The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in the «Kronen Zeitung» – a corpus study

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in the «Kronen Zeitung»

– a corpus study 

Susanne KopfPhD student

Lancaster University Vienna University of Economics and Business

Agenda The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

The «Kronen Zeitung»

The Corpus

Analysis and Conclusions

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

United States of America and European Union: Recognition of regulations: product safety and quality

Inception of new rules: investments, intellectual property, energy sector, textile market common trade dispute settlement regulations

Reducing tariffs: agricultural, industrial and consumer goods, enable competition for public contracts, reduce on electronically transmitted products/services

Broad spectrum of topics and issues

The TTIP - EU

First round of negotiations: June 2013 (six rounds by September 2014)

European Commission (on behalf of member states)

Regular consultation with European Parliament and Member States

TTIP to be approved by Member States in the Council and ratified by the European Parliament

Austrian tabloid newspaper National newspaper - regional variation Reach: 31,6% «[i]n terms of readership per capita […] the most widely read paper in the advanced industrialized world» (Art, 2006)

Unique position of influence Editorial policy: «The variety of opinions of the publishers and editors of the newspaper»

«eurosceptic» (Seethaler & Melischek, 2013), «anti-immigration» (Rest & Renger, 2008)

The «Kronen Zeitung»

The Corpus Specialised corpus Sample representative of newspaper’s writing on the TTIP from January to September 2014

Articles and reports using term ‘TTIP’ Included: regional variation Excluded: categorisation by date or section

Excluded: letters to the editor 26 623 tokens

Terms and definitions Frequency list: most frequent to least frequent item

Collocation: word-partnerships Concordance: item in co-text Discourse Prosody: positive or negative connotation(s) of an item

Discourse: «system of statements which construct an object» (Parker, 1992)

«a particular version of events» (Burr, 1995)

The Analysis Antconc - corpus analysis software All data treated as lower case data No groupings of different word forms of one lemma

Collocations: T-score: «absolute frequency of joint occurrence of node and collocate» (Stubbs, 1995), cut-off point: 2.0

5 places to the right and 5 places to the left of the node word

The TTIP & its many names «*pakt» (pact); «handelspakt» (trade pact)

2 billion German «Duden»-Corpus: collocates with: «teuflisch» (diabolic), «frivol» (frivolous) «faustisch»

negative discourse prosody TTIP as immoral

«*abkommen» (* agreement), «*pakt» (pact) Reference to CETA and TiSA as disadvantageous: «CETA-Pakt » (CETA-pact)

Always connected to the TTIP: «CETA ist nur eine Blaupause für TTIP » (CETA is only a blueprint for the TTIP)

The TTIP in the «Kronen Zeitung» TTIP, «pakt», «*abkommen» and «gegen» (against) (Collocation: T-score >5.9) 201 times throughout corpus – 119 in reference to being against the TTIP / predicted effects of the TTIP

Focus on reporting on opposition

«gegen» + adjective + TTIP: «verheerend» (disastrous), «unselig» (wretched), «verhängnisvoll» (devastating), «teuflisch» (diabolic), «sittenwidrig» (immoral)

Discourse of immorality and evil

TTIP and «gefahr» (danger), «gefährdet» (endanger), «bedroh*» (threaten*) (Collocation: T-score >2.2) TTIP as threatening/dangerous

The TTIP in the «Kronen Zeitung»

Moving entity: TTIP can still be stopped: «TTIP kann noch gestoppt werden»

Ought to be stopped: «muss sofort gestoppt werden»

Call for readers to stop the TTIP

Entity / actor that allows certain effects to ‘enter’: «TTIP […] würde ja den Chlorhühnern […] Tür und Tor öffnen» (TTIP […] would throw open doors and gates for chlorinated chicken […])

The TTIP– who predicts impact?

«Kronen Zeitung» Citing outside source Most dominant: blurring between «Kronen Zeitung» and outside source «Greenpeace fordert strengere Zulassungsverfahren, die durch den Investitionsschutz in TTIP verhindert werden können» (Greenpeace demands stricter admission-regulations, which could be prevented by the TTIP)

Hides that this is a group‘s / individual‘s opinion

The TTIP‘s Impact Focus on foods, environment, agriculture

Compounds: technology + foods GM corn, chlorinated chicken, clone meat, hormone meat

«Frankenstein-Pflanzen» (Frankenstein-plants) TTIP and «Öko*» (ecol*) (Collocation: T-score 2.1)

Less dominant: danger to Austrian cultural scene: «Bedroht TTIP heimische Kulturtempel wie die Grazer Oper» (TTIP threatens native culture-temples, such as the Grazer opera house)

TTIP and Austria (TTIP collocates with «Österreich» T-score 2.2): «durch das TTIP-Abkommen besteht die akute Gefahr, dass Österreich […] » (due to the TTIP-agreement, Austria runs acute danger […])

Collocate «durch» (due to / because of): Austrian (and European) standards erode

Focus on Austria «Heimat» (home, homeland) «heimisch» (local, native, home-based): «Schätze unserer Heimat» (treasures of our home)

Use of Austrian expressions: «Paradeiser» (tomatos), «Erdäpfel» (potatos)

Focusing on interviewee‘s nationality: «rotweißroter Sportheld» (red-white-red sports-hero)

Austrian identity: «bietet […] Heimatgefühl. Das darf nicht gefährdet werden» (provides […] a sense of home. This must not be endangered)

TTIP vs. Austria «uns*» (our/us):

Austrians (!) Austrian/EU/European citizens (appr. 30%): «Die Ernährungssouveränität Österreichs, ja, ganz Europas ist durch das Handelsabkommen in Gefahr. Große Konzerne werden bestimmen, was auf unsere Teller kommt» (the independence of Austria’s, even Europe’s, food industry is endangered by the agreement. Big corporations will determine what ends up on our plates)

We vs. TTIP («wir» «uns*» - 1st person plural): «gegen» (against) collocates with «uns» (T-score 3.2): «wir im Kampf gegen TTIP» (we in the fight against TTIP)

The opposition against TTIP Discourse of war:

«Allianz» (alliance), «Front gegen […]» (front against […]), «Ringen gegen» (battle/struggle against)

Sympathy for the fighters «Bauernbund kämpft tapfer […]» (farmers’ association fights bravely […])

A civic movement: «Widerstand ist Bürgerpflicht!» (resistance is civic duty)

Unequal fight: «David gegen Goliath» (David against Goliath)

Powerful movement: metaphor ‘water’ «Protestflut» (flood of protest)

ConclusionsThe Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Discourse of Immorality Nationalist Discourse Agriculture, Foods, Ecological concerns TTIP as danger and threat to Austria Austria is not part of this ‘partnership‘

Opposition Discourse of War – Austrian, just, powerful and inclusive

Sources Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analysen. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.media-

analyse.at/welcome.do Art, D. (2006). The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baker, P. (2006). Using corpora in discourse analysis (1st ed.). London:

Continuum. Baroni, M. (2014). Distributions in text. In A. Lüdeling & M. Kytö, eds.,

Corpus Linguistics: an international handbook, 1st ed. Berlin: Walter deGruyter, 803-821

Bibliographisches Institut GmbH. (2014). Pakt. Retrieved from http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Pakt

Burr, V. (1995). An Introduction to Social Constructionism. London: Routledge.

European Commission. (2014). In focus: the Transatlantice Tade and investment Partnership. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ttip/

Hunston, S. (2002). Corpora in applied linguistics (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McEnery, T., Xiao, R., & Tono, Y. (2006). Corpus-based language studies (1st ed.). London: Routledge.

Office of the United States Trade Representative (2014). Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Retrieved from https://ustr.gov/ttip

Parker, I. (1992). Discourse dynamics: critical analysis for social and individual psychology. London: Routledge.

Renouf, A. (1987). Corpus development. In J. Sinclair, ed., Looking up: an account of the COBUILD project in lexical computing, 1st ed. London: Birmingham: HarperCollins. 1-4

Rest, F. & Renger, R. (2008). Die neue Kronen Zeitung. Massenmediales Flaggschiff aller österreichischen Populismen. In R. Faber & F. Unger, eds., Populismus in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 175-209

Seethaler, J. & Melischek, G. (2012). “Kommt es in Österreich zu neuen Allianzen zwischen Medien und Parteien?“. In Stratifizierte und segmentierte Öffentlichkeit, 93-125, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-00348-7_7

Stubbs, M. (1995). Collocations and semantic profiles: on the cause of the trouble with quantitative studies. Functions Of Language, 2(1), 23-55

World Trade Organization (2013). Briefing note: Trade in services. Retrieved from http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/mc9_e/brief_serv_e.htm

THANK YOU!

Mag. Susanne Kopf