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Chapter 4. Charting the semantics of labour relations in House of Commons debates spanning two hundred years

A study of parliamentary language using corpus linguistic methods and automated semantic tagging
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Abstract

In this chapter we use new corpus linguistic software tools to investigate the discourse(s) of labour relations in UK House of Commons debates over the 19th and 20th centuries. Our data is from the Hansard Corpus (1803–2005), and benefits from the annotation of meaning and sense categories with the newly-developed Historical Thesaurus Semantic Tagger (Alexander et al. 2015; Piao et al. 2014). Using the bespoke corpus interface CQPweb Hansard, we carry out automated searches for words tagged with relevant semantic category codes. Our quantitative results enable us to chart the semantics of parliamentary discourse on labour relations over time, providing a detailed empirical basis which, we argue, would usefully support further qualitative analysis in linguistic and other research.

Abstract

In this chapter we use new corpus linguistic software tools to investigate the discourse(s) of labour relations in UK House of Commons debates over the 19th and 20th centuries. Our data is from the Hansard Corpus (1803–2005), and benefits from the annotation of meaning and sense categories with the newly-developed Historical Thesaurus Semantic Tagger (Alexander et al. 2015; Piao et al. 2014). Using the bespoke corpus interface CQPweb Hansard, we carry out automated searches for words tagged with relevant semantic category codes. Our quantitative results enable us to chart the semantics of parliamentary discourse on labour relations over time, providing a detailed empirical basis which, we argue, would usefully support further qualitative analysis in linguistic and other research.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Multidisciplinary approaches to political discourse
  5. Chapter 2. “We have the character of an island nation” 27
  6. Chapter 3. “Dancing with doxa” 59
  7. Part II. Representing the people, representing the government
  8. Chapter 4. Charting the semantics of labour relations in House of Commons debates spanning two hundred years 81
  9. Chapter 5. Off the record 105
  10. Chapter 6. Making “politics” relevant 127
  11. Part III. Doing populism
  12. Chapter 7. A cross-linguistic study of new populist language 153
  13. Chapter 8. Disciplining the unwilling 179
  14. Part IV. Mediated politics
  15. Chapter 9. Es-tu Charlie? 211
  16. Chapter 10. United we diverge 235
  17. Chapter 11. Hybridity and antagonism in broadcast election campaign interviews 259
  18. Chapter 12. Mediated campaign debate subgenre and their importance for analytic considerations 281
  19. Chapter 13. Cross-talk in political discourse 301
  20. Part V. Self-referential political discourse
  21. Chapter 14. Reading political minds 333
  22. Chapter 15. “All this is a boon to Britain’s crumbling democracy” 361
  23. Part VI. Doing foreign policy
  24. Chapter 16. Red lines and rash decisions 385
  25. Notes on contributors 407
  26. Index 413
Doing Politics
This chapter is in the book Doing Politics
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.80.04dem

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Multidisciplinary approaches to political discourse
  5. Chapter 2. “We have the character of an island nation” 27
  6. Chapter 3. “Dancing with doxa” 59
  7. Part II. Representing the people, representing the government
  8. Chapter 4. Charting the semantics of labour relations in House of Commons debates spanning two hundred years 81
  9. Chapter 5. Off the record 105
  10. Chapter 6. Making “politics” relevant 127
  11. Part III. Doing populism
  12. Chapter 7. A cross-linguistic study of new populist language 153
  13. Chapter 8. Disciplining the unwilling 179
  14. Part IV. Mediated politics
  15. Chapter 9. Es-tu Charlie? 211
  16. Chapter 10. United we diverge 235
  17. Chapter 11. Hybridity and antagonism in broadcast election campaign interviews 259
  18. Chapter 12. Mediated campaign debate subgenre and their importance for analytic considerations 281
  19. Chapter 13. Cross-talk in political discourse 301
  20. Part V. Self-referential political discourse
  21. Chapter 14. Reading political minds 333
  22. Chapter 15. “All this is a boon to Britain’s crumbling democracy” 361
  23. Part VI. Doing foreign policy
  24. Chapter 16. Red lines and rash decisions 385
  25. Notes on contributors 407
  26. Index 413
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