Our research is operationalized as work packages, each focusing on a different area of language practices in Britain in 1700–1950.
The main research questions are:
- What large-scale lexical and phraseological trends can be identified over the timeline, how are they linked to processes of democratization and mediatisation, and what is the direction of the effect?
- How is the rhetoric of expert discourses, such as scientific discourse, affected by democratization and mediatization?
- How does democratization affect explicit linguistic markers of power, such as modality?
- How do democratization and mediatization affect evaluative language use in the construction and representation of identity, e.g. in identification, categorization, argumentation, and persuasion?
- How do processes of democratization and mediatization influence expressions of stance and voice, such as the use of self-reference, in public texts and how do the practices contribute to the mediation of social and societal stances?
- How do processes of democratization and mediatization affect multilingual practices, particularly the language use of women and new immigrant communities?
- What kind of correlations and causal interactions can be observed between specific linguistic changes and sociocultural evidence such as demographic and socioeconomic data on migration rates, minority and suffrage movements, electoral participation and education?