Are ‘we’ European? : We and us in British EU-related newspaper articles in 1975–2015

Abstract

This study contributes to current research on the representation of the European Union in British public discourses. Employing the methods of corpus-assisted discourse studies, the paper examines the use of the pronouns we and us in British EU-related newspaper articles and aims at finding out in which contexts the EU has been included in or excluded from ‘us’. The data consist of 940 EU-related newspaper articles published in the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror and Daily Mail in the years 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2015. The findings suggest that, in the left-wing papers, EU-related issues were more often reported from the European perspective than in the right-wing papers, especially in 2005 and 2015. In addition, when EU-related issues were reported from the national perspective, the tone was usually more evaluative and critical of the EU, whereas with the European perspective more focus was given to the EU’s future and processes.