Interview with Katy Brown: New opportunities for discourse studies

In this interview, Katy Brown discusses her Journal of Language and Politics article, New opportunities for discourse studies: Combining discourse theory, critical discourse studies and corpus linguistics. She talks about why she developed this framework and where she hopes to go with it next.

Image created by Dima Albadra

Discourse studies is very open to triangulation and integrating various perspectives, so I felt there was an opportunity to develop greater dialogue between the traditions (though maybe I’m just indecisive and it meant I didn’t need to choose!)

Why did you decide to write this piece?

I think it mainly came from the sense that there were so many interesting theories, strategies and analyses emerging from poststructuralist Discourse Theory (DT), Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and Corpus Linguistics (CL), but it felt like their potential to complement one another as a trio was not fully developed. There’s a lot of great work combining CDS and CL, and some on DT and CL, but it seemed a shame to miss out on further insights by being constrained to either DT or CDS, when they both have so much to offer. Discourse studies is very open to triangulation and integrating various perspectives, so I felt there was an opportunity to develop greater dialogue between the traditions (though maybe I’m just indecisive and it meant I didn’t need to choose!). The desire to find these links is where the framework stemmed from initially, and it’s something I developed during my PhD, so the article is an attempt to summarise how they can be mutually beneficial. My hope when writing it was that it would be useful especially for people entering the field who are evaluating which discursive approach(es) they want to pursue, but also for those with existing expertise who are looking to integrate different perspectives into their discursive work.

What are the key takeaways?

The main message of my article is about the marked benefits of combining DT, CDS and CL because they each have different strengths which are complementary to one another. In a nutshell, DT offers strong philosophical and theoretical grounding, while CDS links theory to linguistic analysis, and CL broadens the scope by providing tools for large-scale textual analysis. As I acknowledge, there are certainly tensions between them which may not be easy to navigate, but I think if we are clear about the foundations of this combined approach, these issues are not irreconcilable differences. In the article, I put forward the broad principles underlying the individual traditions and the role they each play within the framework, before establishing some practical analytical guidelines through each research phase, from data collection to the presentation of findings. Crucially, this approach is not set in stone, and I hope that others can expand, adapt or challenge it, because the complex political issues that we see today need dynamic and critically engaged responses.

Where do you plan to go next in your research?

Well, in terms of methodological questions, I see this piece very much as a building block for more work in this area. These traditions have many different facets to them, so it’s only possible to scratch the surface of their potential in an article like this. I recently completed a manuscript for Cambridge University Press Elements on this topic, which allows me to expand on these themes and show how the framework functions in practice. Even then, however, there’s still much further to go on how we can strengthen the links between them, how we might look at discourse beyond text, how we address the tensions between them, etc. There are so many avenues in a field like this so I hope it can stimulate wider discussion. Beyond methodology, my current postdoctoral research looks at the role of media reporting on the mainstreaming of the far right, so I’m applying this methodological approach to media analysis. In the next phase, I hope to collaborate with journalists to develop practical guidelines for effective reporting which serves to challenge, rather than normalise, far-right politics.