Making registers in politics: Circulation and ideologies of linguistic authority

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the role of register‐making in constructing and evoking authority for political discourses. Three aspects of such enregisterment are defined and exemplified: clasping, relaying, and grafting. Though they occur together in any case of enregisterment, these processes are analytically separable. As registers circulate, they link arenas of social action, creating relations of authority between the social arena of those who construct the register and the arena of those whom the register names and characterizes (clasping). Registers also display connections between organizations in different social arenas (relaying). Finally, registers may draw on—tap into—institutional discourses that are highly authorized, implanting onto them ways of speaking that convey meanings opposed to the institution's values. Paradoxically, such graftings draw authority from the very discourses they oppose. Examples come from Hungarian and other east European politics, as well as historical cases from the US .

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 78 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.