Constructing and deconstructing national identity

The aim of this study was to expose the constructed nature of national identity in two dramatic texts: The Patriot Game (1991) by Irish playwright Tom Murphy and In der Löwengrube (1989) by his Austrian counterpart Felix Mitterer. Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach combining linguistics, literature, history and cultural studies, this thesis looked at similarities and dissimilarities in the construction and deconstruction of national identity in the two plays. Ruth Wodak et al.’s linguistic approach developed in the work on Critical Discourse Analysis describing the construction of national identity in non-literary texts provided a framework, which has been modified for the analysis of the two dramatic texts under consideration.