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D I P L O M A C Y,   D O C U M E N T S   A N D   T E X T S

Texts have always been a crucial element of diplomacy: the richness and complexity of    diplomatic activities, including negotiations, representation, social activities and media coverage    is crystallised in texts - diplomatic documents. If texts and documents are an integral part of the    process of diplomacy and one of the usual results of diplomatic activity, we can learn more about    diplomacy through texts. First, we can learn about a specific event or activity by reading the documents it has produced, either as byproducts or as results. In addition, we can learn much about diplomatic events or activities by analysing diplomatic documents more deeply. Such analysis can range from simple procedures such as looking at the form of a document or placing it in its historical context, to applying a complete set of analytical tools to the document, such as DiploFoundation's "DiploAnalytica".

Dr Keith Hamilton, historian in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and senior editor of documents on British policy overseas, explains why looking at the form of a document may be important:

The contents of a document, its substance, is usually far more important than the form it takes. And where a document is an internal communication...it would hardly seem to matter whether it is called a memorandum, a minute, a note or a submission. Yet where international agreements are concerned it would hardly do to equate an exchange of notes with a memorandum of understanding, or a declaration with a treaty. Form matters in these cases because form frequently establishes, or at any rate reflects, the nature of the obligation entered into and the degree of commitment involved, whether the engagement be moral, political or ultimately legal. ("Documenting Diplomacy, Evaluating Documents: The Case of the CSCE," Language and Diplomacy, Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)

Dr Alex Sceberras Trigona, former Maltese minister of foreign affairs, proposes that through analysis of diplomatic documents, "diplomatic knowledge which is clearly more than the diplomatic information contained in the document itself can be gained. This method therefore not only re-asserts the primary importance of the diplomatic information in diplomatic documents but also leads to acquiring elements of unrecorded diplomatic knowledge." ("Knowledge and Diplomacy," Knowledge and Diplomacy, Malta: DiploProjects, 2000) Trigona proposes an information technology assisted method of analysis, called DiploAnalytica, which is described in more detail below. 

Dr Ivan Callus and Ruben Borg of the University of Malta have experimented with applying deconstruction, a form of literary criticism, to diplomatic discourse. They write that the purpose and function of deconstruction, and its potential contribution to diplomatic language, is "to force the discipline to which it applies itself to look at its own language and to develop an almost pathological awareness of its own linguistic strategies." ("Deconstruction and the Undoing of Diplomacy: A Case Study Involving the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations," Language and Diplomacy, Malta: DiploProjects, 2001)