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Discourse & Society
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From `Politically Correct Councillors' to `Blairite Nonsense': Discourses of `Political Correctness' in Three British Newspapers

SALLY JOHNSON

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY s.johnson{at}lancaster.ac.uk

JONATHAN CULPEPER

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY j.culpeper{at}lancaster.ac.uk

STEPHANIE SUHR

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY s.suhr{at}lancaster.ac.uk

This article explores discourses of `political correctness' (`PC') in a corpus of articles gathered from three broadsheet newspapers in the UK between 1994 and 1999. Using the software package WordSmith Tools (Scott, 1999) two types of analysis were undertaken: first, a numerical count of so-called `PC'-related terms (`political correctness', `politically correct', etc.) in each of the three newspapers; and second, a compilation of the `keywords' which occurred most frequently within the corpus in relation to the term `political correctness'. Our study reveals an overall decline in the use of `PC'-related terms throughout the period in question, but suggests some interesting shifts in the way in which discourses of `political correctness' have been drawn upon as a means of framing debates over the British Labour Party.

Key Words: corpus linguistics • newspaper discourse • `political correctness'

Discourse & Society, Vol. 14, No. 1, 29-47 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0957926503014001928
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