Discourse analysis
Language is not neutral, but helps us make sense of our world. How we represent ideas, concepts and people through language is of interest to discourse analysts – and our research in Discourse Analysis explores how language is used in real-life contexts.
In response to increased concerns about student mental health and wellbeing in higher education, we're researching narratives of loneliness – based on student interviews – that can help us unpack the potential causes of these issues, and help educators to address them.
And in online spaces, where misogynistic trolling of women is a growing issue, we're analysing the discourse of hate speech, and creating a database of online hate crime examples. And with this data, we're developing diagnostic tools for the police and other bodies that could further their investigations and help to eradicate the problem.
Our research is regularly published in leading academic journals within the field, including Discourse & Society, Gender & Language, Discourse, Context & Media, Language & Literature, and Language & Discrimination.
Our research covers the following topics
- Critical discourse analysis
- Gender and sexuality
- Mental health discourse
- Translation studies
- Systemic functional linguistics
- Media discourse
- Online discourse
Methods and memberships
Researchers in this area use a range of qualitative and quantitative methods (often combining both for the purposes of triangulation), such as focus groups, interviews, close linguistic analysis using methods from Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, corpus linguistics and “big data” approaches.
Many of our researchers in Discourse Analysis are members of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA), the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) and the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA) – and their membership of these bodies enables our work to reach wider audiences, and opens up opportunities for research collaborations with other members at other institutions.
Publication highlights
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Korean English: a corpus-driven study of a new English
Korean English: a corpus-driven study of a new English (2014), John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, Dr Glenn Hadikin
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The language of cosmetics advertising
The Language of Cosmetics Advertising (2016), Palgrave Macmillan, Dr Helen Ringrow
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'Environment' submissions in the UK’s REF 2014
'Environment' submissions in the UK’s REF 2014, British Journal of Management, Volume 29, Issue 3, p.571-587, doi: 10.1111/1467-8551.12248, Professor Andy Thorpe, Professor Russell Craig, Dennis Tourish, Dr Glenn Hadikin, Sasa Batistic
Discover our areas of expertise
Research groups
Interested in a PhD in Languages and Linguistics?
Browse our postgraduate research degrees – including PhDs and MPhils – at our Languages and Linguistics postgraduate research degrees page.