Using pronouns to construct a European identity: The case of politicians at Davos 2008

This article examines how EU leaders position themselves with respect to a European identity through pronoun use. The data for this article were taken from a session from the 2008 meeting of the World Economic Forum (YouTube 2008). It featured a panel of leaders from current and prospective EU member states. I selected a 15-minute segment, which focuses particularly on the concept of a European identity. Of particular interest in this study is the identity expressed by the Turkish member of the panel, as it compares to the other EU leaders. I use Wortham???s (1996) deictic mapping techniques to analyze pronoun use in the data. The analysis reveals that three identities are constructed through pronoun use: neutral, non-European, and European. While leaders from current member states emphasize their Europeanness through pronoun use, the Turkish member portrays an identity in opposition to this European identity.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe