Peace talks: indexical master tropes and their potential for conflict in the construction of national identity

Abstract

This paper employs discursive constructivism to delineate four rhetorical paradigms of nationalist discourse and to compare their potential for conflict. It proposes a four-fold typology which sees the intuitive tropes of antithesis and simile, and the counterintuitive metaphor and irony as structuring principles for national self-images. These are four modes of constructing a cultural deixis, that is, a relationship between national self and its cultural other. The paper argues that the frequency and magnitude of nationalistic conflicts may be minimized by the steady and widespread counter-enculturation of the non-conflictual discourses of analogical (simile-based), metaphoric, and ironic nationalisms. This argument is illustrated with examples from modern and recent Romanian history, but may be taken to epitomize the condition of most postcommunist European nations.