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Part of
The Corpus Linguistics Discourse: In honour of Wolfgang Teubert
Edited by Anna Čermáková and Michaela Mahlberg
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 87] 2018
► pp. 95–126

Europhobes and Europhiles, Eurospats and Eurojibes

Revisiting Britain’s EU debate, 2000–2016

| University of Bologna
| University of Bologna

This paper is an examination in three parts of the UK’s debate on membership of the European Union, before and immediately after the so-called ‘Brexit’ Referendum. The first part takes its cue from an article by Wolfgang Teubert which has exercised considerable influence in the field of corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS), namely, his examination of the language of EU-scepticism in the UK (Teubert 2001). The aim of the CADS approach is the uncovering, in the discourse type under study, of non-obvious meanings and patterns of meanings, that is, meanings which might not be readily available to naked-eye perusal. Teubert’s paper was an inspiring example of these procedures. In the second part, a para-replication of Teubert’s work, we revisit attitudes to the EU as represented in sections of the UK press in 2013 (the year the British Prime Minister announced an “in-out” referendum on EU membership). The third section examines the themes debated immediately before and immediately after the referendum vote in June 2016. We also reflect on how the much-invoked notion of negative representation needs to be employed with care, particularly with regard to media discourses.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Teubert’s 2001 study on Euroscepticism
  • 2.The para-replication of Teubert’s study thirteen years later – 2013
    • 2.1Key item analysis
      • 2.1.1The Mail key-items
      • 2.1.2The Guardian key items
    • 2.2Qualitative analysis I: Concordancing metaphors and motifs
    • 2.3Qualitative analysis II: Leading articles
    • 2.4Who are we up against?
    • 2.5Representing Eurosceptics, Europhobes and other Euro-animals
      • 2.5.1The Guardian
      • 2.5.2The Mail
    • 2.6Metaphors and evaluation
    • 2.7Conclusions on the 2013 discourses
  • 3.2016: The campaigns immediately before the vote and the reactions just after
    • 3.1Findings
      • 3.1.1The representation of the referendum
      • 3.1.2The theme of fear
      • 3.1.3Discourses on immigration
    • 3.2The result and post-vote Britain
      • 3.2.1First reactions
      • 3.2.2Pro-Leave reactions
      • 3.2.3Pro-Remain reactions
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.87.05par
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