Keywords and collocations in US presidential discourse since 1993: a corpus-assisted analysis
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to apply a corpus-assisted analysis of keywords and their collocations in the US presidential discourse from Clinton to Trump to discover the meanings of these words and the collocates they have. Keywords are salient words in a corpus whose frequency is unusual...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Emerald Publishing
2020-07-01
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| Series: | Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JHASS-01-2020-0019/full/pdf?title=keywords-and-collocations-in-us-presidential-discourse-since-1993-a-corpus-assisted-analysis |
| _version_ | 1797995179796332544 |
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| author | Dalia Hamed |
| author_facet | Dalia Hamed |
| author_sort | Dalia Hamed |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Purpose – The purpose of this study is to apply a corpus-assisted analysis of keywords and their collocations in the US presidential discourse from Clinton to Trump to discover the meanings of these words and the collocates they have. Keywords are salient words in a corpus whose frequency is unusually high (positive keywords) or low (negative keywords) in comparison with a reference corpus. Collocation is the co-occurrence of words. Design/methodology/approach – To achieve this purpose, the investigation of keywords and collocations is generated by AntConc, a corpus processing software. Findings – This analysis leads to shed light on the similarities and/or differences amongst the past four American presidents concerning their key topics. Keyword analysis through keyness makes it evident that Clinton and Obama, being Democrats, demonstrate a clear tendency to improve Americans’ life inside their social sphere. Obama surpasses Clinton as regard foreign affairs. Clinton and Obama’s infrequent subjects have to do with terrorism and immigration. This complies with their condensed focus on social and economic improvements. Bush, a republican, concentrates only on external issues. This is proven by his keywords signifying war against terrorism. Bush’s negative use of words marking cooperative actions conforms to his positive use of words indicating external war. Trump’s positive keywords are about exaggerated descriptions without a defined target. He also shows an unusual frequency in referring to his name and position. His words used with negative keyness refer to reforming programs and external issues. Collocations around each top content keyword clarify the word and harmonize with the presidential orientation negotiated by the keywords. Research limitations/implications – Limitations have to do with the issue of the accurate representation of the samples. Originality/value – This research is original in its methodology of applying corpus linguistics tools in the analysis of presidential discourses. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T09:57:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7be9e8df4380433580717335f8b75625 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2632-279X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T09:57:19Z |
| publishDate | 2020-07-01 |
| publisher | Emerald Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-7be9e8df4380433580717335f8b756252022-12-22T04:30:32ZengEmerald PublishingJournal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences2632-279X2020-07-013213715810.1108/JHASS-01-2020-0019648615Keywords and collocations in US presidential discourse since 1993: a corpus-assisted analysisDalia Hamed0Department of Foreign Languages (English), Faculty of Education, Tanta University, Tanta, EgyptPurpose – The purpose of this study is to apply a corpus-assisted analysis of keywords and their collocations in the US presidential discourse from Clinton to Trump to discover the meanings of these words and the collocates they have. Keywords are salient words in a corpus whose frequency is unusually high (positive keywords) or low (negative keywords) in comparison with a reference corpus. Collocation is the co-occurrence of words. Design/methodology/approach – To achieve this purpose, the investigation of keywords and collocations is generated by AntConc, a corpus processing software. Findings – This analysis leads to shed light on the similarities and/or differences amongst the past four American presidents concerning their key topics. Keyword analysis through keyness makes it evident that Clinton and Obama, being Democrats, demonstrate a clear tendency to improve Americans’ life inside their social sphere. Obama surpasses Clinton as regard foreign affairs. Clinton and Obama’s infrequent subjects have to do with terrorism and immigration. This complies with their condensed focus on social and economic improvements. Bush, a republican, concentrates only on external issues. This is proven by his keywords signifying war against terrorism. Bush’s negative use of words marking cooperative actions conforms to his positive use of words indicating external war. Trump’s positive keywords are about exaggerated descriptions without a defined target. He also shows an unusual frequency in referring to his name and position. His words used with negative keyness refer to reforming programs and external issues. Collocations around each top content keyword clarify the word and harmonize with the presidential orientation negotiated by the keywords. Research limitations/implications – Limitations have to do with the issue of the accurate representation of the samples. Originality/value – This research is original in its methodology of applying corpus linguistics tools in the analysis of presidential discourses.https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JHASS-01-2020-0019/full/pdf?title=keywords-and-collocations-in-us-presidential-discourse-since-1993-a-corpus-assisted-analysiscollocationscorpus analysisus presidential discourse |
| spellingShingle | Dalia Hamed Keywords and collocations in US presidential discourse since 1993: a corpus-assisted analysis Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences collocations corpus analysis us presidential discourse |
| title | Keywords and collocations in US presidential discourse since 1993: a corpus-assisted analysis |
| title_full | Keywords and collocations in US presidential discourse since 1993: a corpus-assisted analysis |
| title_fullStr | Keywords and collocations in US presidential discourse since 1993: a corpus-assisted analysis |
| title_full_unstemmed | Keywords and collocations in US presidential discourse since 1993: a corpus-assisted analysis |
| title_short | Keywords and collocations in US presidential discourse since 1993: a corpus-assisted analysis |
| title_sort | keywords and collocations in us presidential discourse since 1993 a corpus assisted analysis |
| topic | collocations corpus analysis us presidential discourse |
| url | https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JHASS-01-2020-0019/full/pdf?title=keywords-and-collocations-in-us-presidential-discourse-since-1993-a-corpus-assisted-analysis |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT daliahamed keywordsandcollocationsinuspresidentialdiscoursesince1993acorpusassistedanalysis |