The Metonymy EUrope as a Means of Legitimizing Nations in the Western Balkans

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the metonymic use of the lexeme Europe and country name in Montenegro and North Macedonia with the aim of investigating their co-occurrences in discursive-linguistic realizations of the concept of Nation in both countries. The analysis is based on a corpus consisting of political speeches, election slogans, and media texts (both newspaper and social media) that cover the period from 2006 in Montenegro and 2011 in North Macedonia, respectively. Discourse Space Theory (Chilton 2004, 2014) and Proximization Theory (Cap 2009, 2013, 2017) provide a theoretical framework against which the legitimization of particular conceptualizations and framing are disclosed. The analysis shows that although EUrope is largely used for specific national (re)identification in both Western Balkans countries, these discourses are characterized by a complex legitimization: On the temporal and spatial axis, EUrope is constructed as a distant Other (e.g., “European integration,” “our European path”, “European future”), while on the axiological axis, as a symbolic part of the Self (e.g., “European face of Montenegro”, “vote for a European Macedonia”). This divergent legitimation can be seen both as discursive and linguistic handling of the protracted EU rapprochement processes and as a management tool for inner divisions in both countries along the lines of civic versus ethnic-national identification.