Political Identity in Discourse

Jay M. Woodhams teaches academic literacy at the Australian National University, Canberra, and is a Research Associate of the Language in the Workplace Project, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He has published on populist political discourse in New Zealand and has looked at language use in the workplace and parliamentary contexts. His areas of interest include interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics and theories of discourse.

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Political landscapes: Physical, social and historical.- Chapter 3. Kiwi egalitarianism and tall poppies.- Chapter 4. A liberal bubble: Discourse at the local level.- Chapter 5. Stances of self and other.- Chapter 6. Multiple stances, multiple identities.- Chapter 7. Conclusion.

"This informative and innovative volume is a refreshing and up-to-date contribution to the domain of language and politics in many ways. ... Political Identity in Discourse: The Voices of New Zealand Voters can be recommended as a valuable read to lay readers, researchers and postgraduate students interested in analyzing political discourses." (Kai Zhao, Journal of Language and Politics, Vol. 20 (6), 2021)

"Woodhams offers an important and timely contribution to studies of politics and discourse that allows a deeper understanding of our current divisive political moment. ... A crucial and well-illustrated point of the book is the complex and malleable nature of political identity. ... The book provides a valuable contribution to an emerging literature at the intersection of ethnographyand discourse analysis that examines the complicated formation of current political identities and political talk." (Misty Crooks, Language in Society, Vol. 49 (5), 2020)