Cover not available

In:Exploring Language and Society with Big Data: Parliamentary discourse across time and space
Edited by Minna Korhonen, Haidee Kotze and Jukka Tyrkkö
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 111] 2023
► pp. 142–165

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 5
Leaving the EU out of the ingroup

A diachronic analysis of the use of we and us in British parliamentary debates (1973–2015)

 | Tampere University
Published online: 13 November 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.111.05rai
Abstract
In this chapter, I examine what types of diachronic changes the use of first-person plural pronouns signal in the way the EU has been discussed in the British House of Commons. By using methods of corpus-assisted discourse studies, I analyse the use of the pronouns in relation to the EU in parliamentary debates in the time period from 1973 to 2015. I am interested in when and in which contexts the EU is included in and when excluded from the ingroup in the debates. The chapter contributes to linguistic studies on Brexit and is part of a larger research project focusing on diachronic changes in the discursive representation of the EU in British parliamentary debates and press.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Personal pronouns and the discursive construction of national identities
  • 3.Data and methods
  • 4.We and us in relation to the EU in British parliament
    • 4.1Referents of 1PP in the context of the EU
    • 4.2Party differences
    • 4.3Actions connected to the ingroup
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (39)
References
Alexander, Marc & Davies, Mark. 2015. The Hansard Corpus 1803–2005. <[URL]> (13 February 2020).
Baker, Paul. 2006. Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Paul, Gabrielatos, Costas, Khosravinik, Majid, Krzyżanowski, Michał, McEnery, Tony & Wodak, Ruth. 2008. A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press. Discourse & Society 19(3): 273–306. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Billig, Michael. 2010. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan & Bulcaen, Chris. 2000. Critical Discourse Analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 447–466. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cap, Piotr. 2018. “We don’t want any immigrants or terrorists here”: The linguistic manufacturing of xenophobia in the post-2015 Poland. Discourse & Society 29(4): 380–398. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chouliaraki, Lilie & Fairclough, Norman. 1999. Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: EUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cramer, Jennifer. 2010. “Do we really want to be like them?”: Indexing Europeanness through pronominal use. Discourse & Society 21(6): 619–637. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Cillia, Rudolf, Reisigl, Martin & Wodak, Ruth. 1999. The discursive construction of national identities. Discourse & Society 10(2): 149–173. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Fina, Anna. 1995. Pronominal choice, identity and solidarity in political discourse. Text: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse 15(3): 379–410.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dekavalla, Marina. 2010. Tax, war and waiting lists: The construction of national identity in newspaper coverage of general elections after devolution. Discourse & Society 21(6): 638–654. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. New York NY: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fontana, Cary & Parsons, Craig. 2015. “One woman’s prejudice”: Did Margaret Thatcher cause Britain’s anti-Europeanism? Journal of Common Market Studies 53(1): 89–105. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hardt-Mautner, Gerlinde. 1995. “Only connect”: Critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. UCREL Technical Paper 6. Lancaster: University of Lancaster.
Hiltunen, Turo, Räikkönen, Jenni & Tyrkkö, Jukka. 2020. Investigating colloquialization in the British parliamentary record in late 19th and early 20th century. Language Sciences 79, 101270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunston, Sarah. 2007. Semantic prosody revisited. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 12(2): 249–268. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Imao, Yasu. 2008–2018. CasualConc (Version 2.0.7.) [Computer software] <[URL]> (17 August 2021).
Íñigo-Mora, Isabel. 2004. On the use of the personal pronoun we in communities. Journal of Language and Politics 3(1): 27–52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Islentyeva, Anna. 2018. The undesirable migrant in the British press: Creating bias through language. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 119(2): 419–442.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krizsán, Attila. 2011. “The EU is Not Them, But Us!” The First Person Plural and the Articulation of Collective Identities in European Political Discourse. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lenz, Friedrich. 2003. Deictic conceptualisation of space, time and person: Introduction. In Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 112], Friedrich Lenz (ed.), vi–xiv. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ludlow, Piers. 2002. Us or them? The meaning of Europe in British political discourse. In The Meaning of Europe, Mikael af Malmborg & Bo Stråth (eds), 101–124. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McEnery, Tony, Brezina, Vaclav & Baker, Helen. 2019. The UK, Europe and the path to Brexit – the long view: Europe in two centuries of British newspapers. Plenary given at BCICLE 2019: 8th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English, 26–28 September 2019. Bamberg, Germany.
Mollin, Sandra. 2007. The Hansard hazard: Gauging the accuracy of British parliamentary transcripts. Corpora 2(2): 187–210. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mühlhäusler, Peter & Harré, Rom. 1990. Pronouns and People: The Linguistic Construction of Social and Personal Identity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oddo, John. 2011. War legitimation discourse: Representing ‘us’ and ‘them’ in four US presidential addresses. Discourse & Society 22(3): 287–314. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Partington, Alan, Duguid, Alison & Taylor, Charlotte. 2013. Patterns and Meanings in Discourse: Theory and Practice in Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 55]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petersoo, Pille. 2007. What does ‘we’ mean? National deixis in the media. Journal of Language and Politics 6(3): 419–436. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Proctor, Katarzyna & Su, Lily I-Wen. 2011. The first person plural in political discourse: American politicians in interviews and in a debate. Journal of Pragmatics 43: 3251–3266. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Räikkönen, Jenni. 2020. Metaphors separating the United Kingdom from the EU in British parliamentary debates from 2000 to 2016. In Metaphor in Political Conflict: Populism and Discourse, Ruth Breeze & Carmen Llamas (eds), 27–54. Pamplona: EUNSA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riihimäki, Jenni. 2019. At the heart and in the margins: Discursive construction of British national identity in relation to the EU in British parliamentary debates from 1973 to 2015. Discourse & Society 30(4): 412–431. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinclair, John. 1991. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Trust the Text: Language, Corpus and Discourse. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slembrouck, Stef. 1992. The parliamentary Hansard ‘verbatim’ report: The written construction of spoken discourse. Language and Literature 1(2): 101–119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun. 1993. Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park CA: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2011. “Us” and “them”: Inclusion and exclusion – Discrimination via discourse. In Identity, Belonging and Migration, Gerard Delanty, Ruth Wodak & Paul Jones (eds), 54–77. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, de Cillia, Rudolf & Reisigl, Martin. 2009. The Discursive Construction of National Identities. Edinburgh: EUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Räikkönen, Jenni
2024. The European Union as an in-group in British press and parliamentary debates. In Self- and Other-Reference in Social Contexts [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 342], ► pp. 62 ff. DOI logo
Tyrkkö, Jukka, Sophie Raineri, Jenni Räikkönen, Alžběta Budirská, Mai Nabawy & Amanda Silfver
2024. Speaking for the downtrodden. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 25:2 ► pp. 274 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue