Conclusion: Rhetoric, British Identity and Interdisciplinarity

Abstract

British society is going through a sustained period of change, which has been accompanied by controversy and debate. This change was stimulated by major economic shifts, the transformation to a multicultural society, and closer integration with the European Union. In such times of transition, rhetoric comes to the fore as a way for social actors to articulate the shape of problems and to search for solutions by integrating the new with the old. Rhetoric allows individuals to symbolically frame these changes, to adapt to change and to preserve tradition, but always with a political slant because the linguistic representation of the world is a powerful way to define reality and shape conceptions of a possible future. The chapters in this book reveal much about the nature of rhetorical power and how it is used in British politics and society. Through rhetoric, individuals — whether the prime minister, public commentators, journalists or ordinary Britons — cope with change and stake their own claims about what it is to be British, about who should be praised and who vilified, about what makes British culture and about what we should do politically to adapt to social change. The very idea of Britishness is negotiated through rhetoric, although never with a single voice. Rhetoric is a language of multiplicity, of metaphors and metonymy, a world created through implied meaning in which it is necessary for the audience to interpret who is included in the vision of the nation, a vision which is always contested.