Semantic Strategies as a Means of Politics: Linguistic Approaches to the Analysis of "semantic struggles"

Political power and its exertion by the various agencies of politics (i.e. politicians, civil servants, political institutions) can be described as a kind of symbolic action (cf. Edelmann 1964, 1971). Social and political reality, its perception or constitution by the participants of politics (politicians and citizens), is shaped and determined by communication and its means. That is, it is shaped by linguistic expressions provided by the language of public discourse. This language opens and restricts due to the semantic rules of its linguistic signs the possibilities of constituting symbolic meaning and sense within a range of socially accepted definitions of political and social reality. Linguistic sense within a discourse can only be socially effective if it is an intersubjectively accepted sense. The constitution of public sense as a part of the process of linguistic communication is an important part of linguistic action. This semantic (or semiotic) constitution of public sense can determine which social and political events and facts are accepted (and with which connotations) as a part of social reality, which are "existent" (in a certain sense of that term) and which are not. In other words, the semantic possibilities of linguistic signs correspond to the form (the view) of reality admitted by society. Politicians or political agencies wanting to influence the publicly accepted view of political reality will try to dominate the linguistic possibilities within the discourse of politics (cf. Edelman 1964; Mey 1979, 423). Thus language (especially the semantics of political terminology) becomes a means of political action: the so-called "semantic struggles" are born (cf. Dieckmann 1975). To succeed in determining the social interpretation (or definition) of political reality can be seen as a result of such semantic struggles. With regard to the important role of dominating interpretations of social reality there must be a strong interest for the bearers of political power to defend their interpretation against competing interpretations. / This includes the interest to maintain the belief that there is only o n e reality and that this reality is the same as the official reality defined in the political discourse. This also implies, that the belief has to be maintained that only the words (i.e. their meanings) used by the bearers of political power denote the ("one and only") reality. Competing definitions and interpretations of political events and facts have to be denounced as wrong: as "the wrong use of words", as "ideological speech", as part of a semantic struggle (whereas one's own speech is declared to be the correct use of the words denoting the "real" reality) and so on (cf. Smith 1973, 105; Lasswell 1968, 12). Semantic strategies take place in public political discourses, in newspapers, tvand radio-news, interviews with politicians, etc. The function of such media for the public political discourse is not only to give information about political events, but, more than this, to offer interpretations which are not dangerous for the stability of political power. The official interpretation must be on the market of public opinion before competing interpretations can occur and be effective. Interpretation of reality by means of the language of politics works by dominating the selection of certain linguistic ex121