The “Turkey story”
A critical narrative analysis of a potential “Brexit conspiracy”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22212253 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alma-Pierre Bonnet (0009-0007-1563-3862, Centre d'Etudes Linguistiques, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Issue | 9 |
| Publication date | 2024-05-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | ELAD-SILDA (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2609-6609 • E-ISSN: 2609-6609 |
| Publisher | Universite Jean Moulin Lyon 3 (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.35562/elad-silda.1403 |
| OpenAlex | W4398204980 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 21 |
Extensive academic literature has been devoted to the way “Brexit narratives” were used during the 2016 referendum campaign. Both camps dwelt on this rhetorical tool to create stories about the advantages of leaving or staying in the European Union (EU). Overall, studies have revealed the construction of broadly similar stories, in particular within the “populist narratives” of the Leave campaign, which depicted the EU as a “failure”, an “oppressor”, and an object of anti-establishment “fury”. Within the field of narratology, cognitive linguistics and conspiratorial studies, this paper proposes a discursive analysis focused on one particular narrative which, we argue, has received relatively little attention but which might constitute an example of “Brexit conspiracy”: what we call “the Turkey story”. Indeed, one key element in the Brexit narratives elaborated by the official pro-Brexit campaign, Vote Leave, was the fact that Turkey, and other poorer – and predominantly Muslim – countries, were “in the pipeline” to join the EU. At first marginal, this story soon took centre-stage to justify the necessity to leave the supra-national organization before “hordes” of illegal immigrants from those countries, and from neighbouring Iraq and Syria, decided to emigrate en masse to Britain. Thanks to the narrative analysis of speeches and declarations by leading Vote Leave members, this paper sets to examine whether “the Turkey story” amounts to a conspiracy theory and how it was used to defend the anti-EU agenda, which will lead to the introduction of the concept of “strategic conspiracy”
Art · Brexit · Economics · European union · International trade · Literature · Narrative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Referendum · Sociology · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Public Relations and Crisis Communication
An Introduction to Narratology
Brexit and the Myth of Grandeur
The “Turkey story”
Narrative Analysis
Post-Truth Politics in the UK's Brexit Referendum
Brexitland
Brexit
Strategic Lying”
The EU as a Choice
The Conservative party – From Thatcher to Cameron
Analysing political speeches
Narrative! ” I can’t hear that anymore ’. A linguistic critique of an overstretched umbrella term in cultural and social science studies, discussed with the example of the discourse on climate change
Brexit populism and fantasies of fulfilment
Critical narrative analysis
Collective narcissism and the growth of conspiracy thinking over the course of the 2016 United States presidential election
Narrative Analysis and Narratology
Introduction à l'analyse structurale des récits
No Cult Tells You to Think for Yourself
Language in the Inner City
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |