Discourse Analysis and Austerity: Critical Studies from Economics and Linguistics

In the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, governments around the developed world coordinated policy moves to stimulate economic activity and avert a depression. In subsequent years, however, cuts to public expenditure, or austerity, have become the dominant narrative in public debate on economic policy.

This unique collaboration between economists and linguists examines manifestations of the discourses of austerity as these have played out in media, policy and academic settings across Europe and the Americas. Adopting a critical perspective, it seeks to elucidate the discursive and argumentation strategies used to consolidate austerity as the dominant economic policy narrative of the twenty-first century.

Kate Power is a lecturer in Management Communication at the University of Queensland Business School, Australia. A critical discourse analyst with particular interest in interdisciplinarity, she has published linguistic analyses of both religious and economic discourses.

Tanweer Ali is a lecturer in finance and economics with Empire State College, SUNY. His research interests are in corporate governance and the application of linguistic methods to economic questions. He has guest edited two special editions of On The Horizon, focused on language and economics.

Eva Lebdusková is a PhD candidate at the J.E. Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem. In addition she holds a senior administrative position with the Charles University in Prague. Her main field of research is in linguistics, and she has published a number of articles on the use of language in economic discourse.