How homo economicus is reflected in fiction – A corpus linguistic analysis of 19th and 20th century capitalist societies

Publication date: Available online 17 August 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Michael Pace-SiggeAbstractThe 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.
Source: Language Sciences - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research