Defining ‘Eastern Europe’

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Western Perspectives and Vantage Points

   • Piotr Twardzisz

   Pages 1-25

3. Historical Events and Developments

   • Piotr Twardzisz

   Pages 27-71

4. Problematic Terms and Concepts

   • Piotr Twardzisz

   Pages 73-106

5. Dominant Themes and Geographic Components

   • Piotr Twardzisz

   Pages 107-152

6. Current Data and Statistics

   • Piotr Twardzisz

   Pages 153-185

7. Meanings and Interpretations

   • Piotr Twardzisz

   Pages 187-217

8. Semantic Primes and Definitions

   • Piotr Twardzisz

   Pages 219-247

9. Back Matter

   Pages 249-259

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This book offers a linguistic-semantic analysis of the expression ‘Eastern Europe’ in international English-language media discourse and academic discourse. Interdisciplinary in nature, it provides insights beyond semantics and lexicology, commenting on the politics, history, economy and culture of the region. Its thorough analysis of ‘Eastern Europe’ as a linguistic entity, surrounded and affected by other linguistic entities, allows for a systematic description of the term’s linguistic ‘behaviour’ in specialist written discourse. The author measures the ‘quantity’ and ‘quality’ of ‘Eastern Europe’ in specialist discourse, painting a holistic picture of how it appears in English-language quality texts published in the last twenty-five years. This book will appeal to students and scholars of cognitive linguistics, semantics, lexicology and lexicography, and to specialists working on history, political theory and international relations as they relate to Eastern Europe.

• media discourse
• Academic discourse
• Eastern Europe
• Central Europe
• Semantic indeterminacy
• communism
• encyclopedic semantics
• Encyclopedic meaning
• westernization
• corpus-based analysis
• metalanguage
• semantic primes
• corpus linguistics

“The topic is important and interesting, the amount of the author’s work on Eastern and Central Europe is remarkable. Also, the intention to contribute to an understanding of political terminology by providing insights from linguistic semantics is commendable.” (Adam Głaz, Journal of Language and Politics, Vol. 19 (5), 2020)

• Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

  Piotr Twardzisz

Piotr Twardzisz is Associate Professor in the Institute of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warsaw, Poland. His research interests focus on specialist languages, figurative language, word-formation, lexicology and terminology, as well as international affairs. Piotr is author of Zero Derivation in English: A Cognitive Grammar Approach (1997), Patterns of English Word-Formation (2010), The Language of Interstate Relations: In Search of Personification (2013) and numerous articles. 

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