LGBT* People in the Speeches of Italian and British PMs: a CorpusAssisted Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate current trends in the representation of LGBT* people within the speeches of British and Italian PMs. Considered the formulaic nature of PMs’ institutional interventions and their social resonance, the objective is to investigate how LGBT* people are discursively presented in the institutional discourse of two traditionally androcentric and patriarchal contexts, with an eye on similarities and differences in the two discursive productions. Starting from a multi-disciplinary approach which strengthens up in the framework of Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Studies, the linguistic choices and the discursive strategies used to convey a given representation of LGBT* people as social actors are uncovered. Subsequently, the study develops into a contrastive analysis focused on revealing emerging commonalities and differences between the two cases with the end of delivering a productive output where further discussion could be raised.