The language of diplomatic mediation – A case study of an emergency meeting in the wake of the Yugoslav wars

In this paper, we examine the language of diplomatic mediation from the perspective of speech acts and interaction, by studying an unofficial transcript of an emergency meeting in 1991 between representatives of the European Economic Community (EEC) and Slovenia and Croatia. We use a bottom-up methodology, bringing together ritual, speech acts and interaction, to capture recurrent conventions of diplomatic mediation in a strictly language-anchored fashion. The EEC representatives had a vested interest in swiftly resolving the conflict, and even before consulting with the Slovenian and Croatian representatives they already reached an initial agreement with the Yugoslav state representatives. Due to this fait accompli situation, we assume that they had to show particular awareness of the ritually ‘neutral’ tone of the mediator. Through our methodology we capture the replicable features of diplomatic mediation, and because of this our results are relevant for the study of the language of diplomacy.