Political, Public and Media Discourses from Indyref to Brexit

Book excerpt: This book focuses on the language of two unions (the United Kingdom and the European Union), tracing the emergence of divisive discourses from indyref to Brexit. It explains the background to the creation of these unions and summarizes recent political events that have brought their future into question. It considers which identities (national, supranational, social, ethnic or racial) were invoked during the indyref and EU referendum campaigns, emphasising the crucial role played by language in maintaining these identities, in conceptualizing the nation, to do politics, and its power to unite or divide. Based on analysis of three specialist corpora totaling over 143 million words and comprising multiple text types (newspapers, speeches, Twitter posts, parliamentary debates, party political websites and campaign materials), it interrogates the language used by politicians, the media and the public, uncovering increasingly problematic, scaremongering, xenophobic and incendiary linguistic strategies used to divide us from them.