The Foundations of Europe: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the EU Constitution

Abstract

Setting rules and defining sanctions is the primary function of law. However, many contemporary laws, in particular laws about culture and language, lack this function. In the EU, these provisions typically concern policy areas outside the Union’s jurisprudence, such as culture, education, and the Union’s general values. These are provisions through which European identity is defined; their proportion in the EU’s treaties reached its peak in the Constitution. There have been hardly any critical linguistic analyses of the text itself although law, by definition, represents, shapes, and codifies the values and ideologies of a society: law is the central site of power and regulates all discourse. Combining a linguistic analysis of transitivity and a discourse analysis of intertextuality, this paper aims at showing precisely how the Constitution is invaded by fragments of political discourse on European identity. The goal is to demonstrate how laws which do not regulate behaviour make beliefs and ideologies appear as accepted knowledge and universal truth.