Hybridisation in EU academic genres

This study is a quantitative qualitative analysis of EU academic discourse aiming at analysing the discursive representation of social actor(s), i.e. ‘the EU’ and EU citizens, particularly with reference to interdiscursivity, i.e. elements belonging to different discourse practices (academic, institutional, legal, promotional) to investigate the role of ‘socially constitutive’ discourse practices (Fairclough 1992: 64, 1997, 2011) in creating ties between the institution and its citizens in view of constructing a common European identity based on a set of shared values and life experience for legitimation and consensus-building. Specifically, starting from the assumption that “academic and professional genres are seldom seen to maintain static values and have become vehicles for a more complex and dynamic exchange of information” (Bhatia 1997), the present study aims to explore hybridisation of academic, legal and promotional, genres involved in the institutional-academic discourse of the EU. A number of documents were selected and examined with a view to understanding how the EU constructs its own academic discourse through the promotion of initiatives, learning policies, and discursive strategies aiming at disseminating academic knowledge and promoting its own academic dimension. The theoretical-methodological framework adopted mainly draws on studies on academic genre and genre hybridization, commodification of academic discourse and legitimation.