Towards a methodological tree: combining Discourse Theory, Critical Discourse Studies and Corpus Linguistics
Katy Brown
University of Bath
Discourse studies as a broad field has demonstrated openness to incorporating mixed methodologies and perspectives to provide a range of insights into complex phenomena. This paper seeks to propose a new framework which brings together the diverse traditions of Discourse Theory (DT), Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and Corpus Linguistics (CL). While there are some excellent examples of work combining two of these approaches, particularly CDS and CL (e.g., Subtirelu and Baker, 2018; Baker, 2012), and a growing discussion around the potential compatibility of DT and CDS (Brown, 2020; De Cleen et al., 2021), or DT and CL (Wilkinson, 2022; Nikisianis et al., 2019), there have been very few attempts to bring them all together into a coherent research programme. The aim here then, expanding on recent studies conducted using this framework (Brown and Mondon, 2020; Brown, Mondon and Winter, 2021), is to develop a detailed account of how this combination can be achieved and what benefits it brings to the field of discourse studies. To demonstrate the way this can be implemented in textual analysis, examples are drawn from a study of far-right Brexit discourse and the process of mainstreaming.