Words Apart: A Reading of Canadian Labor Conflict

• Author / Creator

  Keim, Charles A

• This thesis examines the role that language plays in labor conflict. Nelson (2003: 449) argues that words are necessary for conflict: words initiate, maintain, elevate, defuse, and can resolve human conflict. My study follows Nelson in an exploration of how language was mobilized during the Alberta Teachers’ strike (2001—2002). Both the Klein-led conservative government and the Booi-led Alberta Teachers’ Association used language to present images, stories, and explanations that cast themselves and the conflict in very different ways. Speakers used language to create groups and engineer the conflict: they were “words” as well as “worlds” apart. To facilitate an examination of how speakers used language to construct and polarize these worlds a framework of four discursive strategies is applied.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Language
  • Industrial Relations
  • Labor conflict
  • Discourse Analysis

• Graduation date

  Spring 2015

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3P26Q955

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.