Worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment: Strengthening qualitative corpus methods in the critical discourse analysis of protest press coverage

Abstract

The increasingly used method of corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has recently been criticised for lacking identifiable and accountable methods in its qualitative analyses. For example, manual concordance analysis (a popular corpus technique involving the ‘close reading’ of text) rarely explicates the qualitative method involved – that is, if any has been used at all. This article seeks to strengthen qualitative concordance analysis in the context of the press representation of protests. In doing so, it theoretically formulates the novel linguistic application of Tilly’s sociological ‘WUNC’ framework, which argues protests and social movements are successful when they display worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment. By mapping prominent CDA theories onto Tilly’s definitions of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment, the article offers a replicable qualitative approach to the analysis of concordances specific to linguistic research about the press representation of protests.