Keyword analysis in presidential rhetoric throughout hundred years of independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: corpus linguistic tools in critical discourse analysis
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Raktinių žodžių analizė; Kritinė diskurso analizė; Prezidentinės; Kalbos; Tautinė tapatybė; Baltijos valstybės. Keywords: Keyword analysis; Critical Discourse Analysis; Presidential; Speeches; National identity; The Baltic States.
ENNational identity is a complex sense of collectivity that is subjected to the historical, social and geopolitical context of the specific nation that may be addressed and constructed by a person who represents the nation internally and externally. The study illustrates how Critical Discourse Analysis as a relatively new direction of principally qualitative research can use quantitative tools of corpus linguistics for detecting and analysing lexical choice tendencies, the frequency and variation in presidential rhetoric in relation to national identity. The goal of the study was to analyse and compare keyword density in 150 speeches by the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on nationally significant occasions over a century. By combining the Discourse-Historical Approach (henceforth DHA) with keyword analysis and KWIC analysis, the study identifies a common tendency of the presidents of the Baltic States to emphasize their foreign policies and present situation in the countries in terms of independence and national security. It is concluded that the presidents of Estonia give higher prominence to communicating ideas of nationality and statehood while the presidents Latvia and Lithuania emphasise the role of the European Union and NATO in the development of the nations. Notably, historical change seems not to influence the keyword density in the speeches as much as the occasion, political affiliation, gender and nationality of the presidents. [From the publication]
