Corpus linguistics in the study of political discourse: recent directions

This chapter surveys recent research on political discourse which makes use of corpus linguistics in order to show the direction of travel for work in this area and to reveal where there may be gaps in coverage. The first section addresses the different ways that we can interpret the idea of ‘political discourse’ and the genres this encompasses. The second presents the different kinds of topics that are studied in investigating the structures of political discourse, while the third section shows the themes which have received attention in studies of the content of political discourse. The fourth section reflects on the added value of bringing corpus linguistics and political discourse together and discusses some practical issues and best practice. The fifth section looks at future directions for work in this area. The aim is to present researchers who are new to the area with a route map for their work.