This article provides a rhetorical discourse analysis of constructions of unemployed people’s deservingness. Data consist of transcripts from Finnish parliament members debating the ‘Activation Model for Unemployment Security’, from December 2017. In the analysis, three discursive constructions of unemployed people’s deservingness were identified: an ‘effortful citizen lacking control’, a ‘needy citizen deserving the welfare state’s reciprocal acts’ and an ‘undeserving freeloader in need of an attitude adjustment’. Analysis focuses on how deservingness and undeservingness are rhetorically accomplished and treated as factual in parliament members’ accounts. The analysis pays particular attention to the question of how speakers build factuality through the management of categories, extreme case formulations, ‘truth talk’ and maximisation and minimisation strategies. The results reflect the negotiated nature of deservingness as well as varying constructions of unemployed people’s responsibility in the contemporary Nordic welfare state context.

中文翻译：

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“努力”、“有需要”和“白手起家”

本文对失业人员应得的建构进行修辞性话语分析。数据包括芬兰议员在 2017 年 12 月辩论“失业保障激活模型”的记录。在分析中，确定了失业者应得的三种话语结构：“努力的公民缺乏控制”，“贫困的公民应得的”福利国家的互惠行为”和“需要调整态度的不值得的贪吃鬼”。分析的重点是在议会成员的陈述中，应得和不应得是如何在修辞上实现的，并被视为事实。该分析特别关注演讲者如何通过类别管理、极端情况表述、“实话实说”以及最大化和最小化策略。结果反映了应得性的协商性质以及在当代北欧福利国家背景下失业人员责任的不同构建。