| Keywords [eng] |
Critical Discourse Studies, thematic analysis, NATO, G7, leadership theory, metaphors, pronouns, Vilnius NATO summit, collective identity, hard power skills, soft power skills, kritinė diskurso analizė, tematinė analizė, NATO, lyderystės teorija, metaforos, įvardžiai, NATO viršūnių susitikimas Vilniuje, kolektyvinis identitetas, švelnioji galia, stiprioji galia |
| Abstract [eng] |
This paper aims to thematically analyse the social media X posts, speeches, press releases, press conferences and remarks of political leaders at the 2023 Vilnius NATO summit with the purpose of comparing the recurrent features of their communication style with a specific focus on the expression of hard and soft power skills and the collective identity. The collected data of public statements, speeches and social media posts was delivered by the following 10 leaders: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak, President of the United States Joe Biden, the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The collected data of 16,707 words consists of the social media X posts, speeches, press releases, press conferences and public remarks delivered during the Vilnius NATO summit (2023, July 11-12). The data was analysed within the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Studies (Wodak, 2021). The results have shown that the prevalent political leadership style in the Vilnius NATO summit focuses on soft power skills thematically realised via the concepts of unity, defence, relations, values and the NATO membership. It has also been clarified that the most prevalent metaphors used to represent the recurrent themes are related to the source domains of PERSONIFICATION, JOURNEY, SPACE, BODY, MOVEVENT, FIGHT and OBJECT with the consistent references of the inclusive “we” to the collective identity. The combined use of metaphors and thematic representation has revealed that soft power skills prevail in the Vilnius NATO summit discourse with a specific focus on the unified collective identity and the importance of the NATO alliance in the time of crisis. |
