In this section we will tie together the key issues which have arisen from the analysis of our data in the light of the theoretical assumptions and hypotheses we outlined in the first chapter. We will first look at the content of the discursive constructs of national identities in general and of Austrian identity in particular, and then summarise the main strategies and forms of linguistic realisation.

THE INITIAL HYPOTHESES REVISITED

Over the past decade, the concept of nation as an imagined community has gained increasing importance in the relevant scholarly literature. The main objective of our study has been to identify this mental construct and to specify its emotional appeal and social binding force through an examination of different types of discursive practices related to the Austrian nation. Although our results cannot be generalised in every specific point, they nevertheless demonstrate tendencies in national processes of identification which are observable across contemporary Europe. Consequently, the methodological and theoretical framework of our discourse-historical approach (cf. Wodak et al. 1990, Matouschek, Wodak and Januschek 1995) is also applicable to investigations of the discursive construction of national identities other than the Austrian alone.

One of our principal operating assumptions has been that national identities are generated and reproduced through discourse. We have assumed further not only that institutional and material social structures determine the construction of national identities in important ways, but that institutional practices can conflict with discursive models of identity.