in the assumption that mutual respect is stronger than mere dominance. This is why people have to grow into taking on social responsibility from which authority may be earned depending on one’s capability of measure, judgment, wisdom but also empathy.

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them in Table 2 is represented in condensed form. The representation in Table 2 is exemplary rather than exhaustive:

Table 2. ‘Old Europe’ in terms of transatlantic relations

The row intensified US hostility –[…] — to ‘old Europe’, and wider transatlantic tensionsconfirm D. Rumsfeld’s prejudice towards ‘old Europe’ and encourage US divide- and-rule tactics.

the UN & NATO and give short shrift to the ‘Old Europe’ axis of France and Germany.‘Old Europe’ confronted the US today over the nature

The full-blooded contempt for Jacques Chirac and ‘old Europe’ has caught the headlinesrebuffed US jibes about the isolated opposition of an ‘old Europe’. Heartened by two inspectors’ reports

America differs from ‘Old Europe’ in seeing reconstruction as meaning Its foolish confrontation with ‘old Europe’ is one it cannot afford to lose.will be the way to re-connect ‘old Europe’ to the US

Colin Powell’s sweep through Old Europe yesterday delivered a direct snub tothe US defence secretary, attacked ‘old’ Europe and Chris Patten, the EU external relations

to take a smug pleasure in mocking ‘old Europe’, and even in doubting the value of Mr Rumsfeld’s criticisms of ‘old Europe’. The pair were sharing the spotlight in

As shown in Table 2, the pronounced animosity can be specified in terms of the concordance for ‘old Europe’. While the choice of words not only exposes the poor state of relations between the US and ‘old Europe’ which are typified by ‘prejudice’, ‘contempt’, ‘criticism’ and mockery, but also emphasizes the clear-cut categorisation of France and Germany into ‘old Europe’. The lexical items high-lighted in Table 2 indicate the nature of the conflict. The military expressions ‘hos-tility’, ‘attack’, ‘confrontation’ and ‘sweep through’ are derived from the conceptual metaphors arguing/criticising is fighting and conflicting is moving in opposite directions (‘opposition’, ‘confrontation’, ‘to differ’).

Another characteristic of the controversy is the fact that ‘old Europe’ is con-structed as an isolated political actor that is remote from both the US and its new European allies. The cognitive representation underlying these discourse struc-tures is mapped in terms of two conceptual metaphors, relationship is proxim-ity and category is divided area. The former is mapped onto lexical concepts such as ‘isolated’ or ‘re-connect’ while the latter surfaces in linguistic units such as ‘axis’ (in the sense of a both dividing and connecting line) or ‘divide’. I understand a lexical concept to be a concept that is ‘encoded in a language-specific format’ (Evans 2007: 31), emphasizing however that a lexical concept and its assigned sub-senses provide significant cues for the underlying conceptual structure.

Another interesting observation concerning the cognitive level of representa-tion is the fact that ‘old Europe’ is constructed as a single political unit (e.g. ‘old Europe confronted the US today’) although French and German interests did not entirely converge at the time. This occurs by means of the conceptual metonymy category for member of the category, which constitutes a further reduction


in complexities. The only exception to this rule is when France, particularly the then French president Chirac, is deliberately singled out from the ‘cherished alli-ance’, as occurs in ‘the full-blooded contempt for Jacques Chirac and ‘old Europe’.

Again, ‘old Europe’ is conceptualised in terms of a person, which is a highly pervasive conceptual tool in political discourse. As the cognitive process of per-sonification regularly entails the characterisation of this particular ‘person’, it is an integral part of ideological meaning construction. This ‘characterisation’ rarely occurs on the basis of neutral criteria and instead involves typifying the personi-fied entity by virtue of simplistic attributes.

3.2.2 The discursive construction of new EuropeAlthough the term ‘new Europe’ was not used in the original context of the brief-ing, it was implicated and subsequently materialised in discourse parallel to ‘old Europe’. There is also reason to assume that the term had gained some currency prior to Rumsfeld’s comment and thrived as a result of its public impact. This view is in line with the frequency test conducted in the corpus. According to Figure 1 there is a steady increase in the use of the term until mid-year while its earli-est occurrence in fact predates Rumsfeld’s invocation of ‘old Europe’. Unlike the straightforward classification of France and Germany as ‘old Europe’ the notion of ‘new Europe’ appears to invite a greater variety of interpretations and thus a more diversified picture presents itself.

In analogy to ‘old Europe’ the notion ‘new Europe’ is either put into quotation marks or it is used without them. In agreement with the conventions used for ‘old Europe’ the use of ‘new Europe’, i.e. when put into quotation marks, is reserved to those contexts in which the term labels the so-called pro-American European countries. In brief: it is ‘new Europe’ in Rumsfeld’s description. Table 3 illustrates the relevant strings identified for this specific context by the concordance search for ‘new Europe’:

Table 3. Definitions of ‘new Europe’

Even in the so-called ‘New Europe’ – the 10 central and eastern European nations due tois actually even lower in the new Europe – Romania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Russia itself of what Rumsfeld called the ‘new Europe’ – prospective EU and NATO members in the east —

Donald Rumsfeld has dubbed ‘new Europe’ Britain, Spain, Italy & the up-and-coming nations in the east. If there is such a thing as ‘new Europe’ Germany is clearly it. Almost 60 years since the end of the

of existing ‘outer’ members and a ‘new Europe’ of the east — has only a partial validity.states of central & eastern Europe ‘new Europe’ only in the sense that they are new to NATO and the EU

As shown in Table 3, the classification into ‘new Europe’ ranges from the technical or narrow definition of the then candidate countries, the so-called

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EU-10 to an affiliation of countries connected only by their shared foreign policy stance. Consequently, the EU-10 comprises ‘the 10 central and eastern European nations due to join the EU’. Apart from this exact definition there are also variant descriptions based on the fact that for some of these states mem-bership of the EU would coincide with membership of NATO. In this respect, ‘new Europe’ is largely synonymous with the ‘smaller states of central and east-ern Europe’. In its most comprehensive form the term ‘new Europe’ denotes ‘Britain, Spain, Italy and the up-and-coming nations in the east’. Yet this list excludes another prominent member, namely Poland, whose special role as the ‘most enthusiastic’ and ‘most pro-American of the new NATO members’ is acknowledged in other parts of the corpus by representing it as ‘a key country in Mr Rumsfeld’s ‘new Europe’.

There is however some disagreement concerning the classification of Germany and Russia. Germany is grouped into ‘new Europe’ for the fact that it has undergone a process of cultural and political reform since the end of WW II. In this sense, ‘new Europe’ stands for a continent of political reform in which the legacy left by two devastating world wars has been put to constructive use. This way, Germany is as much a symbol of the rapprochement of East and West after the end of the Cold War as it used to be a symbol for the divide of Europe during that period.

According to the following examples, Russia can not easily be grouped into any of the classes suggested. There appears to be some uncertainty as to its political role in the post-communist Europe of 2003.

(1) The key voices of ‘Old Europe’, France, Germany and Russia, are in no hurry to give UN legitimacy to a US military occupation of Iraq — (…).

(2) (…) support for a war against Iraq is actually even lower in the new Europe — Romania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Russia itself — than it is in the old.

(3) (…) famously described the current divide as ‘old Europe’ (including France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg) against ‘new Europe’ (including Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland and the other central and east European states).

There is a clear contradiction between (1) and (2) where Russia is alternatively grouped into the ‘new Europe’ and ‘old Europe’. In (3) however, it is absent from either list although the enumerations are fairly specific. Interestingly, Russia forms part of ‘old Europe’ when the phrase relates to an anti-war axis in more general terms while it is excluded when a more or less concrete categorisation in military and institutional terms is provided.


In comparison to ‘old Europe’, ‘new Europe’ is more clearly identified with pro-American policies, military alliance (NATO) and hawkishness. The example provided in (4) is perhaps the most telling evidence in this respect:

(4) (…) strategic assets in a vital area that Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, terms the ‘new Europe’. If things go on as they are right now, there will be a lot more (…).

Thus it is also the geographical location of many of the eastern states that is of strategic importance, although this was of course rarely specified in those terms during the early days of the controversy.

The large majority of occurrences of ‘new Europe’ are of definitional or rela-tional character. The 94 hits for ‘new Europe’ subdivide fairly evenly into several categories. Politically speaking, the most important category contains example sentences in which ‘new Europe’ is described as an entity ‘under construction’, which reflected the socio-political realities at the time. Table 4 provides an over-view of the results of the corresponding concordance search:

Table 4. ‘New Europe’ under construction

Britain must stay fully engaged in the construction of a new Europe – one that is ready to accept its responsibilitiesthe history of tyranny over; a future in the new Europe awaiting. The Polish people face a choice

the Cartesian nor the Lockean spirit. But the future of a new Europe depends on it.need to come together as allies and fashion the new Europe for our and others’ national interest.

Anti-globalisation activists seek vision for new Europe ––––––––––––––––––––––––For us, Poland is an old friend in the new Europe now taking shape.

‘The truth is that we are as committed to building a new Europe of sovereign democracies as we are I love France but could it be that in the new Europe Paris and London have to shape,

Europe is being forged out of this old continent. A new Europe where young Britons think nothing of

The dynamics within Europe on the verge of enlargement may in part account for the construal of Europe as a political entity that can be shaped. What is remark-able in the data gathered is the visionary component included in the concept of ‘new Europe’ on the one hand and its activity-based conception on the other. As to the latter, the reification of abstract ideas or entities is a pervasive cognitive pro-cess, by which a complex, abstract political entity like the ‘new Europe’ is concep-tualised in terms of a concrete item like a building or more generally an object. The conceptual metaphors complex systems are buildings and abstract things are objects are relevant mappings in this respect, as exemplified in the phrases ‘fully engaged in the construction of a new Europe’ or ‘committed to building a new Europe’. As to the visionary element implied in the phrase, this appears to be mapped on the basis of the following two metaphors: purposes are desti-nations and long-term purposeful activities are journeys, according to

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which the achievement of the ‘new Europe’ designates the provisional end-point of that political effort.

However, the enlargement process to an EU-25 or EU-27 (including Bulgaria and Romania) as a political project has entailed a variety of additional political issues. A case in point is its future, post-enlargement political organisation. Not only does this organisational change involve efficient change management, which may equally be seized as an opportunity to actively shape this process, but it also implies an extensive reshuffle that has an impact on relations within the EU. Prior to discussing the relations between ‘old and new Europe’ at the time, I will first address the issue of political (re)organisation, examining the ensuing examples:

(5) (…) a common European approach is in the interest of all three of the EU’s great powers and of ‘old’ and ‘new’ Europe as a whole. It is also vital if the cohesion and future effectiveness of the UN, (…).

(6) We [= Britain] should be in Europe and helping to run Europe. The ‘new Europe’ is based on networks. The old Europe of Brussels and a tiny handful of countries feeling they could dictate policy in Europe is dead. The ‘new Europe’ will require constant discussion, linking-up and nations grouping themselves together around themes, ambitions and values.

(7) The age of obscure diplomatic wrangling by the EU’s political elites was over. Welcome to the ‘new Europe’, a Europe of clear principles, simple procedures, accountable and transparent government.

(8) (…) the idea of a Brussels superstate is a myth, and we will have this new Europe which is a partnership of sovereign member states like Britain.

In (5) to (8) the case is made for a thorough reform of the existing political struc-tures within the EU-15 prior to the enlargement. The ‘old Europe’ serves as a frame of reference on the basis of which a ‘new Europe’ can be designed either in anal-ogy or contrast to the old system. The tendency towards a break with the existing structures is strongly pronounced. The linguistic units highlighted in the exam-ple sentences above indicate that hierarchical structures are to be discontinued in favour of less authoritarian, flattened structures. The negativity of expressions such as ‘Brussels superstate’, ‘dictate policy’ or ‘obscures diplomatic wrangling’ contrasts with the positive evaluation of expressions like ‘networks’, ‘linking-up’ or ‘partnership’. Other important key words are decentralisation, a strengthen-ing of democratic structures rather than the allegedly oligarchic structures that have typified ‘old Europe’ up to this point. Thus the Europe of the future is sup-posed to be grounded in egalitarian rather than top-down elitist principles that are strongly associated with ‘old Europe’. All in all, the ‘new Europe’ is to be given a more dynamic structure, exemplified by the phrase ‘constant discussion’, replacing


the rigid organisation of ‘old Europe’. There is a clear bias towards cooperation and establishing of close, vibrant relations in the place of an abstract, bloodless politi-cal organisation.

The most relevant conceptual metaphors underlying discourse representation in this context are freedom is space to move and relationship is proximity. Resuming the personification of both old and new Europe, their properties may now be further specified: ‘old Europe’ is conceptualised as a person with an essen-tially lifeless body whereas ‘new Europe’ is mapped in terms of a vigorous per-son. In general, political organisations tend to be understood in terms of a human body, producing the conceptual metaphor political organisation is body.

In (5), the emphasis is placed on Europe’s unity (‘common’, ‘as a whole’, ‘cohe-sion’) as a lack of closeness would imply a lack of strength (unity is strength). The tension between the ideological opposition unity and separation is echoed by the metaphorical opposites distance is separation as opposed to relationship is proximity.

Given this bias to corroborate Rumsfeld’s view of two separate European iden-tities, it is hardly surprising that old and new Europe is indeed represented as two dissociated political entities. Table 5 provides an overview of the descriptions made in the corpus:

Table 5. The distance between ‘old Europe’ and ‘new Europe’

New Europe barked back at ‘old Europe’ today, deepening the continental riftbattle of ideas between old and new Europe does matter to this country [= Britain].

divide as ‘old Europe’ against new Europe The truth is that we are alldeep divisions between old and new Europe over Iraq. A major complication comes from east European

on the lines of the ‘old Europe’ ‘new Europe’ split, now translated into a global context.

The list provided in Table 5 describes the relations between the old and new Europe, which are typified by insurmountable barriers, it seems. The lexical con-cepts ‘rift’, ‘divide’, ‘divisions’, ‘lines’ or ‘split’ are derived from the underlying meta-phors difference is distance and separation is distance, which form a strong ideological opposition to the mappings similarity is proximity and similarity is relationship. According to Goatly (2007: 192f.) these metaphors interact to form the mapping relationship is proximity. As this interaction also applies here, one of its possible entailments would be that American foreign policy rela-tions tend to be conceptualised in terms of similarity rather than difference, as the latter would imply conflict and contradiction.

Prior to discussing the results of the preceding discussion and piecing the variety of distinct findings together, I will pinpoint some of the most relevant aspects in analysing a final set of examples from the corpus.

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Thus far, the analysis has shown that both old and new Europe are frequently conceptualised in terms of human beings. The mappings old europe is a person and new europe is a person have been shown to be given their opposing evalu-ation when framed by contexts of iconographic reference. This occurs whenever the characteristic properties of the two Europes are further specified by virtue of a set of attributes that are imbued with conflicting value judgments. The attributes that are exemplified by sentences (9) to (13) below:

(9) (…) Chirac’s extraordinary attack on ‘badly brought up’ pro-American easterners, ‘new Europe’ is seizing any chance it can to annoy those stuffy ‘old’ French and Germans.

(10) (…) the choice […] is between a dynamic freewheeling new Europe that delivers freedom and choice — or a paralysed old Europe that risks bringing angry voters to the point of revolt.

(11) Rumsfeld’s cavalier distinction between ‘old’ (i.e. wimpy France, Germany, Belgium et al.) and ‘new’ Europe (i.e. gutsy Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland et al.) has caught the imagination of Washington DC.

(12) The US has always thought of ‘old Europe’ as devious, unscrupulous, expansionist and imperialist, regularly threatening the peace of the world.

(13) While the Americans are mocking ‘old Europe’ (the implication being that it is decrepit), to use the EU dispute over Iraq to put the case for a more flexible ‘new Europe’ in which no political agenda is advanced to rival the influence of the US.

Indeed, ‘new Europe’ is understood as a person with a variety of characteristics, it seems. At a second glance, however, there is an interesting narrowing of perspec-tive to several core aspects.

As suggested by the semantic scope of the attributes ‘old’ and ‘new’, the choices are narrowed down to the corresponding choices provided by the adjectives. While not establishing a direct opposite — the distinction is between old and new, rather than old and young Europe, after all –, ‘old Europe’ is nonetheless personified as an adult, even mature individual. In contrast, ‘new Europe’ is construed as a new-comer to the world political stage, i.e. it can be inferred as a young person. This construction of new Europe has the following implications. Firstly, as far as politi-cal relations are concerned, the partnership that is propagated to exist between the US and the ‘new Europe’ is not based on equal principles, despite ostentatious signs to the contrary. Being constructed as a novice to the field, ‘new Europe’ can best be understood as a junior partner. The metaphorical opposition being new is being ignorant vs. being old is being knowledgeable corroborates the construal of old and new Europe in terms of two people of a different age. It also


accounts for the interesting fact that ‘old Europe’ is not constructed as a senior partner, which would be the corresponding counterpart, but as an aged person who is said to be run-down. The former construal is blocked as ‘old Europe’ would have to be inferred as an equal partner of the US whose disagreement would have to be acknowledged with respect, drawing on the mapping being old is being knowledgeable. Instead, ‘old Europe’ is represented as an aged person, building on the assumption that old age coincides with a loss of firmness and assertive-ness. Hence the ‘old man Europe’ is quite literally losing its muscle. In this case, of course, he can no longer act as a rival or competitor to US interests.

Moreover, the youth of ‘new Europe’ invites another set of associations. Its vigour and vitality contrasts with old Europe’s run-down state, according to which the former is interpreted as being strong and the other as being weak. Due to its youth, ‘new Europe’ is argued to be more receptive towards innovations as well as adaptive towards changed situations and new challenges. ‘Old Europe’ is, how-ever, characterised as an individual that has closed its mind to recent political developments.

Being at the early stages of its political life, new Europe’s career is typified by a general openness, implying that it is an indefinite political category in several respects. The sharp contrast that exists between ‘old Europe’ and ‘new Europe’ on the conceptual level can be summarised as follows:

i. being old is being in a bad state vs. being new is being in a good stateii. being old is being static vs. being new is being mobileiii. being old is being tied vs. being new is being openiv. being old is being partnered vs. being new is being eligible

The first pair of opposites can be argued to underlie a variety of conceptualisa-tions of old and new Europe, respectively. The condition that is described in terms of oldness as opposed to newness may relate to the physical or mental state of the personified Europe at hand and thus corroborates the patterns of evaluation implied in the mappings themselves.

Similarly, the metaphorical oppositions in (ii) and (iii) are also ideological from an American angle, particularly its progress-mindedness that is encapsulated in the notion of American progressivism. ‘The Progressive vision of America’s future was inseparable from its vision of America as the dominant force for justice in the world; thus, Progressive internationalism was an integral part of Progressive nationalism’ (Eisenach 2006: 287). Nationally, American progressivism fuelled the nation-building and consolidation processes while it subsequently advanced the cause of democracy, making it one of the most salient notions of twentieth-century foreign policy discourse. One major implication of this form of American

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progressivism is the idea of constant motion, insisting that ‘the mental, moral and physical power of America is not, is not to be, and cannot be, stationary’ (Eisenach ibid.: 2ff.). Thus, being in motion clearly promotes the positive self-presentation of the American nation to the extent that it may be argued to be entrenched as the iconographic frame of reference [action vs. inaction].

Conceptually, motion serves as a source domain for a variety of target con-cepts such as ‘action’, ‘progress’ or ‘change’, producing the metaphors action is self-propelled motion, progress is motion forward or change is motion. Throughout the debate, ‘old Europe’ is overwhelmingly represented as cowardly, hesitant and generally incapable of taking (appropriate) action. Cases in point are expressions such as ‘wimpy’, ‘limp-wristedness’, ‘axis of weasels’, ‘the waverers’ or even ‘European laggards’ all of which are used to label ‘old Europe’.

As to the metaphorical opposites mentioned in (iii) and (iv), they take us back to the key metaphor themes that have accompanied us throughout the analysis. While (iii) directly invokes the mapping category is divided area, implying that the newness of ‘new Europe’ designates the military non-alignment of the then candidate countries, (iv) further specifies this view in terms of political rela-tions. As newcomers on the political stage, these countries attract the particular interest of other players.

(14) Russia, though, took the opposite course from its former satellite states. On February 9 it joined Germany and France it what later came to be known as the ‘non-nyet-nein’ alliance. Over the years Mr Blair had invested a huge effort in wooing President Vladimir Putin, and was surprised by the setback.

(15) When the most powerful country in the world looks in your eyes and tells you that you are the future, it would be difficult not to be flattered. But even as the cheerful blush fades, other questions come into our heads. Isn’t there also — even as undying love is being declared — the nagging doubt: ‘Are we just being used here?’

(16) America has spent this Valentine’s week making romantic overtures towards Central and Eastern Europe.

The highlighted lexical items in examples (14) to (16) illustrate that political rela-tions are indeed frequently conceptualised in terms of romantic relations. The terminology derived from the semantic field of courting is an instantiation of the conceptual metaphor political relations are personal (romantic) relations. Generally speaking, novelty increases the attractiveness in various constellations, including, apparently, political relations in the making. The met-aphorical opposition being old is being partnered vs. being new is being eligible invites the cliché of the ‘eligible bachelor’ but also evokes the unflat-tering association of ‘old spinster’. ‘Old Europe’ clearly appears to have lost all its


charm — physical and mental. In contrast, ‘new Europe’ symbolises opportunity, promise and freedom, i.e. concepts that rank highly in America’s set pattern of iconographic reference.

. Results and discussion

The in-depth study of the categorisation of old and new Europe has resulted in valuable insights concerning the criteria of category membership. In the pro-cess, the manifold details of the discursive construction of two European iden-tities could increasingly be pieced together to compose a more comprehensive picture.

Technically speaking, the classification into old and new Europe appears to be straightforward, following objective criteria: ‘old Europe’ comprises the 15 member states up to the point of EU enlargement on 1 May 2004, i.e. it denotes the EU-15, whereas ‘new Europe’ relates to the 10 new member states that acceded then, i.e. the EU-25. Alternatively, Bulgaria and Romania may also be included, making it the EU-27. Both old and new Europe could however also be identified as relational terms, resulting from the enhanced experiential, rela-tional and expressive value attached to the adjectives in question. The notion of ‘new Europe’ in particular appears to be an ideological space that could be filled as an ‘American new Europe’ or ‘European new Europe’, respectively. The forego-ing analysis has revealed that ‘new Europe’ was at the time regarded as a political entity ‘under construction’ as was the enlarged EU in its entirety. As a conse-quence, ‘new Europe’ as an ideological term either comprises the EU-25 (27) or is reduced to denote the EU-10. The criteria for inclusion or exclusion have been shown to rely on the perception of similarities which were constructed between the US and ‘new Europe’. In this respect, the metaphor category is divided area could be identified as inherent in the very process of conceptualisation itself. Human perception is determined by language in two interrelated ways. On the one hand, language assists in creating an alternative world that can only be ‘seen’ in language. On the other hand, language imposes this alternative world on the material world so that we no longer see or believe in the world of physi-cal events (cf. Kress & Hodge 1979: 23). Thus the interaction between language and ‘the world’ inevitably involves transformation, which may be expressed in the following way: ‘Ideology involves a systematically organized presentation of reality’ (Kress & Hodge 1979: 15). This account refutes the view that there is a position outside ideology, which is in agreement with approaches to ideology within a Marxist framework. For example, Voloshinov (1973: 70) contends that ‘[l]anguage, in the process of its practical implementation, is inseparable from its ideological or behavioural impletion’.

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Nonetheless, criteria have to be found on the basis of which ideological reason-ing can be differentiated. It is at this point that the level of cognitive representation is crucial. As has been shown, it is first and foremost the framing of certain political events and actions in terms of iconographic reference on the one hand, and the cognitive representation of ideological discourse structures on the other that can be argued to account for the strictly dichotomous evaluation that appears to underlie the large majority of ideological meaning construction. These cognitive processes have to be uncovered by the analysis of ideologies. One such process is personification. The ideological construction of two European identities involved typifying old and new Europe as two separate people of fundamentally different characters. Not only have their characteristic properties been construed as vastly divergent, they have also been attributed opposing value judgments. The positive evaluation of ‘new Europe’ is grounded in its newness, i.e. it is not only congruent with the ‘New World’ but also embraces its values and principles.

As regards the strategy used, it involves all three major functions of political language identified by Chilton (e.g. 2006). The struggle for leadership in Europe is motivated by the long-standing tradition of transatlantic animosities in which the row over Iraq was the most recent bone of contention. A strong, united Europe has never been in America’s vested interest particularly when putting forward a politi-cal agenda of its own. This is why ‘old Europe’ as a contender who vociferously articulated a foreign policy stance of its own could never be tolerated as this would have entailed undesirable risks. The misrepresentation of ‘old Europe’ as a politi-cal ‘no-show’ in the process of political obliteration simultaneously delegitimizes ‘old Europe’ as a serious political player by belittling it. Ideologically, the strategy emphasizes the differences and contrasts rather than the commonalities that exist between the US and ‘old Europe’. More important still, it establishes an affinity between America and ‘new Europe’ on the basis of proximity. Interestingly, this strategy was geared to replace the geographical proximity of old and new Europe by the ideological proximity of the US and ‘new Europe’. At the same time, the historical ties that exist between the US and ‘old Europe’ were de-emphasised to the extent that ‘old Europe’ was alienated from both the US and ‘new Europe’ on account of being dissimilar and thus incompatible with either. Both the US and ‘old Europe’ appear to have adopted a ‘claim-staking approach’ to the ‘new Europe’, a similarity of interests that could not be but constructed as dissimilar.

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The ideological construction of European identities

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