Performing the Identity of Europe: A Linguistic Analysis of the Treaty of Lisbon

The European identity is a political and legal concept that completely differs from the sense that it appears in the Constitutions of the single member States. The process of its creation is complex, and is sustained by a huge production of laws and regulations with which European Union searches a recognition of its legitimacy: this in turn involves the creation of rights, obligations and legal principles, whose force is confirmed or defined through typical instances of written acts, such as statutes and treaties. Thus, as a matter of fact, these authoritative legal texts are not only a mere transmission of information or norms, but they can be seen as instruments of institutional power and of construction of a political identity. Starting from this idea, the aim of my research is to investigate the creation of a European identity through the linguistic analysis of the Treaty of Lisbon. I will address the following question: which role does the Treaty play in the process of the development of European identity, from a linguistic perspective? I will try to demonstrate that the construction of the European identity is pursued by using linguistic devices in order to achieve certain (perlocutionary) effects, and primarily recognition of and identification in shared values.