Discursive Representations Of UKIP By The Guardian And The Daily Telegraph Before And After The Brexit Referendum

The United Kingdom held a referendum on whether the UK should remain in the EU on June 23^rd,2016.The Brexit referendum has attracted worldwide attention and has far-reaching implications.The United Kingdom Independence Party?UKIP?led by Nigel Farage played a crucial role in the Brexit referendum with the goal“freedom from the European Union”,which kept the Party and Farage the focus of the British press.Based on Ruth Wodak's Discourse-Historical Approach?DHA?this dissertation studies the reports on UKIP and its leader from The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph in the whole year of 2016.Firstly,the reports on UKIP and Farage are sorted out with the keywords“UKIP”or“Farage”in the headlines from the Dow Jones News Database.Before the Brexit Referendum,64 and 62 reports are collected from The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph,respectively;102 and 76 reports after the referendum.Secondly,the attitudes towards UKIP and Farage are examined respectively in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph pre-and post-Brexit Referendum.Thirdly,this study makes a comparative analysis of how The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph constructed the images of UKIP and Farage by means of predication,argumentation,perspectivization and intensification strategy.Finally,from the micro-,meso-and macro-levels,the historical contexts are interpreted respectively.The results show as follows:Negative reports from The Guardian cover 57%,including 61%of pre-Brexit Referendum negative reports and 54%of post-Brexit Referendum negative reports.The Guardian,in short,constructed Farage as a“racist”,“scaremongering”,“unwelcome”,“burden”,“unreliable”and“divisive”politician.At the phase of post-Brexit Referendum,it depicted UKIP as an“infighting”and“ungovernable”party and Farage as a“populist”,“dangerous”and“unsatisfactory”leader.In terms of target reader,political orientation and Brexit stance,The Guardian mainly caters to the readers from the upper and middle class and is the proponent of Labor Party and against Brexit.Therefore,it is understandable that The Guardian labeled UKIP and Farage negatively.Neutral reports on UKIP and Farage from The Daily Telegraph,however,cover59%with only 36%of pre-and post-Brexit Referendum negative reports.Despite different political attitude from that of The Guardian,The Daily Telegraph applied the same strategies to construct Farage as“paranoiac”,“xenophobic”,“extravagant”,“extreme”and“the most lethal weapon”.After the Brexit Referendum,The Daily Telegraph painted UKIP as an“unruly”and“dysfunctional”organization and Farage as a“threatening”and“irresponsible”“trouble-maker”.On the one hand,The Daily Telegraph has the same target readers with The Guardian.On the other hand,it is the supporter of the Conservative Party and backs Brexit.Thus,it mainly depicted UKIP and Farage with neutral attitudes although some reports reported UKIP and Farage negatively.What the two newspapers share are the four strategies to construct negative images,which might prove that DHA is quite effective in studying political discourses.