Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper uses methods from corpus linguistics and discourse analysis to analyse discourses produced by a populist far-right movement, the English Defence League, an organisation which the group elite claim is opposed to the spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in the UK. Two corpora are analysed using the online Corpus Query System, Sketch Engine [Kilgarriff, A., Rychly, P., Smrz, P., & Tugwell, D.. The sketch engine. Proceedings of Euralex. Lorient, France]; one corpus is compiled of texts published by the group leaders on their official website and the second of texts written by group supporters on the organisation’s Facebook page. Furthermore, a thread from the group’s Facebook page is studied. While the group’s mission statement declares that their aim is to oppose radical Islam, an investigation of the data demonstrates that they are an organisation opposed to all forms of Islam and immigration of Muslims to the UK. The study of group members’ texts reveals a discrimination against Muslims based on cultural otherness, intolerance and xenophobia. In addition, EDL supporters construct themselves as victims at the hands of the UK political establishment, police authorities and ethnic minorities. By investigating the discourses of racist, populist movements such as the EDL, contemporary racist ideologies, hate speech and forms of mobilisation may be more fully understood and countered.