Considering the recent political development in Europe, in which the popularity of right-wing populist parties increases rapidly, studies on right-wing populist parties are of high importance. This paper investigates the language use of two right-wing populist parties; Sverigedemokraterna (SD) in Sweden and die Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) in Switzerland. The aim of this research is to detect and analyse salient linguistic features in their election campaigns in order to understand how both parties use language in external communication, and, furthermore, to analyse which world view is thereby displayed. This comparative discourse study uses relevant concepts from linguistic discourse analysis (Spitzmüller & Warnke 2008, 2011) and visual text analysis (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006). The theoretical concepts of politolinguistics, and discourse linguistics in the tradition of Foucault form the theoretical base of this study. The compiled data consists of election material from the national election campaigns of SD in 2014 and of SVP in 2015. The analysis shows that, regardless of differences on the surface structures of their respective languages, the parties produce the same three worldviews on a deeper structure level: the concept of the own identity as an authority in the politic discourse, the concept of one national unity and the concept of a threat to the national unity. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the parties’ language use presents many features which are typical for right wing populist parties in general. In light of recent European political developments, this research is a linguistic contribution to the understanding of right wing populist rhetoric.

Discourse pervades all areas of human activity. Beyond the use of verbal communication, discourse also extends to non-verbal elements such as body language, facial expressions, intonation and laughter. Despite the wide range of studies that examine the structures and nature of political discourse, very few have looked at the ways in which politicians use non-verbal elements and, in particular, laughter as part of their discourse strategies. This study looks at the use of laughter in the German Bundestag by analysing 16,000 observations of laughter taken from the transcripts of 847 plenary sessions spanning four electoral terms. The study finds that laughter can be used by politicians as a non-verbal means of expressing opinion and making a statement without breaking the stringent rules of conduct. The use of laughter in parliament can provide information on party alliances, both current and traditional, as well as the general ‘mood’ of the electoral period. Due to the changing nature of political debates and the increasing rejection of ‘traditional’ means of doing politics, fascinating changes are taking place in the political landscape.:1 Introduction 2 Discourse analysis 2.1 Political discourse analysis 2.2 Parliamentary debates 2.2.1 According to Klein 2.2.2 Parliamentary discourse as monologue, dialogue or trialogue? 2.2.3 Interjections as parliamentary discourse 2.3 Non-verbal communication 3 Humour 3.1 Humour in politics 3.2 The study of humour in politics 4 Background 4.1 The German Bundestag 4.2 Stenographic reports 4.2.1 Written or spoken language? 4.2.2 The difference between Lachen and Heiterkeit 4.3 Electoral term specifics 5 Data 5.1 Hypotheses 5.2 Description of the analysis 6 Results 7 Discussion 7.1 Reflections 7.2 Outlook 8 Conclusion References