Presentations focused on three areas:

1. Case-studies of specific current political catchwords/phrases or thematic clusters of political catchwords/phrases in different languages and geopolitical domains;
2. Methods for eliciting and analysing data from digital sources on the circulation and spread of political catchwords/phrases;
3. Professional and activist experience of using political catchwords/phrases.

London Workshop 2023 - Outline

London Workshop 2023 - Programme and Abstract

Organised by the Language, Literature and Politics (LLP) Research Group (The Open University)
Funded by a Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) SRIF Grant.

Political catchwords and catchphrases are used pervasively, continuously, and in all major languages, and form the crux of exchanges in news media, social networks, policy documents, bureaucratic notices, academic and creative texts, everyday conversations/messages, etc. Examples of the moment in global English circuits include ‘austerity’, ‘disinformation’, ‘rightwing populism’, ‘political polarization’, ‘neoliberalism’, ‘culture war’, ‘climate crisis’, ‘climate denial’, ‘greenwashing’, ‘filter bubbles’, ‘big data’, ‘social media’, ‘smart city’… to name a few.

Some of these appear to be produced, so to speak, from above (as campaign slogans, names for alignments, etc.) and some from below (to signify complex concerns succinctly, as collective nom de guerre, etc.). They are relevant to understanding some of the principal concerns of our time.

This two-day workshop is part of an international collaborative project, Analysing Contemporary Political Catchwords, with partners in Jordan, Bulgaria, and the UK. It is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK.

Workshop Theme

This workshop focuses on the contemporary usage of political catchwords in two areas:

• In professional and organizational contexts generally: i.e., in the context of journalism and media productions, party political publicity and campaigning, issue-based lobbying and activism, designing social media sites/websites and in gaming, institutional and organizational management, etc. Questions that may be addressed include:
  • How are such catchwords used as framing devices in reportage and official documents?
  • How can the study of catchwords be informed by professional practices/knowledge?
  • Can words/phrases be designed and engineered to catch on?
  • What catchwords are used to structure professional or workplace cultures?
  • How do catchwords mediate the relationship between organizations and publics?

• In everyday political discourse in Cyprus and the surrounding region. Questions that might be raised here include:
  • What words/phrases in English, Greek, Turkish etc. in Cyprus and the surrounding region are currently (or have recently been) popular in political discourse – that is to say, have become part of everyday conversations at various levels? Why? Do catchwords travel through translation?
  • Do catchwords/phrases in global circulation – like those named above – have distinctive local nuances and associations? What is the relationship between their wider and regional connotations?
  • What sources and methods can be used to study catchwords in the region?

The workshop will consist of short presentations (20 mins) with generous space for discussion.

Note on Political Catchwords

For the purposes of this workshop, political catchwords/phrases have the following features:

1. These are words/phrases which have acquired distinctive connotations or are neologisms;
2. Their origin as such can be traced from a specific social juncture;
3. From the juncture of origin, they are increasingly used extensively (across contexts) and intensively (frequently);
4. Such usage may involve adaption across various contexts by shifting or enriching connotations or by meaningful modifications;
5. These are not produced for the purpose of marketing commercial products;
6. Such words/phrases are likely to be associated with other words/phrases which are regarded as political;
7. These may eventually lose their distinctiveness and growing purchase to enter ordinary language usage or to have diminished purchase as clichés.

For further relevant elaborations on the concept of catchwords, you might wish to consult the following brief essays:

Frequency Matters (Suman Gupta)

A Taxonomy of Political Catchphrases (Philip Seargeant)

Political catchwords and catchphrases are used pervasively, continuously, and in all major languages, and form the crux of exchanges in news media, social networks, policy documents, bureaucratic notices, academic and creative texts, everyday conversations/messages, etc. Examples of the moment in global English circuits include ‘austerity’, ‘disinformation’, ‘rightwing populism’, ‘political polarization’, ‘neoliberalism’, ‘culture war’, ‘cost-of-living crisis’, ‘climate crisis’, ‘climate denial’, ‘greenwashing’, ‘filter bubbles’, ‘big data’, ‘smart city’… to name a few.

Examples of the moment in Bulgaria include: (нова) нормалност [new normal/normalcy], нормална държава [normal state/country], дълбока държава [deep state], задкулисие [behind-the-scene-ness], корупция [corruption], преход [transition], агентурно/чисто/комунистическо минало [agent/pure/communist past], джендър/джендър идеология [gender/gender ideology], Евроатлантически ценности [Euro-Atlantic values], ‘най-бедната държава в ЕС/Европа’ [‘the poorest country in the EU/Europe’], as well as those that have receding historical resonance along the axis of dominance/marginality or recent purchase related to continuous election cycles and ‘crisis of democracy’, among many others. We can hardly talk about local matters now without some such popping out.

Some of these appear to be produced, so to speak, from above (as campaign slogans, names for alignments, etc.) and some from below (to signify complex concerns succinctly, as collective nom de guerre, etc.). They are relevant to understanding some of the principal concerns of our time.

This two-day workshop is part of an international collaborative project, Analysing Contemporary Political Catchwords, with partners in Jordan, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and the UK. It is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK.

Workshop Themes

This workshop focuses on the contemporary usage of political catchwords in relation to or resonating with the Bulgarian context :

Translatability and translation of catch words/ catch phrases

1. How do catchwords/catchphrases travel across English-speaking and non-English speaking domains?
2. Is it possible to have translational equivalents for catchwords/catchphrases in different languages, such as English and Bulgarian?
3. Can catchwords/catchphrases be translated among modalities, media, and genres?
4. Do catchwords/catchphrases which catch on across different languages depend upon translation, transliteration, or adaptation? How and why?

Localization

1. What sorts of catchwords/catchphrases have global purchase across languages and what sorts are confined within specific language domains?
2. What factors favour the circulation and reception of international catchwords/catchphrases?
3. How are international catchwords/catchphrases adapted to local domains (e.g. Bulgarian discourses)?
4. Is it possible for Bulgarian catchwords/catchphrases to travel to English-speaking domains?
5. Are catchwords referring to a region (such as the Balkans, Eastern Europe, EU, former Soviet bloc, etc.) understood differently within the region and from outside?
6. Are the terms and principles for analysing catchwords/catchphrases which are specific to regions and disciplines?

Note on Political Catchwords

For the purposes of this workshop, political catchwords/catchphrases have the following features:

1. These are words/phrases which have acquired distinctive connotations or are neologisms;
2. Their origin as such can be traced from a specific social juncture;
3. From the juncture of origin, they are increasingly used extensively (across contexts) and intensively (frequently);
4. Such usage may involve adaption across various contexts by shifting or enriching connotations or by meaningful modifications;
5. These are not produced for the purpose of marketing commercial products;
6. Such words/phrases are likely to be associated with other words/phrases which are regarded as political;
7. These may eventually lose their distinctiveness and growing purchase to enter ordinary language usage or to have diminished purchase as clichés.

For further relevant elaborations on the concept of catchwords, you might wish to consult the following brief essays:

Frequency Matters (Suman Gupta)
A Taxonomy of Political Catchphrases (Philip Seargeant)

The Amman workshop, which is set to take place on 26-27 April 2025 at the Arab Open University Jordan, will focus on, but will not be limited to, the Arab region and the Arabic language domain. The Arab world has seen several popular movements over the past decade and a half -- political, economic, and social -- that have brought with them particular political catchphrases. These are coined and disseminated by governments, media and other publicity corporations, grassroots organizations, social- and counter-movements and the like, both within the Arab sphere and from outside it. Some examples in the Arab sphere are:

• حصار اقتصادي Hisaar iqtisadi (Economic siege): Arab sphere
• عقوبات اقتصادية Yuqubaat iqtisadiyeh (Economic sanctions): Arab sphere
• قانون قيصر Qanun Qaisar (The Caesar Act): Syria
• فتح المعابر Fath alma’ber (The opening of border crossings): Gaza
• مناطق امنة Manaatiq amineh (Safe zones): Gaza
• التنسيق الامني Atansiq alamni (Security coordination): West Bank
• الهجرة الطوعية Alhijra atawyiyeh (Voluntary migration): Occupied Palestine
• طوفان الاقصى Tofaan Al Aqsa (The Aqsa Flood): Arab sphere
• طوفان التحرير Tofaan Atahrir (The Flood of Liberation): Arab sphere
• محور المقاومة Mihwar almuqawameh (The Resistance Axis): Arab sphere
• وحدة الساحات Wihdet Asahaat (The Unity of Fronts): Occupied Palestine, Lebanon
• الاحتلال الصهيواميركي Alihtilaal Asuhyu Ameriki (Zio-American colonization): Arab sphere
• التوجه شرقا Atawajoh Sharqan (Head Eastward): Arab sphere
• النزوح السوري Alnuzooh Asuri (The Syrian exodus): Lebanon
• البوصلة فلسطين Albusala Falasteen (Palestine is the compass): Arab sphere
• يهدد و نهدهد Yuhaded wa Nuhadhed (They threaten and we hoopoe): Lebanon

Most recently, the international Palestine solidarity movement has also popularized certain political catchphrases both inside and outside the Arab world. These aim to establish specific positionalities in terms of the Gaza genocide and the greater Palestinian cause.

Similarly, other movements/ideas/ideologies in all regions of the world have relied on certain political catchphrases which hold sway over certain periods of time. Some have been quite successfully employed to establish/manufacture consent among audiences for the projects of powerful and established alignments. And some have been effectively deployed to arouse collective resistance and dissent against those.

This workshop will concentrate on how certain catchphrases are designed and deployed to generate consent or dissent among audiences. The strategies could be persuasive, coercive, distortive, creative, etc. Political catchphrases naturally work in the interstices of other communicative devices, like formulating questions and arguments. They also often work in conjunction with and through different communicative modes, such as images, music, gestures, multimodal formats; and are disseminated through various media, like performance events, demonstrations, print and broadcast circulations, digital platforms. The strategies, devices, modes, and media which serve to produce catchphrases that become politically effective in specific contexts will be examined in this workshop.

Presenters and discussants can consider the following questions with reference to Arabic contexts, non-Arabic contexts, or between and across them:

• How are political strategies used in designing/coining a particular political catchphrase?
• How does the medium for disseminating a specific political catchphrase work to generate consent or dissent in particular contexts?
• How are different modes for conveying political catchphrases utilized to generate consent or dissent in specific contexts?
• What sorts of rhetorical devices are used to garner consent or dissent via political catchphrases in specific contexts?
• Can a political catchphrase be used to “control” discussion and debate on a particular topic at a particular time?
• What sorts of differences can be found in the uptake of political catchphrases within the Arabic sphere?
• To what extent do political catchphrases enter different linguistic spheres of communication from outside, or travel across a number of linguistic spheres? Is the Arabic sphere distinct or similar to others in this respect?
• How may the success of political catchphrases be discerned or measured?
• What sorts of methods can be used to study any of the above or other related questions concerning political catchphrases?