The Language of Fear

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Cognitive, Social and Psychological Issues of Public Discourse and Threat Communication

   • Piotr Cap

   Pages 1-14

3. Proximization: A Threat-Based Model of Policy Legitimization

   • Piotr Cap

   Pages 15-27

4. Health Discourse: The War on Cancer and Beyond

   • Piotr Cap

   Pages 29-40

5. Environmental Discourse: Climate Change

   • Piotr Cap

   Pages 41-52

6. Technological Discourse: Threats in the Cyberspace

   • Piotr Cap

   Pages 53-66

7. Immigration and Anti-migration Discourses: The Early Rhetoric of Brexit

   • Piotr Cap

   Pages 67-79

8. Conclusion

   • Piotr Cap

   Pages 81-82

9. Back Matter

   Pages 83-91

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This book investigates linguistic strategies of threat construction and fear generation in contemporary public communication, including state political discourse as well as non-governmental, media and institutional discourses. It describes the ways in which the construction of closeness and remoteness can be manipulated in the public sphere and bound up with fear, security and conflict. Featuring a series of case studies in different domains, from presidential speeches to environmental discourse, it demonstrates how political and organizational leaders enforce the imminence of an outside threat to claim legitimization of preventive policies. It reveals that the best legitimization effects are obtained by discursively constructed fear appeals, which ensure quick social mobilization. The scope of the book is of immediate concern in the modern globalized era where borders and distance dissolve and are re-imagined. It will appeal to students and researchers in linguistics, discourse analysis, media communication as well as social and political sciences.

• public discourse
• political discourse
• threat communication
• proximization
• conflict
• education
• health
• discourse analysis

“This book is timely because of the recent highly charged political rhetoric in the US. It is required reading for those interested in proximization theory, and scholars of critical discourse analysis, linguistics, political science, and media studies will also find it illuminating. Researchers will particularly appreciate the thorough index. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.” (K. L. Majocha, Choice, Vol. 55 (1), September, 2017) 

• Department of Pragmatics, University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland

  Piotr Cap

Piotr Cap is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Łódź, Poland. His interests are in pragmatics, critical discourse studies, political linguistics and genre theory. His publications include Perspectives in Politics and Discourse (2010), Proximization: The Pragmatics of Symbolic Distance Crossing (2013), Analyzing Genres in Political Communication (2013) and Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies (2014). He is Managing Editor of International Review of Pragmatics.

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