Abstract:

The growing interest in the relation between language and politics brings new assumptions and theoretical frameworks to the study of politics. This study presents a simple empirical test of a major assumption of the critical discourse analysis school: that power is a major factor in political discourse. It examines whether the discourse of Israeli members of parliament (Knesset) represents a view of the world through the prism of power or whether parliament members refer to the experience of similar democracies. We demonstrate that power is a strong and significant factor in Israeli legislative discourse through time and across issues while relevance plays no role. L'interet grandissant que suscite le lien entre langage et politique, genere de nouvelles hypotheses et de nouvelles theories de l'etude du politique. Cette etude propose de tester l'une des principales hypotheses de l'analyse critique de discours, a savoir que le pouvoir serait un facteur essentiel du discours politique.