Serbian Progressive Party's shameless normalization of expressing sycophancy toward the leader

In: Journal of language and politics, Band 22, Heft 2, S. 163-184

Abstract

Abstract
The notion of shameless normalization is applied in the paper to argue that the Serbian ruling
party's press releases introduce shameless normalization of expressing sycophancy toward the leader. Within the
framework of critical (political) discourse analysis postulating that social actors' use of language is vested with interests that
need to be linguistically managed, the paper focuses on how the proposed strategies in political discourse – coercion,
legitimisation and (mis)representation – manage the interest of the authors of press releases in realization of sycophancy. The
analysis shows that the shameless normalization of sycophancy is realized by coercing the recipients to accept the exclusive right
of the leader to represent the homogenized people of Serbia (the ingroup). This exclusive right is legitimized through positive
representation of the leader as the self of the ingroup. Such legitimisation is enabled by misrepresentation both in terms of
quality and quantity of the information conveyed.