A corpus linguistic analysis of 19th and 20th century capitalist societies

What is it about?

The issue of power and the use of language has been widely researched (e.g.: Bernstein, 1973; Fairclough, 1989), as have the issues of power-relations and control (cf. Bourdieu, 1991; Partington et al., 2013). This corpus-based lexical investigation focuses on the frequency, collocations, and semantic associations of words likely to express the presence or absence of an economic and power structure. For this, British works of literature of the 19th and 20th century were investigated. More specifically, this article also tries to answer the question of whether key concepts of Marx's critique of political economy, as articulated through the words prominent in English translations of Marx's works, have left a noticeable impact on the language found in literature.

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Why is it important?

Corpus linguistic tools can provide important insights into the composition and development of ideologies through their representation in lexical choices. • Words connected to the world of work and to (economic) power relations appear in literary works though at rather low frequencies; The ownership of property, as for example references like “the mine owner” or “the shareholders” are minimal. • Examination in context of such key lexical areas as FACTORY, PAY, WORKING reveals that such words are not necessarily used in a way that can be construed as furthering the cause of the working classes. • The political class of workers appears marginalized with the terms working class/es used not as a reference to active agents but as a more general sociological descriptor. • References to money, being paid or pay, are often found with negative connotations and prosodies.