Informalization in UK party election broadcasts 1966-97

Abstract

This article uses a novel, quantitatively based method to assess the extent to which UK party election broadcasts in the 31 years between 1966 and 1997 became more ‘informal’. Using the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, I identify 28 linguistic ‘markers’ which are salient in the assessment of formality, and count their frequencies in the 37,000-word corpus. My quantitative findings reveal a general increase in informalization over time, which corresponds with judgements made in critical discourse analysis (CDA). But I also discover an anomaly in the broadcasts from 1987, which I explain with reference to the influence of the Conservative party leader, Margaret Thatcher.