This thesis analyses Spanish nation-building from a social-constructionist perspective assuming that nations are historically evolving social constructs and that nationhood is a largely modern phenomenon with pre-modern antecedents. A theoretical model for studying nationhood is proposed based on a critique of nationalism theories, Giddens's social structuration model (Giddens 1984) refined by Sewell (2005); modernisation theories and discourse analytical approaches. A discourse-oriented methodology is proposed: Spanish nation-building, conceptualised as semiotically-mediated social action situated across time-space, is analysed nomothetically and ideographically, both in its broad historical context and in connection with recent narratives extracted from a large purpose-built corpus of newspaper articles. Several factors behind Spain's problematic nation-building are identified in the socio-historical analysis: an unyielding geography inhibiting communications, a long history of political and cultural fragmentation, a late and uneven modernisation and the lack of hegemonic national narratives in the context of a long history of confrontation between different identities. The corpus-based discourse analytical approach employed in the latter part of the analysis illustrates the potential offered by corpus-assisted discourse studies in social research, revealing that a widely-accepted Spanish identity discourse from the centre's perspective has not yet emerged.
موضوع (اسم عام یاعبارت اسمی عام)
موضوع مستند نشده
PB Modern European Languages
نام شخص به منزله سر شناسه - (مسئولیت معنوی درجه اول )