WHOSE BACKGROUND? COMMENTS ON A DTSCOURSE ...

Pragmatics 7:1.69-81. International Pragmatics Association

WHOSE BACKGROUND? COMMENTSON A DTSCOURSE.ANALYTIC RECONSTRUCTION OF THE WARSAW UPRISING Jan Blommaert

1. Introduction DariuszGalasiriski'spaper on 'The making of history' (hagmarics, this issue) is interestingand informativefrom a variety of perspectives. On the one hand, it is a fine pieceof political discourseanalysis,written by someonewho has masteredthe art admirablywell. On the other hand, I believe the paper raises and illustrates some crucial problems in critical discourseanalysis.lI will discussone central problemin this paper: that of 'background'(facts,information,context) in critical discourseanalysis.I do this largely in support of Galasifiski's ambition: to demonstrate that linguisticanalysisis capableof revealingthe assumptionsbehind linguisticchoice. But as an footnote to Galasiriski'sposition, I take it that this ambition could not be fully realized without taking into account the reflexive dimensionof the endeavor.More specifically, we needto ask:how'loaded'is critical discourse analysisas a set of linguisticchoicesin its own right? Which assumptions do we take on board when analyzinglinguisticchoices(texts)? of the problematicnature of background Before embarkingon the discussion information,I want to give some intertextual'background'to the kind of critique I shall be formulating. A version of Galasiriski'spaper (exclusivelydealing with Walgsa'sspeech) was presented during the Groningen workshop mentioned in footnote 1, alongside analyses of the other speeches given during the Commemorationevent of the 50th anniversaryof the Warsaw Uprising. The workshopwas intended to present a discourse-analytical reconstructionof the Commemorationevent,and all the participantswere givena set of materialsin view of preparationsfor the workshop. It now strikes me how similar the historical backgroundinformation given by the workshop organizersis to the background Galasiriskigives in section 1 of his paper. The workshop organizerssent us an extractof a book on Polishhistory(Dziewanowski1977:129-139),which articulated a versionof historyvery closeto the one adoptedby Galasinskiin his 'background' section.I will discussDziewanowski'stext in section3 of this paper in connection

I This paper is part of a larger discussionpaper, presentedat a workshop on the 50th anniversary of the WarsawUprising during the conference'Frame and perspectivein Discourse' (Universityof Groningen,November1996),organizedby Titus Ensink and ChristophSauer.I am indebtedto the participantsof the workshopandespeciallyto DariuszGalasiriskiand KlausSteinke for importantcommentson the originalversionof the paper.

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with Galasiriski's version.

2. Problems with background what we do I find the notion of 'background'increasinglyproblematicin assessing as (critical) discourseanalysts.In my view, a particular use of 'backgrounddata', 'basic facts', or 'some preliminary observations',hides a number of major methodologicalproblems. Of course, these problems are not new. Situated discourse,as used for instancein anthropologicallinguisticsor discourseanalysisof 'real' texts/discourses,always involves a degree of definition, in which an unproblematized(and unanalyzed)set of 'facts'is givenas settingthe sceneagainst will appear as meaningfulcommunicativeacts or events. which the texts/discourses Providing 'backgroundfacts' is clearlya matter of framing and perspectivizing:the background facts provide some knowledge necessary to understand the text/discourseitself, and elementsof text/discoursemeaningare contextualizedby these background facts.2 More and more, however, I experience this routine (and undoubtedly necessary)practiceas either paradoxicalor at leastpartly inconsistentwith our own analyticalambitions.Especiallyin critical discourseanalysis,where scholarsset out to unravel and exposeideologicalfeaturesof discourseand communicativepractice, the incorporation of 'backgroundfacts' risks drawing in a seriesof unquestioned, ideologicallyneutralizedassumptionsabout the nature, statusand meaning of the analyticalobject, the text/discourseitself. In other words: the critical analysisof a text/discourserisks being undermined (and ideologicallyplied) by the uncritical acceptanceof 'established'background facts related to the text/discourse.Our criticalorientationthus becomespartial and methodologically questionable,because we exclude from critical analysisthe frame and perspectivein which we place our object. We consequentlygrant these texts an authority which, from a critical discourseanalysispoint of view, they should not be given a priori. Often, this practice of using background facts in a neutralizing and analyticallyunproblematizedfashionhasa dimensionof interdisciplinarity. The facts we cite as backgroundto the text/discourseare handed to us by other sciences-anthropology,sociology,history,descriptivelinguistics.They may includestatements which about culturalpractices,socialrelations,historicalevents,linguisticstructures, then serve to explain aspectsof when, how, why the text/discoursewas produced. The statementsare, however,rarely taken as a target of analysisin their own right; they are generallytaken at face value,as 'facts'in the commonsense meaningof the term: thingswe know, about which we shouldno longerworry and which we should not question,investigateor deconstruct.We thus neutralizethe socially-constructed nature of scholarly practicesand results from other sciences,while being highly critical and unassumingwith regardto our own results.We do not contextualizethe ' ln a particular way often stipulated by discourseanalysts:context helps us to read texts; what is in the texts becomes more transparent or meaningful by referring to context. That this assumed pattern is not without problems should be clear from the discussionspresentedin Auer & Di Luzio (eds. 1D2) and Duranti & Goodwin (eds. 1992). See also Bauman & Briggs (1990) for insightful comments.

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'facts'we use to contextualizeour own object, and so avoid or overlook a quite relevantquestion:when giving 'background'to our data, whosebackgroundare we giving?Who produced these facts,when, how, why?

3. The historical account lrt us now take a look at the backgroundoffered by Galasifiski.Galasiriskispends four paragraphsdiscussingthe background.In the first paragraph,the Uprising is chronologically and politicallysituated.Galasiriskistresses the intentionof the Home fury to demonstratetheir prowessand importanceand, in the samemove, to preempt the Sovietinvasionof the city, which would have involved the establishment of a Communistregime.The secondparagraphdelvessomewhatdeeper into the militarydimensionsof the Uprising, emphasizingthe role of the Red Army as a potentialally who by its (politicallyinspired)inertia becamea betrayer.Against the hopesof the Home fu-y, the Soviets"stopped"at the Vistula, and "looked on as Warsaw was gradually being destroyed".Stalin also acted uncooperativelyby refusingthe Allies to use Soviet-controlledair bases.The third paragraphstresses the historicalimportance of the Uprising as "one of the most remembered and cherishedPolishmilitary operationsof the SecondWorld War". This importance is saidto have been underscoredby the Communists'postwar downplayingof the Uprising as an important event, since that would have highlightedthe negative historicalrole of the Soviets.The final paragraphconnectsthe eventsof 1944to the Commemorationevent of 1994,stressingthe controversialcharacterof inviting the German and Soviet authorities. The whole 'background' section is written in declarativesentencesand is presented as a factual historical account.3The declarative, matter-of-factstyleis arguablyan instanceof 'politicsof representation', of "competitionover the meaningof ambiguousevents,people, and objects in the world" (Mehan 1996: 253), in which Galasiriski metapragmatically marks the information he provides as (clear unambiguous)facts, in other words, as an authoritativeversion of reality. Argumentsfor this claim will be given throughout the rest of the paper, but the point is this: Galasiriskipresentsas 'backgroundfacts' (with all the above-mentionedconnotationsof the term) what is essentiallya highly controversial, ambiguousand obscure(i.e.'unknown')historicalepisode.Similar and moreextensiveinstancesof this move could be found in Dziewanowski'stext, which servedas the 'backgroundinformation' for the Groningenworkshop. The extract from Dziewanowski (1977) provided us with an authoritative historicalaccountof the WarsawUprising. It was taken from the kind of historical book that would be perceivedby many among us as a standardreferencework: a bookon Polishhistoryin the twentiethcentury(i.e.written by someonewho utilized a wider than purely local perspectiveon the Warsaw Uprising), published by a Polishscholar (i.e. involving assumptionsabout accessto Polish-languagesources

3 In the abstractoriginally accompanying Galasiriski'smanuscript,the factualmetapragmatic qualificationwasmadeexplicit:"Of particularinterestis the mannerin which the speeches handle thefact that the SovietArmy did not preventthe deathsof morethan 2fi),fi)0 inhabitantsof Warsaw

". [...]

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and eyewitnessaccounts,as well as a degreeof generalcredibility),and published by a prominent Western academicpublisher,undoubtedlyafter detailedrefereeing by other acknowledgedspecialists.The work is also rather old (it was publishedin 1977),which grants some prima facie credibility to the book. The use of this text now, almost twenty years after its appearance,would suggestthat it is still a standardaccountof Polish history,unmatchedby other, more recent works. This is how I, at first, receivedand perceivedthis document.I read the colophon,decided that it was 'good', then read the whole text and found it instructiveand balanced. The story sketchedby Dziewanowskifocuses(i) on the optimisticperception of the Soviet offensiveamong the Polishunderground(the Sovietswere irresistibly moving towards Warsaw,while the German defencewas becomingweak), (ii) on the political dimension of the decisionto unleashthe Uprising (the struggle for supremacy by the l,ondon government, against the Communists), (iii) the unexpectedhalt of the Soviet offensive,jeopardizingthe successof the Uprising, combined with the refusal of help to the insurgentsby the Soviets suggestinga deliberate move to let the pro-London forces bleed to death, and (iv) on the altogether cynical attitude of Stalin towards the Uprising, and the fact that the Soviet inactivitywas inspired by political rather than by military motives. Looking closer at the text, two thingscan be noticed.First, it looks as if all the movesand messagesof the Sovietswere ambiguousand allowedinterpretations of encouragementto organizethe Uprising - and in hindsight,as encouragements to commit suicide. There is an overdose of modal qualifications when the information about Soviet actionsand intentionsprior to the Uprising is discussed. The Red Army's offensive "appearedirresistible"; the Germans "sltowed signsof exhaustionand demoralization";to the insurgents,"it seemedthat the Wehrmacht would be unable to offer resistancealong the Vistula line"; a Sovietradio appeal to the Polishpeople "apparently indicatedthat the Sovietcommandwas about to launch an assaulton Warsaw",hence the leader of the underground"judgedthe situation ,ipe for the uprising to begin". The Polish resistance makes a string of interpretationsof Sovietactions,and usesthem as the basisfor planningthe precise date of an offensivein Warsaw.This complexcalculationwould involve estimates of the speedand scaleof the Sovietoffensiveand undoubtedlya few other technical issues- a seriesof impressionsand appearances would hardlyvindicatethe decision, it seemsin hindsight.All the perceptionsof the Sovietmovesare clearlymarked as conjecturalin the historicalaccount:thesemay have been the meaningsof Soviet movesand messages, but they might aswell havebeen different.Nevertheless,these conjectures are plausible for the historian. Dziewanowskiinterprets the Soviet communiqu6sayingthat MarshalRokossovsky's armies"wereadvancingon'Warsaw" as an unambiguousannouncementthat the troops "had been about to capture Poland'scapital",thus sanctioningthe Home Army's estimateof the timing for the Uprising as legitimate. The secondremarkablepoint was the author'sselectivequoting.As a matter of routine, I always take note of who is cited and how when reading politically sensitivetexts.In this case,Dziewanowskiquotesthe commentsof (i) Arthur Bliss[ane, US Ambassador to Poland, (ii) Eisenhower(quoted by Bliss-Lane), (iii) General Bor-Komorowski, (iv) an unidentified "Communistmember of the new Polishgovernment"mediatedthroughBliss-Lane's words,(v) GeorgeF.Kennan and ("i) Jan Ciechanowski,"a Western-orientedPolish historian"who revised the

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standardaccountof the Uprising.The statementmade by the Communistmember of the new government (narrated by Bliss-l-ane)corroborates the thesis that politicalrather than military considerationsguided the Soviet actions during the Uprising.They corroborated,in other words, the post-waranti-communistversion of the story. Similarly, Ciechanowski'samendment to the dominant historical accountin which both Nazis and Sovietswere held responsiblefor the d6bacleof the Uprisingis accepted,but servesas the startingpoint for a new line of argument in which the Soviet actions are seen as foreshadowingan inevitable geopolitical reshufflingof postwarEurope.The failure of the Uprisingwas a consequenceof the Polish government'smisjudgment of international support, the Soviets having bargainedbeforehandthat Polandwould becomepart of their sphereof influence. Still,the agreementof Yalta had to be implemented,and so the Sovietsdecidedto let the PolishHome Atmy be slaughteredby the Nazis -- a paraphraseof George Kennan'sstatement. The "middle position", taken by the Polish historian, in Dziewanowski'seyes does not take away the burden of guilt from the Soviets; it merelyreformulatesthe nature of the guilty behavior. Dziewanowskimentionsthe fact that the WarsawUprising gaverise to bitter controversies in which Communist historianswere pitted againstnon-Communist historians.The Communist accountis not mentioned.Dziewanowskirefers to the works of a Polish historian, Zenon Kliszko, who is qualified as "Gomulka's friend". Thisis an interestingpoint, for it indicateshow DziewanowskiperceivesCommunist historyasbiased(the historiansare friendsof the Communistleaders),while people suchasBor-Komorowski,Bliss-l-ane,Eisenhower,Kennan or (when it comesto the FriendshipTreaty) Brzezinskiare treated as historicalsourceswith some authority. He callstheir camp of historiographythe non-Communistcamp, rather than the ani-Communistcamp.We know that they are not Communists,but what are they? Surely,Eisenhower, Kennan and Brzezinski, let alone Bor-Komorowski or BlissI-anecannotbe treated as ideologicallyneutral actorsin the story and its narrative history?Is the non-/anti-Communistversion of a controversialhistorical issuer/re undisputedversion?Then why is it controversial? The point we have to take on board before we move any further is that the 'historicalbackground'offered in Galasiriski'spaper aswell as in the Dziewanowski text is a particularhistoricalaccount,in itself worthy of deconstructionand critical It is not somethingwe can simply base ourselvesupon in analyzingtexts analysis. commemoratingthe Uprising and hence crucially hinging on representationsof history.Galasifiski'sand Dziewanowski'saccountof the Uprising are perfectly in line with the historical representationof the Uprising articulated in the various speeches, becauseit is the anti-Communistaccount.The point is, however,that this is broughtinto the discourseanalysisas a form of entextualization(Bauman & Briggs 1990;Silverstein& Urban 1996):it providesus with a preferred metadiscourseon the variousspeecheswe are supposedto analyse.It is, in itself, an unintendedbut quite common case of framing and perspectivizingdiscourseanalysis,a case of an'obvious',unquestionedand unquestionable suggesting backgroundreadingto the texts.Note alsothat, from a criticalperspective,a preferredmetadiscourse is always someone'smetadiscourse.Whose voice produces the metadiscourseattaching authorityto one versionof history?Certainlynot that of the Soviets,as will become clearin the next section.

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4. The absent voice We have to delve somewhatdeeper into the issueof backgroundfacts. I hope to have argued clearly so far that the entextualizationsuggestedin the background facts represents- broadly speaking- an anti-Communistaccount of the Warsaw Uprising. The background given by Galasiriskiin order to provide us with some knowledge of what happened in 7944, represents one side in the historical controversy.Its sympathy lies clearly with the Home Army (despite its admitted naivity and its errors of judgment). The author is, however,adamantwith respect to the Soviets'role as betrayerguidedby political strategiesrather than by military ones. When we look at the variousspeechesof the Commemoration,we see that the roles sketched by Galasiriskiand Dziewanowskiare all to various degrees incorporated in the speakers'views,includingthose of the Russians.The Russian representativeFilatov is somewhatcircumspectwith regard to the issue,and calls for historical investigation.At the same time, however, he refers to "old-time mistakes"and "ignominiousblunders"in a way which is hard to detach from the particular occasionand topic of the speech.Does this mean that the Sovietsare acknowledgingtheir unfortunaterole of betrayer? It has become a common trope to equate (post-1990)"Russians"with (p..1990) "Soviets",especiallywhen historicalperiods such as the SecondWorld War are concerned.The simplefact, however,is that today'sRussiansare not yesterday's Soviets,just as today'sGermansare not yesterday'sNazis.In fact, of all the parties involved in the Warsaw Uprising, two are not represented during the Commemoration:the Nazis (the "perpetrators")and the Soviets(the "betrayers"). In the caseof the Nazis,historicallogic is respected:the original perpetratorsare still presentedas perpetrators;in the caseof the Soviets,however,a historicalrolereversalis performed, and from allies they have become 'betrayers'.Furthermore (but related to this role reversal),whereas the German President only has to acknowledgeguilt for one crime -- the crushingof the Uprising itself -- the Russians have to acknowledgeguilt both for their betrayalduring the Uprising and for the post-warimperial oppressionof Poland.The link betweenboth historicalevents,the Uprising and the Communistrule, is constantlymade during the Commemoration, and speakerscelebrateboth the heroismof 1944and the collapseof Communism in 1990. This trope has to be questioned.First, equating 'Russians'with 'soviets' reducesa multi-ethnic complexsystemto one ethnicity.aStalin,to my recollection, was a Georgian and not a Russian.It is also plausiblethat Zhukov's troops were made up not only of Russians,but alsocountedByelorussians, Lithuanians,Kazakhs, Georgians, Ukrainians and so on. Where are they? And can the Russian representative (though himself to some extent usurpating the legacy of Soviet superpowerstatus)be called upon to accountfor Sovielactionsof the past? Is the ethnicizationof the Sovietnot a first step in the reinterpretationof history (as it is

o

Thit is an emblematic move ideologizing the historical perception of the Soviet Union as dominated by ethnic Russians,thus suggestinga (popular) line of explanationsfor the fall of the Soviet empire as the result of oppressedethnicities. See Blommaert & Verschueren (1996).

Wose background?75 e.g.in the Baltic Statesor in other newly independentex-Sovietrepublics)?This is connectedto the secondquestion.Is the link betrveen7944and 1990not already basedon a rewriting of history, in which 'Russians'signify the liberated Soviet people?Couldit be possiblethat the WarsawUprisingbecomessucha big historical event,not becauseit possessed an 'intrinsic'historicalimportancesuppressedby the PolishCommunistregime (as Galasiriskibelieves),but preciselybecauseit can be insertedseamlesslyas a trope or an exemplum in a contemporarydiscourseof postcommunism and legitimized anticommunism?It could certainly motivate an allignmentof discourseparticipants,in which the Rrusrar?representativecan afford to dismiss responsibility for the Soviet actions, because he embodies postcommunism. In that sense,and contraryto what Galasiriskisuggests,Filatov's referenceto the need for historiographywould not be so much an attempt to dodge difficult questions,but rather an expressionof the new postcommunistrelations betweenhis country, Poland and the former Allies, guided by the spirit of rationality,objectivityand honesty(here allseen in contrastto - Soviet-'ideology'). As for the events of. 7944,the absenceof a Sovietvoice is remarkable,the more since the issue of guilt and responsibilitywith regard to the Uprising is consistently referred to as controversialand unclear.The reason for this absence cannotbe the lack of availablehistoricalmaterial.I myselfhave bought quite a few books published by Soviet publishers, and at least two of them contain autobiographical accountsof the WarsawUprising.Needlessto say,they provide a quitedifferentaccountof the events.I shall quote and discussthesetwo sourcesat somelength. The first Soviet account I found in the memoirs of Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the commanderof the Red Army in chargeof the operationson the Western front (Zhukov 1974).Throughout these amazinglyinformative memoirs, great emphasis is put on the frailty of the Soviet offensives.Nowhere do we meet the image (so widespread elsewhere,and alsopresentin Dziewanowski's account)of an irresistible steamroller,crushingall German oppositiononce it got moving. On the contrary, Zhukovconsistentlyemphasizesthe precariousness of the operations,the difficulties encountered in preparingmassiveoffensives,the immenselossesand above all, the fierceoppositionof German troops.sIn Zhukov'saccount,wheneverthe Red At-y stops,it is becauseof military-technicalreasons.l-et us now take a look at the passage in his memoirs in which he discusses the operationsin the Warsawtheatre in 1944(Zhukov 1974: 301ff.). Zhukov is very brief with regard to the Uprising itself.I shall quote his words in full: "As was established later, neither the command of the Front nor that of Poland's lst Army had been informed in advance by Bor-Komorowski, the leader of the uprising, about the forthcoming events in Warsaw. Nor did he make any attempt to coordinate the insurgents' actions with those of the lst Byelorrussian Front [i.e. the Red Army Front closest to Warsaw]. The Soviet Command learned about the uprising after the event from local residents who had crossed the Vistula. The Stavka [=coordinated high mmmand] had not been informed in advance either.

'

Thus, Zhukov repeatedly notes the fact that German crack SS troops were transferred to the Eastern front after D-Day. The war on the Eastern front, as Zhukov lived it, was not a walk-over from Stalingrad to Berlin. It was bloody hard work.

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Jan Blommaert On instructions of the Supreme Commander [= Stalin], two paratroop officers were sent to Bor-Komorowski for liaison and coordination of actions. However, Bor-Komorowski refused to receive the officers. To assist the Warsaw insurgents, Soviet and Polish troops crossed the Vistula and seized a section of the Warsaw Embankment. However, Bor-Komorowski again made no attempt to make any reciprocal move in our direction. In a day or so the Germans brought up considerable forces to the Embankment and began pressing our troops. A serious situation developed, and our troops suffered healy losses.Having considered the situation, and being convinced of theimpossibility of capturing Warsaw, the command of the Front decided to withdraw the troops from the Embankment to its bank."

Zhukov thus emphasizesBor-Komorowski'sunwillingnessto accept coordinated actions, the military efforts that were made by the Red Army (including airdroppings of food, ammunition and medicines)and the practical impossibilityto capture Warsaw at that particular time. The Warsaw Uprising did not fit into the Soviet strategictempo, and militarily it was doomed to failure. These notes are fully coherentwith Zhukov's detaileddescriptionof all the operationsin the direction of Berlin. All operationsare carefullyplanned,and very little room is left for improvisationor revisionof plansonce they have been drafted -- hence,Bor-Komorowski'sfailure to coordinateefforts with Rokossovskywas not purely a matter of procedure, but was an essentialcondition for being able to support the Uprising. Zhukov emerges as a technocrat who thinks in purely operational terms. Thus, when discussingthe halt of the troops in the ModlinWarsaw sector,Zhukov advocatesa move to defensivepositions,given the degree of exhaustionof the troops.When askedby Stalinwhether a continuedoffensivein the Modlin-Warsaw area would be feasible.he answers: "My opinion is that this offensive will yield us nothing but casualties (...) From the operational viewpoint, we don't particularly need the area north-west of Warsaw. The city must be taken by skirting it on the south-west,and at the same time dealing a powerful splitting blow in rhe general direction of Lodz-poznan."

This probably meant the death warrant for the Warsaw insurgents.The fact is, however, that Zhukov usesexclusivelymilitary argumentsfor his decision.The image of the Red Army, sitting idle in waiting on the banks of the Vistula, complacently watching the Nazis slaughter the Warsaw people, is far away. Zhukov was particularly wary of crossingthe Vistula, fearing that the Germans might put up heavy defensesand inflict terrible losseson the Red Army. In all his moves during the offensivessinceStalingrad,suchoperationsare consistentlydealt with in a very careful way, Zhukov being particularlyapprehensiveabout exposingflanks of his At-y to enemy counter-attacks.The samegoesfor capturingmajor cities.Always there is a period of halt and preparationprior to taking a city. So when the Red Army stopped in front of Warsaw,it just might have been a matter of military logic. This, at least, is the opinion of the Soviet commander. The secondSovietsourceare the memoirsof a diplomat,Valentin Berezhkov (Berezhkov 1982), an aide to the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Molotov. Berezhkov took part in all the major diplomaticeventsof World War II, including the Soviet-German Pact of 1939 and the conferencesof Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam.He spendsa whole sectiondiscussingthe Warsaw Uprising (Berezhkov 1982: 356-365), recognizing that it was an event of major significancein the

Whose background?77 diplomaticaffairs surroundingWorld War II. Berezhkov'saccountis much more politicalthan Zhukov's,and his narrative is more than Zhukov's littered with Sovietjargon ('reactionaries','revolutionaries', 'bourgeois'etc.).At the same time, he providesus with an image of at least shared guilt.He stressesthe fact that Poland had been assignedto the Soviet sphere of influenceduring the Teheran Conference,and that, consequently,Roosevelt also contributedto the underminingof the Polishgovernmentin London.Thus,when the US Ambassadorto London, Harriman, visits Rooseveltand informs him of the fact that Churchill changedhis mind on the Polishquestion,Rooseveltmerely 'repeated

to Harriman his previous position, the essence of which was that the Polish 6migr6 government must be reorganized so as to bring about conditions favourable to lasting friendship between Poland and the Soviet Union.'

The discussionsbetween the Polish emigr6 leader Mikolajczik and the Soviet diplomat lrbediev, granted great importance in Dziewanowski'saccount, are nowherementionedin Berezhkov'saccount.What emergesis a picture in which the Sovietgovernment consistentlysticks to the terms of the Teheran agreements, supportedby repeated confirmationsof theseterms by Roosevelt.So there were, in Berezhkov'saccount,no ambiguousmessages given by the Soviets.The Soviets emphasizedthe need to reach an agreement between the London 6migr6 governmentand the Polish Communistgovernment,and they saw the latter as the mostrepresentativebody, "best informed about conditionsin Poland". What then about the Uprising? Berezhkovshetchesa picture in which the Polish6migr6 authoritiesattemptedto boycott the effectivenessof the activitiesof the Communist government, thus trying to create a fait accompli in which their could claim representativeness of the Polishpeople.Realizingthat this organization strategywould clashwith Moscow'sand Washington'sdecisionsabout the future of Poland,they "hastily took a number of countermeasures, chief among which was organisingthe Warsaw uprising", which coincided with Mikolajczyk's visit to Moscow."Reactionarygroups in Poland hoped that the uprisingin Warsawwould strengthenMikolajczyk'sposition at the Moscow talks". As soon as the Sovietswere informed about the Uprising,they made it clear that it was doomed to failure. Stalin himself told this to Mikolaj c4k, and a Soviet communiqu6to the British Governmentof August 16 reaffirmedit. Berezhkovalso elaborateson the military impossibilityof supportingthe Uprising in a way which fullycorroboratesZhukov'sversion.The 1stByelorussianFront was exhaustedafter a 40-dayoffensive,and the Germanshad put up new and strongerreinforcements. Despitethat, units were sent to assistBor-Komorowskiand material was dropped from the air. Also, part of the failure was due to the Polish command'srefusal to coordinateactionswith the Sovietunits.The Sovietunits sufferedheavylossesand withdrew,while air support continueduntil the capitulationof the Home Atmy. Berezhkov calls the Uprising an "unconscionablegamble of the 6,migr6, government", addingthat "[o]n the one hand,the Warsawuprisingdemonstratedthe selflessness and heroism of the rebels in the struggleagainstthe occupyingforces; on the other, it was a criminal act of an anti-Soviet policy pursued by the governmentof Mikolajczyk and those leaders of the l.ondon 6migr6 government who were in Poland". In other words. contrarv to Dziewanowski'sthesis that the

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Soviet actionswere inspiredby political motives,Berezhkovsuggeststhat the Polish actionswere inspired by political rather than by military motives. These two Soviet sourcespresent us with a perspectivewhich is radically different from that presentedin the 'backgroundfacts' offered by Galasiriskiand Dziewanowski.Of course, one can object that these two sourcesare biased, or 'propaganda'. But this then begsthe questionas to why and by what standardsone would call Kennan, Eisenhower, Brzezinski and others 'unbiased', or, why our version would be a case of information', and theirsof 'propaganda'?The question is therefore not which perspectiveis true and which is false. It is rather: whose perspectivedid we adopt and grant authority when we acceptedone version of history as the backgroundfacts necessaryto know what the speechestalk about? The question is relevant, for we now know that there are different perspectives, each of which should be tested as to its historicalaccuracv.

5. The background of postcommunism I would venture that the background given by Galasiriskiand by Dziewanowski is that of the postcommunist'new order'. The version of history in which the Soviet voice is all but eliminated characterizesthe political-ideologicalenvironment in which we now proceedto criticallyanalyzediscourseproducedon a historicaltopic. It has become the defaultway in which we now entextualizethesespeeches,and the reasons for which we entextualize them in this particular way are often unquestioned.We do it because of political commonsense,ethical awareness, ideologicalconviction,and a load of other reasonscommonlyseenas'unscientific'. Commonsense, as we all know, is the locus of mainstream ideology, and incorporatingcommonsenseassumptionsinto our own scholarlydiscourseis a way of ideologizingit. We analyzethe speechesof the Commemorationin a way which has taken on board all the assumptions, all the acquiredhistorical'truths'whichare articulatedin the speechesand which serveas a point of departurefor the various speakersto developparticulardetailsof their historicalcontributionto the Uprising. In this way, we can dive into the text/discourse,and be critical within the confines of the text/discourse.What is outsidethe text/discourse, what the text/discourseis based on, is 'known'. Our professionalvision as critical discourseanalystsconsistsnot only of "[d]iscursivepractices(...) used by membersof a professionto shapeeventsin the domains subject to their professionalscrutiny"(Goodwin 1994:606), but also and simultaneously of elisions of potentially explosive questions that surround texts/discourses. We assume,within our small professionalcommunity,a great deal of political, social,cultural and ethicalwisdom,which we can then keep outsideour analytical practice. We can simply assumethat all our colleaguesshare the same assumptionsabout factsof politics,societyand so on. For instance,critical discourse analystsare typically'leftists',liberals-- at least,I haven't met a right-wingcritical discourse analyst yet. Is this trivial? I don't think so. It may prove to be the methodologicalAchilles' heel of the discipline,becauseit frameswhat we are doing in ways that are hard to motivate, given our stated ambition to demonstrate connectionsbetween discourseand socialpower structuresor ideologies.

Whose background?79 6. ConclusionszQuid background? But what to do with this 'background',this necessaryevil we need in order to give groundingto the texts/discourseswe intend to analyze? Here, we touch upon a problemof the definition of our object,in other words on a central methodological questionof which we should be aware and which we should not avoid. There is a tendencyto restrict'data'in criticaldiscourseanalysis(but also on a more general level of pragmaticsand sociolinguistics)to linguisticallyidentifiable data. Texts/discoursesare prototypically chosen on the basis of formal-linguistic criteria:they need to be productsof language.And at this point, many of us take a linguisticturn. Languageis still to variousdegreesthe autonomousobject defined by Saussureand conflatedby some of his followersso as to make some contextual elementscollapse into language. I-anguage,to linguists, never collapses into somethingelse.They may claim it does,but in actualpracticethe relationshipis the other way round. Dell Hymes' old observation,that "fl]inguistics,the discipline centralto the study of speech,has been occupiedalmost wholly with developing analysisof language as a referential code" (1974: 32) by and large still holds. assumptionin section2 of his paper,"alongthe linesof critical language Galasiriski's study [...] that linguistic analysisis capable of revealingthe assumptionsbehind linguisticchoices"(speciffing further that this should include an analysisof the syntacticand lexico-grammaticallevels of a text), reveals more than just an analyticalpreference.It revealsan adherenceto traditional conceptsof text and linguisticstructurewhich cannotbe undoneby claimsto the contrary.In Galasiriski's analysisof Walgsa'sand Filatov'sspeeches,processesof intertextuality,dialogism, textualizationand so on are stopped and reduced to one textual event (in itself reducedto one textual object) which is then supposedto tell the whole (political, historical,cultural, ideological)story.This story is made explicit in section5 of his paper,where he providesagain some 'background',illuminating,it seems,some of the intertextuality,the motives for particular linguistic choices,and the wider historical framing of Walgsa's and Filatov's speeches.But just like in the introductorybackground section,the informationprovidedhere is disconnectedfrom the textual evidence offered in the analysis.It is not in the text, and neither is the object-textreally made part of the wider perspectiveoffered in section 5. The and the wider background in introductorybackground,the linguistictext-analysis, section5, are three juxtaposed narrativessaid to be connectedin the sensethat the two'contextual'narrativesexplain - semantically- the object text. The issueis a fundamentalone, and it is rooted in traditionsof constructing the object of inquiry that are hard to get rid off. We need to explore other dimensionsof textualitythan the oneswe are usedto dealingwith. The questionof interdisciplinarityis implicit in my critique, though it needsto be formulated in a specificway. I tend to agree with Dell Hymes' call for a revision of the scope of various disciplines, by redefining the object of inquiry (.f. Hymes 1974: 32). Interdisciplinarity,in other words, at the level of what we are analyzing,rather than

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at the level of how we analyze.6 My commentsin the previous sectionswere aimed at demonstratingthat the scopeof our critical inquiry is drasticallyreduced when we cut off the 'backgroundfacts' from the texts,and refuseto see the background as a form of entextualizationin its own right. The object which I advocateis partly text in the traditional senseof the term, and partly 'non-text'.Both are part of a process of textualization,of 'doing text', of 'texting'. And a critical analysisof this object should, for instance,also inquire into the reasonswhy we look at particular texts in particular ways at this particular time in history,into what we bring along into our analysisin terms of assumptions,images,attributionsand so on. Does this solveour problems?Not completely,of course.But it allowsus at least to distinguishbetween the various perspectiveswe apply - as a matter of normalcy and embedded in an ideologyof our own professionalpractice - to our 'data'. It should be clear that we very often Ju.p', not necessarilyto conclusions, but certainlyto implicit acceptationsof motivesfor doing thingsin a particularway, motives which need to be called into questionevery now and then as a matter of critical reflection on our own practice.For instance,analystsoften 'step out' of the object-text/discourse in order to explain why a text/discourse is political or ideological. Texts/discoursesare then defined as political or ideological by associatingthem with an apparently objectivelyexisting sphere of 'political' or 'ideological' practices,structuresor institutions (e.9. the common simplism that political discourseis discourseproducedby politicians).In this way, rather than to call into question the social order in which discourseappears and functions,we adopt the basicstructureof this socialorder and integrateit into our way of viewing our object. I pray Galasifrskiand all thosewho might identifywith him as the objectsof my critique to view the commentsmade here as friendly and constructive.I believe we need to reinvestigateour joint claimsabout the deep embeddedness of language in social life, time and culture, and turn it into more than just a taken-for-granted truth which allowsus to proceedwith linguisticbusinessas usual.When theseclaims are taken seriously - and again I have to paraphraseHymes - texts, contexts, linguisticstructuresand ultimately linguisticswill never be the same again.

References Auer, Peter & Aldo Di Luzio (eds.) (1992) The contextualization Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

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Bauman, Richard & Charles Briggs (1990) Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on

6 Hymes' appeals to a revision of the scope of the various disciplines involved with discourse and speech appear in various places in his oeuvre, but have remained largely unnoticed. The essence of his stance is that sociolinguistics should not become a new 'discipline' like linguistics or anthropolory; rather it should be an interdisciplinary influence on both (and other) disciplines, and the effect of sociolinguistics should be that linguistics and anthropology would be changed. Linguistics would have adopted the social dimension of language as part of its object, and anthropology would have adopted the importance of discourse and its social embeddednessas part of its object. See Hymes (1971) for a particularly detailed argument.

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languageand social life. Annual Review of Anthropologt 19:.59-88. Berezhkov, Valentin (1982) History in the ntaking: Memoirs of lltorld War II diplomacy. Moscow: Progress. Blommaert, Jan & Jef Verschueren ( 1996) European concepts of nation-building. In Edwin Wilmsen & Patrick McAllister (eds.), The politics of difference: Ethnic premises in a world of power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 104-123. Duranti, Alessandro & Charles Goodwin (eds.) (1992) Rethinking context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dziewanowski,M.K. (1977) Poland in the twentieth century. New York: Columbia University Press. Goodwin, Charles (1994) Professional vision. Anteican Anthropologist 96.3: 6{J6-633. Hymes,Dell (1971) Sociolinguisticsand the ethnographyof speaking.In Edwin Ardener (ed.), Social anthropologl and language. [-ondon: Tavistock, pp. 41-93. I

Hymes, Dell (1974) Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approacft. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Mehan, Hugh (1996) The construction of an LD student: A case study in the politics of representation. In M. Silverstein & G. Urban (eds.), Natural histoies of discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 253-2'16. Silverstein,Michael & Greg Urban (1996) The natural history of discourse.In M. Silverstein & G. Urban (eds.), Natural histoies of discourse.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-17. Zhukov, Georgi (1974) Reminiscensesand reflections,vol.2. Moscow: Progress.