The construction of the Greek Crisis in the public sphere : discourses and emotions (pathos) under critical perceptions

The present dissertation aims to examine how significant, Greek social actors and institutions (i.e. PMs, newspapers and protesters) represent social agency in different types of texts and discourses (i.e. parliamentary proceedings-parliamentary discourse, newspapers headlinesmedia discourse and graffiti slogans-protest discourse), and how this discursive representation gives birth to an emotional construction, shaping significant moments of the Greek crisis in the public sphere[s]. Drawing on the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA, see Fairclough 2003, 2010, 2014; Van Dijk 2008), we study the interrelation between macro-level (dominant) values and views, and the micro-level of individuals and institutions positioning (Van Dijk 2008: 85-89), as retrieved from three types of texts, that is, parliamentary proceedings, newspaper headlines and graffiti slogans. In our theoretical discussion, following a transdisciplinary and integrationist CDA perception (see Fairclough 2010; Van Leeuwen 2005), we, also employ—and proceed to an examination of—the notions of public sphere[s] (see Arendt 1958; Habermas 1989) and politics, as a discursively emerged process within the public sphere; a perception which seems to have significant impact on both political and (critical) discourse studies (see Fairclough 2003; Fairclough and Fairclough 2012; Laclau and Mouffe 1985). Focusing on the micro-level, we sketch and propose an integrationist framework of analysis based on two analytical pillars: We conduct a Systemic-Functional (SF) analysis to scrutinize the transitivity structures (see Halliday and Matthiessen 2004: Ch. 5) of different texts, and an analysis of emotions semiotization in discourse (pathos, see Plantin 2011; Micheli 2014) in order to track constructed emotions and their argumentative force.