This study combines a range of corpus linguistics methods with approaches in discourse analysis (Baker 2006; Baker et al. 2008; McEnery and Baker 2015) to examine the linguistic construction of ageing in the contemporary British press. In order to do so, a large and representative corpus of newspaper articles published between 2012 and 2021 has been compiled and investigated. The news media are seen as both reflecting and reinforcing dominant societal values (see, among others, White 2006; Hartley 1982; Fowler 1991; Iedema et al. 1994; and Fairclough 1995), and therefore, analysis of prominent news outlets can elucidate a society's current stance on relevant ageing-related issues. By adopting a broad constructionist view, this research offers considerable insights into how ageing and later life identities are medially represented through lexical, phraseological and grammatical patterns in both broadsheets and tabloids. In doing so, it elucidates the implications of the prevailing ideologies that underpin such constructions and have been widely circulating in contemporary Western context. Within this particularly rich terrain of investigation, emphasis will be placed on the representation of ageing as a health problem. This interpretative angle is not without reason, for it cannot be denied that the medicalisation of later life occupies a privileged and dominant position in Western societies, shaping the cultural and ethical landscape of ageing and old age (Katz 1996; Rose 2001).
References
Baker, Paul, et al. (2008). "A Useful Methodological Synergy? Combining Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics to Examine Discourses of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK Press." Discourse & Society, vol. 19, 3: 273–306.
Baker, P. (2006). Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London. Continuum.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Media Discourse, London: Edward Arnold.
Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the News. Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London. Routledge.
Hartley, J. (1982). Understanding News, London. Methuen.
Iedema, R., Feez, S. and White, P.R.R. (1994). Media Literacy. Sydney: Disadvantaged Schools Program, NSW Department of School Education.
Katz, S. (1996). Disciplining Old Age: The Formation of Gerontological Knowledge. Charlottesville. University of Virginia Press.
McEnery, A., and P. Baker, eds. (2015). Corpora and Discourse Studies: Integrating Discourse and Corpora. London. Springer.
Rose, N. (2001). "The Politics of Life Itself". Theory, Culture, & Society, 18:1–30.
White, P. R. "Evaluative semantics and ideological positioning in journalistic discourse." in Lassen, Inger, Jeanne Strunck, and Torben Vestergaard, eds., Mediating Ideology in Text and Image: Ten Critical Studies. Amsterdam: Benjamins 2006: 37-67.
