Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Discourse Analysis
- Political Discourse
- Comparative Political Discourse Analysis
- Discourse and Institutions
- Language Ideologies
Current research
I am a linguist interested in comparative discourse analysis in English and German speaking countries. In order to analyse the influence of contextual differences on linguistic and discursive features, I use linguistic research methods from the field of discourse studies such as Corpus Assisted Discourse Analysis, Political Lexicography, Critical Metaphor Theory and Ethnography of communication. In the interpretation stage, I discuss my findings against the background of historical and sociological insights.
I have published on the discourses of New Labour and the German SPD at the turn of the twenty-first century, ‘populist’ discourses as on Discourse in the Workplace. Some interesting documentation of the conference ‘New Discourses of Populism and Nationalism’ I organised in June 2018 can be found here. I am currently working on ideas of language ideologies and political discourse and have co-organised DN 27 on that topic.
I am also embarking on a new discourse studies project with Dr Darren Paffey that considers how language is used at the level of local politics and devolved government, how this differs from the national level, and what impact this has on the policy-making process in crucial areas like climate change.