Cooperation and demotion: A corpus-based critical discourse analysis of Aboriginal people(s) in Australian print news

Abstract

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activists and researchers agree that print media discourses surrounding First Nations people(s) in Australia remain negative and stereotypical. However, how these discourses are constructed in language – and therefore linguistic practices which should be avoided – has so far received minimal attention. Analysing a purpose-built corpus of Australian newspaper articles, this study uses the corpus linguistic technique of collocation analysis to identify relevant discourses and examines the linguistic construction of one discourse that had not yet been identified: cooperation. It finds that although notions of cooperation are ostensibly positive (and therefore contrast with discourses identified in previous research), this is often undermined by syntagmatic processes which demote agential Aboriginal participants to prepositional phrases. Prepositions are often neglected in corpus linguistics and in critical discourse analysis, making this an important finding.