Towards a decade of synergising corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis: a meta-analysis

Abstract

The incorporation of corpus linguistics (CL) methods within critical discourse analysis (CDA) has increasingly gathered momentum over the last decade. This paper surveys studies using this triangulated framework, drawing on a database of 121 studies collected from three citation indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, and Scopus. It presents a meta-analysis of these studies focussing on four variables, namely their chronological development, the domains of engagement, the issues that have been topicalised, and the area/regional coverage of the studies. In particular, the paper accounts for the factors that have contributed to the popularity of corpus-based CDA in the last decade as an approach to discourse analysis, provides insights into the evolution of this eclectic approach, and anticipates the future of the framework by offering suggestions. The paper concludes that corpus-based CDA presents both discourse analysts and corpus linguists with a robust methodology to tackle research questions bordering on discursive reflections of social issues and to identify new sites of public discourse for systematic analysis.