The Scottish independence referendum and the myth of successful small states
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.31460Keywords:
National identity, nationalism, political myth, Scottish National PartyAbstract
In 2013 the Scottish government launched its flagship publication, Scotland's Future, intended to mobilize the electorate to vote for independence. A particularly salient feature of this document is the large number of references to small northern European countries. Combining theories of cognitive linguistics with a discursive approach to political myth, this article argues that Scotland's Future employs the political myth of national rebirth in tandem with the construction of small European countries as democratic role models. This results in a mythical conception of small states, here referred to as the myth of successful small states. This myth is then used to legitimate the Scottish government's policies that are conveyed to the Scottish electorate.
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Bottici, C. (2007). A Philosophy of Political Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498626
Cairney, P. and Widfeldt, A. (2015). Is Scotland a Westminster-style majoritarian democracy or a Scandinavian-style consensus democracy? A comparison of Scotland, the UK and Sweden. Regional and Federal Studies 33: 1278–1298. https://doi.org/10.1080/13597566.2014.958818
Croft, W. and Cruse, A. (2004). Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803864
Geeraerts, D. and Cuyckens, H. (2007). Introducing cognitive linguistics. In D. Geeraerts and D. Cuyckens (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, 53–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Griffin, R. (2006). Palingenetic myth. In C. P. Blamires and P. Jackson (Eds) World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, 498–499. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio.
Hart, C. (2011a). Force-interactive patterns in immigration discourse: A cognitive linguistic approach to cda. Discourse and Society 22: 269–286. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926510395440
Hart, C. (2011b). Moving beyond metaphor in the cognitive linguistic approach to Cda: Construal operations in immigration discourse. In C. Hart (Ed.) Critical Discourse Studies in Context and Cognition, 71–92. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hart, C. (2013). Event-construal in press reports of violence in two recent political protests: A cognitive linguistic approach to Cda. Journal of Language and Politics 12: 400–423. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.12.3.05har
Hart, C. (2014). Discourse, Grammar and Ideology: Functional and Cognitive Perspectives. London: Bloomsbury.
Huddleston, R. D. and Pullum, G. K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316423530
Ichijo, A. (2004). Scottish Nationalism and the Idea of Europe: Concepts of Europe and the Nation. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203337806
Keating, M. (1996). Nations Against the State: The New Politics of Nationalism in Quebec, Catalonia and Scotland. Basingstoke: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230374348
Keating, M. (2013). Rescaling the European State: The Making of Territory and the Rise of the Meso. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199691562.001.0001
Keating, M. and Harvey, M. (2014). Small Countries in a Big World: What Scotland Can Learn. Edinburgh: Luath Press.
Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1, Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, R. W. (2008). Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331967.001.0001
Lijphart, A. (1999). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-six Countries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lynch, P. (2002). SNP: The History of the Scottish National Party. Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press.
Meyer, M. and Wodak, R (Eds) (2009). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Mitchell, J., Bennie, L., and Johns, R. (2012). The Scottish National Party: Transition to Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Paradis, C. (2008). Configurations, construals and change: Expressions of degree. English Language and Linguistics 12: 317–343. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674308002645
Scottish Government. (2013). Scotland’s Future: Your Guide to an Independent Scotland [White Paper]. Retrieved from http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/11/9348/0.
Talmy, L. (1988). Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science 12: 49–100. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1201_2
Trevor Roper, H. R. (2008). The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Wodak, R,, De Cillia, R., Reisigl, M., and Liebhart, K. (2009), The Discursive Construction of National Identity (trans A. Hirsch, R. Mitten, and J. W. Unger), (2nd edn), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Published
2019-01-23
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Engström, R. (2019). The Scottish independence referendum and the myth of successful small states. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 12(1), 47-66. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.31460
