This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Pearce, M. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Informalization in UK party election broadcasts 1966-97

University of Sunderland, UK, michael.pearce{at}sunderland.ac.uk

This article uses a novel, quantitatively based method to assess the extent to which UK party election broadcasts in the 31 years between 1966 and 1997 became more ‘informal’. Using the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, I identify 28 linguistic ‘markers’ which are salient in the assessment of formality, and count their frequencies in the 37,000-word corpus. My quantitative findings reveal a general increase in informalization over time, which corresponds with judgements made in critical discourse analysis (CDA). But I also discover an anomaly in the broadcasts from 1987, which I explain with reference to the influence of the Conservative party leader, Margaret Thatcher.

Key Words: critical discourse analysis • informalization • party election broadcasts

Language and Literature, Vol. 14, No. 1, 65-90 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0963947005046285


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?