Constructing Brexit Britain A Corpus-Assisted Approach to National Identity Discourse
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Tamsin Parnell is Research Assistant on the EDIFY project in the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK.The author pulls together different discourses on Brexit into a holistic study, showing differences and overlaps between how the media, the British government and citizens constructed national identity during the long process of the UK leaving the EU. I have been waiting for a book like this.
- Veronika Koller, Lancaster University, UK,
Combining corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, and a discourse analysis of narratives, this book considers one aspect of the Brexit process: the language that journalists, politicians and individuals used to write and talk about what it means to be British and European around the time of Brexit. It reveals a trajectory towards a discourse of national division in Brexit Britain in three datasets: pro-Brexit newspaper articles, UK Government documents, and interviews with individual citizens.
Demonstrating the important role that (supra-)national identity discourses played in discussions about Brexit, the book traces a shift towards a representation of Brexit Britain as divided and in decline at a time when the construction of a collective identity is likely to be paramount. The emerging representation is a direct contradiction of the great global trading nation narrative that the Vote Leave campaigners – and later the UK Government – promised, questioning the discursive success of the Global Britain project.
Constructing Brexit Britain demonstrates that the transition from pre- to post-Brexit Britain was a crucial period of destabilisation for institutional and lay national identity narratives. It also illustrates that the coming years are likely to be just as important, as the UK forges its post-Brexit place in the world amid declining levels of trust in politicians, calls for a second Scottish membership referendum, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a cost of living crisis.
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. The Discursive Construction of Britishness and Europeanness
3. Researching the Language of National Identity in Times of Brexit
4. Pro-Brexit Newspaper Representations of the UK and EU-rope
5. Constructing Britain and Europe in UK Government Documents
6. Discursive Constructions of Britain and Britishness in Oral Interviews
7. Concluding Remarks
References
Appendix
Index
Language is ubiquitous. As never before, it is now commonly understood how crucial language is for human interaction, for negotiating and shaping our material and ideational reality. In the digital age, the speed, scale and diversity of forms of communication and language use have grown rapidly. The increasing amount of language data that influences attitudes, decision-making and relationships highlights how the methodology of corpus linguistics together with the explanatory power of discourse analysis are indispensable for deciphering the world around us.
Situated at the interface of corpus linguistics and discourse studies, the Corpus and Discourse series publishes innovative research where humanities and social sciences come together to understand the relationship between discourse and society in an increasingly digital world.
Series Editors: Michaela Mahlberg (University of Birmingham, UK) and Gavin Brookes (Lancaster University, UK)
Consulting Editor: Wolfgang Teubert (University of Birmingham, UK)
Editorial Board
Paul Baker, Lancaster University, UK
Frantisek Cermák, Charles University, Prague
Susan Conrad, Portland State University, USA
Matteo Fuoli, University of Birmingham, UK
Maristella Gatto, University of Bari, Italy
Dominique Maingueneau, Université de Paris XII, France
Christian Mair, University of Freiburg, Germany
Alan Partington, University of Bologna, Italy
Charlotte Taylor, University of Sussex, UK
Elena Tognini-Bonelli, University of Siena, Italy
Ruth Wodak, Lancaster University, UK
Ruihua Zhang, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, China
Feng Zhiwei, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Beijing, China