The discursive formulation of Brexit: Decision, opportunity and needful agreement
The discursive formulation of Brexit: Decision, opportunity and needful agreement

Summary/Abstract: This study sets out to examine the British Prime Minister Theresa May’s speeches delivered through her premiership. It aims to unveil the ideological discursive formation of Brexit after the referendum, and to investigate the way May squares the rhetoric to persuade the general public and the British/European political Elites to deliver the Brexit deal, though she campaigned pro-European Britain. I conduct a corpus-assisted discourse study approach, using discourse analysis methods and corpus linguistics tools for a case study of a purpose-built corpus of the Prime Minister speeches (2016-2019). The analysis revealed that the Brexit representation eschewed any identification with ‘Europe’ and boosted Eurosceptic sentiments by (1) rationalizing the decision to leave the European Union; (2) proposing a better future after Brexit; (3) appealing to the British people’s emotion to support the Brexit deal.

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