ABSTRACT
Using tools of linguistic analysis, the study of how texts, particularly media texts, frame the events or issues they describe is one part of what is known as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). This branch of linguistics sheds light on how such framings can constrain appreciation of what is being reported. Before corpus linguistics became mainstream, CDA examined such framings in single texts at a particular point in time, or over a very short period. One of the advantages of the abundance of media texts in electronic form on the world-wide web is the ease with which corpora can be assembled for revealing the following: how media texts might be repeatedly framing issues or events which are reported over a significant period of time. This is a real advance for Critical Discourse Analysis. Conveniently, using corpus investigation, critical discourse analysts can now gain insight into the kinds of cultural and ideological meanings being circulated regularly, as well as being potentially reproduced by readers. Increasingly, critical discourse analysts employ corpora in their investigations of media discourse.
