Corpus Linguistics and Emancipatory Discourse

A lot of corpus-based CDA work has focused on dominant discourses, especially in media and politics, to shed light on how ideology works through discourse to maintain unequal power structures and produce demeaning-cum-discriminatory discourses. Consequently, little research attention has been given to emancipatory discourses, the reconstruction of resistance, or how members of marginalized groups contend with and counter oppressive social structures and strictures. This article discusses how corpus linguistics can contribute to the scholarship on emancipatory discourses and explains why (critical) discourse analysts and applied linguists must not only document, expose, and resist inequities/injustices in society, but must also adopt an activist-scholar posture—as part of their emancipatory efforts—to push for positive social change.