This article briefly reviews the rise of Critical Discourse Analysis and teases out a detailed analysis of the various critiques that have been levelled at CDA and its practitioners over the last twenty years, both by scholars working within the “critical” paradigm and by other critics. A range of criticisms are discussed which target the underlying premises, the analytical methodology and the disputed areas of reader response and the integration of contextual factors. Controversial issues such as the predominantly negative focus of much CDA scholarship, and the status of CDA as an emergent “intellectual orthodoxy”, are also reviewed. The conclusions offer a summary of the principal criticisms that emerge from this overview, and suggest some ways in which these problems could be attenuated.

Despite growing interest in corporate discourse practices, linguists have rarely focused specifically on the discursive legitimation of institutional or corporate actors after perceived episodes of wrongdoing. This may be due to the fact that under normal conditions, legitimation may scarcely be perceptible, only reaching a significant pitch when a major crisis threatens the existence of the agents involved. Should such an event occur, then institutions will summon up a range of justificatory discursive strategies embodying ideological elements that will resonate with socially accepted ideas, feelings or desires. One case in which legitimation could clearly be perceived was that of the oil industry after the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In the wake of the disaster, as the oil spread and the crisis appeared to be uncontrollable, public opinion turned against the oil industry. It comes as no surprise that the messages to shareholders published in the annual reports of oil corporations during the following year all make reference to the incident and attempt to legitimate both the individual companies and the sector as a whole, in the eyes of the public in general and the shareholders for whom the reports are intended. This article examines the discourses of legitimation used in these texts, focusing specifically on the roles assumed by the writer as scientist and environmentalist, as well as financial expert, and on the story-telling techniques used to present the events as a survivor narrative. It discusses ways in which these writers endeavour to engage readers’ solidarity, while also appealing to their interests as stakeholders. These discourses operate on an ideological level to underpin the workings of large corporations within the complex panorama of contemporary capitalism.

Legal language is often said to be formulaic, but little research is available on the nature of frequently occurring sequences of words in different legal genres. This article investigates the lexical bundles found in four legal corpora: academic law, case law, legislation, and documents. Major differences are brought to light between the type of bundles that are found, and the roles they have in the text. Academic legal writing uses relatively little formulaic language. Case law uses noun phrase bundles relating to agents, documents and actions, as well as many extended prepositional phrases. Legislation and documents contain many noun phrase bundles, and verb phrase bundles with a deontic or referential function. The function of these different types of bundle as parts of a schematic frame or as slot-fillers is discussed.

Much previous research on right-wing populist parties in Europe has concentrated on what they share, and has failed to problematise the term “populist.” This article sets out from one proposed distinction between populism and nationalism, comparing the discourses of two relatively under-researched parties: Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). Analysis of the way these two parties operationalise both a vertical (populist) and horizontal (nationalist) axis brings out some differences, as well as major areas of overlap. The conclusions suggest that such parties activate hostility to elites (populism) in order to destabilise the political landscape, while boosting support for anti-migrant and anti-EU stances (nationalism). The vertical axis is particularly powerful because it exploits pre-existing sources of resentment or suspicion and enables the people to be positioned as “victims,” thereby legitimating their attacks on “others” who threaten the people's space.

A relatively small number of studies on beliefs about oral corrective feedback (CF) have uncovered a mismatch between teachers’ and students’ attitudes which is potentially harmful to the language learning process, not only because students may become demotivated when their expectations are not met, but also because teachers appear to be reluctant to provide oral CF. One of the reasons why teachers may feel this way seems to be that they are worried about triggering negative emotions in their students. So far, however, hardly any research exists which takes students’ affective responses to CF into account. Previous studies have also neglected to investigate how students prefer to be corrected. Against this background, the present survey study asked 395 students and 46 teachers of English as a foreign language what their attitudes and feelings are with regard to oral CF. Previous findings that students want to be corrected much more than their teachers feel inclined to do were confirmed. Moreover, students were found to be much more positive about explicit types of CF than their teachers are, and to experience positive emotions when receiving CF.