A linguistic corpus-driven approach to American domestic politics

Författare

Michael Zetterholm

Summary, in English

Using the modern cognitive linguistic framework of recorded corpora
data, this essay attempts to investigate the political climate in
American domestic politics as it is represented by media in the form
of newspapers. By approaching the language usage of media in a
linguistically holistic way I aim to elicit subtle attitudes towards
ideologies present in news press articles. This approach is carried out
by analyzing the usage of certain political concepts in American
newspapers together with the American magazine TIME on the
assumption that the concepts vary depending on which political party
is in power on a national level. The idea was to use a non-traditional
way to explore the attitude towards the political parties through the
concepts used to represent them in newspapers. The concepts are
analyzed against the background of which of the two political parties
is in power, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, following a
diachronic pattern starting with the George W. H. Bush administration
in 1989 up to the current Barack Obama administration. In between
these lie Bill Clinton (Democratic Party), who served two terms, and
George W. Bush (Republican Party) who also served two terms. Three
terms of each party in power with a representing president in the
White House will serve as the background for the analysis of how
political concepts are viewed in the American media. How are the
ideologies treated in the media depending on which political faction is
in power?

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