Securitization is the move in which an issue is argued to pose an existential threat to a referent object. Speech acts are considered to be the starting point for the securitization of an issue. This thesis viewed governmental counter-terrorism strategies as potential carriers of speech acts - hence the strategies could constitute the start of terrorism becoming securitized by a government. By using a generic speech act typology created by Stritzel, which combines critical discourse analysis with the securitization theory on Swedish and British counter-terrorism strategies, the thesis identifies a speech act in the most recent British strategy. The second finding is that in the case where the speech act occurred, the human rights discourse was significantly lower, compared to the cases where no speech act occurred. The thesis also provides suggestions for future research on the topic of speech acts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-352151 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Sunzel, William |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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