Identity Construction and Common Ground Building in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Tweets: A Combined Approach of Corpus Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis

Sammanfattning: This paper presents a linguistic study of social media posts made by the American politician and member of Congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Media outlets have hypothesized that her presence on social networking websites could be one of the factors that contributed to her recent political success. As such, this paper aims to provide insight into a topical subject and analyze the language choices the politician makes in her online communication. A particular area of focus is the notion of identity as her identity is cited as another of the factors that helped her attract a supporter base. The analysis was conducted through a combined approach of corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis. A corpus of posts made by Ocasio-Cortez on the social networking platform Twitter was assembled and notable patterns found with the aid of corpus analysis tools were further discussed considering linguistic theories related to the construction of identity. Research found that Ocasio-Cortez utilized linguistic strategies of common ground building and used inclusive plural pronouns to establish a sense of familiarity with her supporters. In addition, she used in-group language and deconstructed stereotypes in order to emphasize aspects of her identity and present them as strengths. The study has shown how a fringe candidate who belongs to marginalized social groups can use language to create a positive image and connect with voters.