The rise of choice as an absolute
‘good’: a study of British manifestos
(1900-2010)
Lesley Jeffries and Matthew Evans, University of Huddersfield, UK
Abstract
In this article we report on a corpus-based study of a term, ‘choice’, previously found to be a
keyword in relation to New Labour (Jeffries and Walker, 2011). The project investigates the
use of this term across contemporary British politics and demonstrates how an individual
lexeme can undergo significant changes in meaning across time within a particular discourse,
at the same time increasing in political significance. The article describes our approach,
which combines corpus linguistics and critical stylistics, before analysing the use of the word
‘choice’ by the three main UK political parties in their UK general election manifestos from
1900 to 2010.
Key words: Corpus linguistics, corpus stylistics, critical stylistics, critical discourse analysis,
keywords, key-words
1. Introduction
This project builds on previous research by Jeffries and Walker (2011) into cultural key words
in British politics. The former project investigated press coverage of Tony Blair’s years as
prime minister, resulting in a list of six words found to be ‘key’ in the reporting of the New
Labour years (1998-2007). This list of politically and socially significant words included
‘choice’, the focus of the current project, which seeks to pursue the next stage identified in
Jeffries and Walker’s research: “detailed analysis… taking a longer historical perspective”
(2011: 36). To achieve this aim, we use methods associated with both corpus linguistics and
critical stylistics to investigate the occurrence and use of the word ‘choice’ in the general
election manifestos of the three main British political Parties (Conservative, Labour and
Liberal/Liberal Democrat) across the twentieth and early twenty first centuries.
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2. Background
Corpus Linguistics has burgeoned in recent years and the speed of technological evolution is
such that huge, multi-million-word corpora are now not only feasible, but can be made
available online in accessible formats for many researchers to exploit in their work. One
consequence of this technologically-driven development is that there has been an increasing
focus on the software written to enable researchers to mine this enormous untapped
resource, and much ingenuity has been expended on producing software which can access
subtle linguistic features by automated means, bridging the conceptual gap between
programming and knowledge about language. For example, Anthony’s AntConc programme
(2011) allows researchers to access a detailed overview of where keywords occur in texts
and which other words they collocate with, while the Corpus Workbench programme (Hardie
and Evert 2010) enables the study of corpora of up to 2 billion words, providing detailed
annotation of linguistic features. In this context, some of the more technologically modest
potential uses of corpus linguistics have been less in evidence, though their practical
combination of searchable corpora and qualitative analysis often has the power to answer
immediate and pressing questions about language itself, rather than about programming or
artificial intelligence.
This study, then, fits into the latter category of corpus-assisted research which has been
extensively used by pioneers of corpus linguistics. Studies include Sinclair (2004) and Louw
(1993), which look at collocation and semantic prosody, and McEnery and Baker (2005),
which is similar in aims as well as methodology to the one being reported here. In each of
these cases, a corpus is explicitly assembled (sometimes by extracting subsets of a larger
corpus) to answer particular research questions. The corpus is then used to discover
patterns of usage which are subsequently investigated in detail using corpus software to
produce concordance lines which provide the context for a qualitative investigation of items
of interest. See also Haarman et al (2004) and Baker (2009) for corpus studies using similar
techniques.
The particular research question being addressed here regards the use of the word ‘choice’
in political language in Britain. Jeffries and Walker’s (2011) study uses corpus techniques to
show that ‘choice’ was a key word in language related to the Labour Party between 1998
and 2007. Their analysis showed that not only did occurrences of the word ‘choice’ in the
data refer to the traditional form of electoral choice facing voters at each general election,
but that it seemed to have taken on a new, ideologically-laden meaning. The study posited
that ‘choice’ “became another of the naturalised absolutes of these years” (2011: 30-1):
choice became an ideological concept, an absolute ‘good’ akin to freedom or democracy.
Absolute goods represent certain ideological assumptions, referring to “‘natural’ or
‘common sense’…beliefs and values which may prove to be highly contestable or dubious in
their own terms” (Simpson and Mayr, 2010: 55). Jeffries and Walker contend that the
particular concept of choice in the New Labour data denotes the application of “the
underlying principles of capitalism” (2011: 32) – for example, competition and market forces
– to public services: there seems to be an underlying assumption that privatisation is
desirable, that citizens should be able to choose between different services in health care or
education, just as they have become accustomed to choosing between different brands of
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washing powder. Indeed, this trend appears to have been noticed by certain elements of the
British press: a recent report in the Guardian on potential NHS reforms observes how
“successive governments have trumpeted a mantra of patient choice” (Meikle, 2011).
Researchers in CDA suggest that words such as ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and ‘choice’ shift in
meaning to become absolute goods over time, through a process of naturalisation. For
example, while at one time the status of ‘democracy’ as an absolute good may have been
contestable, it is now presented in the West “as if it were simply part of the natural order of
things” (Simpson and Mayr, 2010: 56). This study, then, looks to uncover not only whether,
when and for which parties the word ‘choice’ itself became of significance, but also to use
methods drawn from critical stylistics (see Jeffries 2010) to track the purported development
of the ideological concept of choice.
3. Methodology
Jeffries and Walker’s (2011) study suggests that ‘choice’ was both a statistically and
culturally key word during the New Labour period (1998-2007). Our approach in this project
is to use corpora comparison to first of all discover the timing and speed of the rise of this
word as politically significant across the three main British political parties’ manifestos
during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (1900-2010). Subsequently, tools of
analysis drawn from critical stylistics (Jeffries 2010) are used to make more detailed
observations about the cultural significance of the word ‘choice’.
Our research corpus comprises each of the manifestos published by the Conservative,
Labour and Liberal parties for each of the 28 UK general elections that took place between
1900 and 2010, in full. Election manifestos were chosen as the basis for our study as they
provide a clear snapshot of political language at the time of interest, with the parties/writers
eager to express the political ideologies of the time in a way that is appealing to
readers/voters. As hypothesized in the previous study, an ideology such as the intrinsic value
of the political concept of choice in public services (Jeffries and Walker, 2011) is expected to
be in evidence in texts geared towards persuading readers of the correctness of a particular
political worldview. Not only are these documents well suited to the aims of the project, but
they also constitute a clearly defined and easily manageable dataset, allowing for simple,
clear comparisons to be made across years and parties.
The manifesto data for the years 1900-2001 were sourced from a group of websites
providing
full
versions
of
party
manifestos:
conservativemanifesto.com,
labourmanifesto.com and libdemmanifesto.com. Manifestos from the 2005 and 2010
elections were sourced from the three parties’ own websites. At this stage, it was important
to consider any fundamental differences that might exist between the documents, and to
decide whether any alterations needed to be made to ensure the fairest results possible.
First, we considered whether features of the manifestos such as headings, highlighted
quotes and textboxes ought to be removed from the data. While these features could be
seen as ‘separate’ from the main text, they are used frequently by each of the parties, and –
just like the main body of text - are employed in order to have an influential effect on the
reader, and so are relevant to our research. Furthermore, these features could themselves
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be a source of highly relevant data, as they may be just the sort of features used by the
parties to highlight ideologies that they consider important. They were therefore retained in
the data. For similar reasons, ‘personal addresses’ from party leaders and heads of
department were also left unedited.
Each individual manifesto was then uploaded to the computer corpora program WMatrix
(2009), as were files representing the totality of the three parties’ manifestos for each
election year. For each manifesto/year, a search was then performed for the word ‘choice’.
By looking through the concordances, it became clear that, in a number of manifestos,
certain complete structures containing the word ‘choice’ were repeated. After
consideration, it was decided that repetitions should be included in the results, as the
repeated use of ‘choice’/the ideological concept of choice will affect the reader’s experience
of the text and – potentially - further the naturalization of the idea. Similarly, sentences
containing more than one occurrence of the word ‘choice’ were included multiple times,
with each occurrence analysed separately.
These results were first of all used to create graphs depicting the use of the word ‘choice’
across election years and parties (see Figure 1).
70
60
50
40
30
All parties
20
10
0
Figure 1 Occurrences of ‘choice’ by election year (raw numbers)
This first step helped us to refine the parameters of our study: a quick glance suggested that
in the early years of the period under investigation, the word ‘choice’ occurred fairly
infrequently: just 5 times in the thirty-three manifestos produced between 1900 and 1935.
Further analysis showed that, of these, 4 referred simply to electoral choice, and the fifth to
the importance of independent governance in Northern Ireland (“We are equally pledged to
safeguard the freedom of choice and the security of the Parliament and Government of
Northern Ireland” (Conservatives, 1922)). We therefore decided that this period was of little
interest to our study, and so the historical range of our analysis was narrowed to 1945-2010.
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To facilitate a more detailed investigation of the use of the word ‘choice’, a concordance
database was created based on the search term (‘choice’) and tagged according to party and
year (retaining repeated structures for the reasons given above). Each concordance
(excluding those referring simply to electoral choice) was also tagged for a variety of
linguistic features central to critical stylistic analysis: transitivity, modality, subordination,
pre- and post-modification, coordination, opposition, presupposition/implicature and
negation. This provided a thorough overview of the data and allowed for easy sorting
according to different linguistic features. Each sentence containing the search term was also
semantically categorized according to the field of political concern it addressed, allowing us
to map the areas in which the word ‘choice’ occurs across time and parties. Given that all
the data being studied is drawn from the same genre, and that there are natural limits on
the types of discussion in which the word ‘choice’ is likely to occur (generally, government
policies that are likely to affect some or all readers), this use of an inductive method to
produce categories from the data seemed well-suited to the study. It should be noted here
that many sentences fell into the straightforward category of ‘Electoral choice’ – these
instances do not carry the ideological connotations of the political concept of choice.
Sentences of interest were divided into the categories ‘Consumer choice’, ‘Education’,
‘Employment’, ‘Enterprise’, ‘Government policy’ (international affairs and reflections on
choices taken by parties), ‘Health and care’, ‘Housing’, ‘Legal’, ‘Public services’ (in general),
‘Retirement and pensions’ and ‘Rights’.
A final consideration at this stage concerned the reliability of the raw figures for the parties’
use of the word ‘choice’. A simple examination of the manifestos made it clear that they
vary significantly in length: while the documents generally get longer over time, there is
considerable variation, and the three parties frequently produce manifestos of quite
different lengths for any one particular election (see Appendix). Therefore, simply looking at
raw frequencies could be misleading. For example, the word ‘choice’ is used 5 times in both
the Conservative 1964 and Labour 1983 manifestos; however, the word is clearly of greater
significance in the much shorter Conservative manifesto (8,070 words compared to 23,169
in the Labour manifesto). We therefore decided that a means of measuring the proportional
significance of the word ‘choice’ in each manifesto was required. As well as compiling
statistics detailing the quantity of occurrences of a word in a document, WMatrix also
provides an analysis of the relative frequency of any given word: this allowed us to gauge
the significance of the word ‘choice’ in relation to the size of its parent document. Relative
frequency figures were gathered for all the manifestos (as well as the cross-party files), and
placed in two new graphs (see Figures 2 and 3, below): this is the representation of the data
on which our analysis draws.
4. Results and discussion
The analysis is divided into two sections. The first takes a diachronic approach to the use of
the word ‘choice’ across time, based on the representation of the data in Graphs 2 and 3.
This approach allows us to tell the narrative of the rise of the word ‘choice’ . The second
section of the analysis then draws on methods from critical stylistics to explore the changing
significance of the ideological meaning of choice across time. Discussion in this section is
based on the semantic categorisations explained in the Methodology. The second section of
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the analysis focuses on linguistic patterns in use of the word ‘choice’, and how they affect its
meaning.
Once the period under investigation had been reduced to the post-war years, since the prewar years showed so few occurrences of ‘choice’, the picture of an increasing focus on the
word ‘choice’ in election manifestos remained strong, as can be seen from Figure 2:
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
All parties
0.04
0.02
2010
2005
2001
1997
1992
1987
1983
1979
1974 (Oct)
1974 (Feb)
1970
1966
1964
1959
1955
1951
1950
1945
0
Figure 2: Occurrences of ‘choice’ in the post-war years (normalised results per 1000
words)
A quick glance at Figure 2 suggests that use of the word ‘choice’ hit a peak in the four
elections held between 1992 and 2005, before a significant fall for the most recent election
in 2010. As a result, we decided to separate out 1992-2005 and 2010 as distinct periods for
use in our analysis. In the preceding years, use of the word ‘choice’ remains relatively low
and fairly consistent, with two noticeable peaks in 1955 and 1987. In order to gain a clearer
picture of whether these two election years were of particular significance in use of the
word ‘choice’, we consulted the more detailed data in Figure 3. The discussion below will
investigate the detail of how this word became so common and what semantic changes
accompanied this rise in usage. The finer-grained statistical detail seen in Figure 3
demonstrates that the composite figures hide some interesting differences between the
political parties:
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0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
Conservatives
Labour
0.1
Liberal
0.05
2010
2005
2001
1997
1992
1987
1983
1979
1974 (Oct)
1974 (Feb)
1970
1966
1964
1959
1955
1951
1950
1945
0
Figure 3 Relative frequency of ‘choice’ in party manifestos, 1945-2010 (normalised
results per 1000 words)
Figure 3 suggests that 1987 may have been of significance due to the great increase in the
Conservative party’s use of the word ‘choice’, which seems to indicate the beginning of a
continuing upward trend in this party’s use of the term, which is followed in later elections
by rising Labour usage. Based on this observation, we decided to isolate 1987 as a particular
period for study. While 1955 appears to be notable for the fairly frequent use of the word
‘choice’ by all parties, it is not until 1966 that any one party’s use of the term climbs
particularly high. Therefore, we decided that 1945-64 would be the first period for our
analysis. Of the remaining years, the consecutive manifestos of 1979 and 1983 appear to be
significant in that the Liberals, unusually, use the word ‘choice’ more frequently than either
the Conservatives or Labour. Meanwhile, the years preceding this period are notable for
relatively high usage of the term by the Conservatives. Therefore, the last two periods to be
defined were 1966-74 inclusive and 1979 and 1983. The following discussion uses these
periods as its organizing principle.
4.1 Diachronic analysis
1945-64
In the 6 elections under discussion (1945, 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964), the word ‘choice’
occurs a total of just 33 times. Of these, 6 are used in the context of discussing voters’
electoral choice, e.g. “It is a simple choice – Labour or Tory” (Labour, 1951), “THE NATION’S
CHOICE” (Conservatives, 1955). Amongst the remaining 27 instances, the most significant
semantic category is ‘Consumer choice’, followed by ‘Government policy’ and ‘Rights’. 9 out
of the 12 references to ‘Consumer choice’ are made by the Conservatives in such contexts as
the following:
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•
•
•
Reflections on their policies - “We have proved…by restoring housewives’
choice…that Conservative freedom works” (1955)
Assertions about the workings of the market - “Competition and free choice are the
customers’ most effective safeguards” (1964)
Significantly, as the heading of a section of their 1955 manifesto on the
undesirability of an over-powerful state - “CONSUMER CHOICE”.
This trend appears to suggest the early embracing by the Conservative party of consumer
culture, with the party seeking to make political capital from the post-war promise of more
technology and more goods. This notion is backed up by the way that choices of this kind are
often constructed as something belonging to (particular groups of) voters: for example, in
their 1955 statement that “We insist on…freedom of choice for consumers”, the party uses
post-modification to highlight consumers’ ownership of this variety of choice, while in 1964
the party insists that in order to receive a suitable amount of “information, education and
entertainment…viewers and listeners must be given the widest possible choice of
programs”; here, the importance of “viewers and listeners” having a particular type of
choice is emphasised by the use of a passive structure.
The word ‘choice’ is used in relation to ‘Government policy’ on 5 occasions: 4 times by
Labour and once by the Liberals. While these figures may at first appear to be of some
significance, the uses in this category carry few of the connotations of ideological choice,
suggesting that the word had yet to begin undergoing a change in meaning. Indeed, most of
the examples here concern choices that have been made in international politics, or make
clear-cut statements about the options available to the government/public in particular
situations: “the Commonwealth Prime Ministers welcomed the free choice of India, Pakistan
and Ceylon to join the Commonwealth” (Labour, 1950), “There need be no choice for Britain
between Europe and the Commonwealth” (Liberals, 1950). Similarly, the 5 occurrences of
the word ‘choice’ in relation to ‘Rights’ are fairly conventional. In a couple of instances, the
term occurs in the phrase ‘of their choice’, referring to an individual’s right to make a
selection from a range of options: “We respect the views of those…who would wish to
support one or other of the smaller parties of their choice” (Labour, 1945), “We exist as a
Party to defend the rights of the individual…to associate with others of his own choice”
(Liberals, 1955). Similarly, a further Liberal usage discusses how the party would “reform the
voting system so as to give electors the opportunity of expressing an additional choice or
choices, as well as a first choice…” (1945) (this use of the word ‘choice’ was included for
analysis as it refers to franchise in general, as opposed to voters’ electoral choice at a
particular, imminent election). However, the final use of the word ‘choice’ in this category is
of greater interest, appearing in the Conservatives’ statement that “It will be our aim and
purpose to make an early reduction in taxation in a way that will stimulate energy and
permit free individual choice” (1945): here, the pre-modifying adjectives “free” and
“individual” hint strongly at the ideological sense of choice as a generalised ‘good’, a sense
reinforced by the lack of any post-modification explaining exactly what the choice under
discussion might involve. Furthermore, the Conservatives here make a clear case for a
relationship of causation between government policy and the ideological form of choice,
making this an early sign of the political significance attributed to the latter by the parties. In
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this use of the word ‘choice’, alongside the popularity of the new idea of ‘Consumer choice’
for the Conservatives, it is possible to see the roots of the sort of ideological choice that
would later become a recognisable theme in British political language.
1966-74
The word ‘choice’ is used 33 times across the 1964, 1970, February 1974 and October 1974
elections. 13 of these occurrences refer to electoral choice, with 11 of these uses by the
Conservatives in 1970 and February 1974. Of the remaining occurrences, all but 2 are used
by the Conservatives. Interestingly, ‘Consumer choice’ is referred to less during this period,
with ‘Rights’ and ‘Education’ being the two most significant areas in Conservative use of the
term. The ‘Rights’ category crops up in 3 of the 4 Conservative manifestos during this period,
and a number of uses appear to build on the ideological sense of choice noted in the
discussion of the party’s use of “free individual choice” above. In each instance, there is little
in the pre- or post-modification of the word ‘choice’ to indicate what this choice might
involve, other than a general sense of freedom/individualism and quantity:
•
•
•
“I want to see choice become once more part of the pattern of life of the individual”
(1966)
“We aim to reduce the burden of taxation, and to extend individual choice, freedom
and responsibility” (1970)
“People are not clamouring for Whitehall to seize even greater control over their
lives. They want more choice and diversity, not less” (October 1974).
While the noun ‘choice’ is not explicated through pre- or post-modification in these
examples, it is frequently paired with other nouns through coordination. Furthermore, these
coordinates tend to be readily recognisable ‘goods’ – in the above examples, “freedom and
responsibility” and “diversity”. By marking out the existence of a close, natural relationship
between the concept of ‘choice’ and these naturalised goods, the Conservatives are able to
imply its significance and desirability.
The word ‘choice’ occurs 6 times in relation to ‘Education’ in the Conservatives’ 1970 and
February and October 1974 manifestos. Of particular note are the examples from February
1974, in which the phrase ‘parental choice’ is used on 3 separate occasions. As mentioned in
the discussion of ‘Consumer choice’ in the previous section, the attribution through
grammatical means of the word ‘choice’ to a particular group appears to be a sign of the
ideological sense of choice. By pre-modifying the noun ‘choice’ with the adjective ‘parental’,
the Conservatives neatly package up the idea of a particular type of choice, belonging to a
particular group:
•
•
•
“Local education authorities should allow genuine scope for parental choice”
“we shall continue to judge local education authorities' proposals…on their merits,
paying special regard to…the retention of parental choice”
“It is expressed…in the importance we attach to parental choice in education”.
The repetition of this phrase suggests that the party is not only eager to get across the idea
of an ideological sense of choice in education (note that these examples do not explain what
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these choices will involve), but that it is also keen to make the idea compelling by suggesting
that this choice belongs to parents, a social group that will be represented amongst readers.
Another interesting aspect of the use of the word ‘choice’ to emerge during this period is its
quantifiability/malleability. While in the preceding period the Conservatives stated their
desire that viewers and listeners be “given the widest possible choice of programmes”
(1964) and claimed that “We wish to extend the range of choice [in broadcasting] still
further” (1964), the uses here both clearly refer to a range of choice: a choice is available to
consumers, and it is up to them to make a selection from the variety on offer. However, in
many examples (10/20) from the period presently being discussed, the word ‘choice’
becomes an undifferentiated mass noun – rather than a range of separate choices that can
be extended or made wider, there is now a singular entity that can be increased, and which
can be ‘wider’ or ‘greater’ than other types of choice: an aim discussed in the Conservatives’
1966 manifesto is to “Provide more choice and competition in broadcasting”, while other
policies “are designed to bring higher quality and wider choice into our lives” (Conservatives,
1966) or hope to help “people to achieve…greater freedom of choice” (Conservatives, 1970).
1979 and 1983
Of the 28 uses of the word ‘choice’ across these two elections, 12 of them are by the
Liberals. While 4 of these occurrences are to do with straightforward electoral choice, a
further 4 suggest a focus on ‘Housing’ during this period. Furthermore, in the following
examples, the choice in question is attributed to a possessor, through a variety of
grammatical means:
•
•
•
The use of ‘everyone’ as the possessor in a relational possessive structure in
“Everyone must have access to adequate housing with a wide choice of tenure and
type of home” (1979) emphasises the universality of this aim
The use of an adverbial in “Alliance housing policy has three basic aims…to provide
wider genuine choice for consumers” (1983) makes clear who housing policy will be
providing for
The use of both direct and indirect objects in “We propose…changing council
allocation and transfer procedures to give tenants far more choice about where they
live” (1983) details what will be given and to whom.
In each of these examples, the (potential) possessor of certain types of choice is a large,
generalised group (“everyone”, “consumers”, “tenants”), helping make the pledges seem
relevant to all readers.
Other Liberal uses of ‘choice’ during this period occur in discussion of Education,
Employment and Rights. Interestingly, Liberal examples frequently make use of forms of
modality other than future epistemic or categorical assertions. The examples below use
either deontic modality to stress the importance of a certain policy being employed or
boulomaic modality to set out the party’s beliefs:
•
“Everyone must have access to adequate housing with a wide choice of tenure and
type of home” (1979)
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•
•
“Secondary education must be non-selective…to give maximum choice to students”
(1979)
“Liberals believe in…Providing greater choice for the individual.” (1979).
These examples are significantly different to the pledge structures in which the word ‘choice’
tends to be used. The emphasis on the setting out of a world view suggests the party feels it
is important to explain to the reader just what the Liberal party is about.
The 9 Conservative uses of the word ‘choice’ during this period continue to reflect a
preoccupation with ‘Consumer choice’ and ‘Education’:
•
•
•
•
“All the controls have achieved is a loss of jobs and a reduction in consumer choice”
(1979)
“We will now…sanction the launch of new cable networks to bring wider choice to
consumers” (1983)
“Extending parents' rights and responsibilities, including their right of choice, will
also help raise standards” (1979)
“We shall continue to seek ways of widening parental choice and influence over
their children's schooling” (1983).
Meanwhile, 3 of the 7 Labour uses of the word ‘choice’ attend to Rights:
•
•
•
“We reject the concept that there is a choice to be made between a prosperous and
efficient Britain and a caring and compassionate society” (1979)
“Women should have a genuine choice between staying at home to look after the
family or going to work” (1983)
“Their policies restrict choice for members of families - in particular they reduce the
freedom of men and women to choose whether to work or to stay at home and look
after their families” (1983).
These examples suggest that there is still little evidence of the ideological concept of choice
in public services in Labour’s manifestos. Interestingly, though, of the 3 remaining individual
occurrences (one is repeated) of the word ‘choice’ in Labour’s 1979 and 1983 manifestos, 2
reflect a concern with ‘Housing’, similar to the Liberals’ noted above: “Labour also seeks to
widen choice, and we shall therefore continue to help those who wish to buy their own
homes” (1979), “Our aim is a decent home for all with real freedom of choice between
renting and owning” (1983).
1987
The statistics for Conservative use of the word ‘choice’ in 1987 suggest that this was the year
when the word began to take on considerable political significance. While a number of the
Conservative uses still fall into the ‘Consumer choice’ and ‘Rights’ categories, the ideological
idea of choice appears to be cropping up more frequently in discussion of a variety of public
services, including ‘Housing’, ‘Retirement’ and ‘Health and care’. As in the early 1970s
manifestos, however, it is ‘Education’ that appears most often in Conservative discussion of
choice and public services. Further, it is notable that in 4 of the 5 Conservative uses of the
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word ‘choice’ in relation to ‘Education’ in this manifesto, parents are included within the
definition of the possessor of the choice in question:
•
•
•
•
“we will increase parental choice”
“a variety of schools...will give parents greater choice”
“parents still need better opportunities to send their children to the school of their
choice”
“If...parents and governing bodies wish to become independent of the LEA, they will
be given the choice to do so”.
As noted previously, the inclusion of an explicit possessor is significant in creating the
impression of choice as something that readers will be given should they vote for the party
in question: in this manifesto, choice within education is repeatedly sold to parents as
something desirable; the fact that some parents may wish that their children simply be
provided with a good education through the state, without them themselves having to
respond to any sort of ‘choice’, is not acknowledged.
The frequent usage of the word ‘choice’ in discussion of ‘Rights’, as noted in the 1966-74
section, further suggests the increasing significance of the ideological form of choice to the
Conservatives: in the party’s language, choice is becoming something akin to other, more
readily recognisable, absolute goods. This process is aided by the Conservatives’ use of
coordination in this area. The word ‘choice’ is used in discussion of ‘Rights’ 4 times in the
Conservative manifesto, and on 3 of these occasions occurs in a coordinated noun phrase
with a conventional good (our emphasis in each example):
•
•
•
“We will continue…to give people greater choice and responsibility over their own
lives”
“People's right to choice and independence must be safeguarded and extended”
“The British instinct is for choice and independence”.
Notably, these pairings place the focus on the reader’s individualism, enhancing the
impression of power being moved away from the state and awarded to individuals.
As in previous manifestos, ‘Consumer choice’ is still alluded to frequently by the
Conservatives. However, while in the past the party tended to refer to ‘Consumer choice’ as
a general concept/ideology - “we insist on freedom of action for producers and freedom of
choice for consumers” (1955), “Competitive free enterprise ensures choice for the
consumer” (1970) - the 1987 manifesto tends to refer to ‘Consumer choice’ in relation to
much more specific areas of the private sphere, such as:
•
•
•
air travel - “this Government has…increased competition on air routes...which has
resulted in...greater choice of carriers”
broadcasting - “It will...broaden the choice of viewing and listening”
alcohol licensing regulations - “we will liberalise the laws on liquor licensing hours
so as to increase consumer choice”.
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This trend may add weight to the argument that the naturalisation of choice as a political
ideology is now at an advanced stage: consumer choice – previously a generalised concept –
has by 1987 become more focussed, referring to quite specific circumstances, while the
ideological type of choice – as a general concept encompassing both the public and private
spheres – has become more significant.
1992-2005
While Liberal usage of the word ‘choice’ is relatively low and inconsistent in the ‘peak’
manifestos of 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005, Conservative usage continues to rise, following
the trend set by their 1987 manifesto (although usage is level between 1992 and 1997).
Indeed, Conservative usage is clearly greater than that of the Liberals and Labour in each
election during this period. Interestingly, Labour usage seems to follow the trend set by the
Conservatives: although usage in the 1992 manifesto is actually lower than in 1987, and then
remains level in 1997, the 2001 and 2005 manifestos each show a significant increase in
Labour usage. Furthermore, the decline in Labour usage between 2005 and 2010 is not as
dramatic as that in Conservative usage, indicating perhaps that they have travelled less far
along the same road as the Conservatives. The overall impression, then, is that Labour
observed the Conservatives’ use of the ideological concept of choice, and (eventually)
embraced the ideology themselves, and subsequently began to let go of it later.
The Conservatives’ 1992 manifesto contains the most explicit combining of the ideology of
choice with the public services so far. This manifesto lays out the details of ‘The Citizen’s
Charter’ – “the most far-reaching programme ever devised to improve quality in public
services”. The heading of the section in question is “Choice and The Charter”: not only does
the coordination of the word ‘choice’ with the name of the programme make the
significance of some as yet undefined concept of choice clear, but the reader is made aware
of the significance of choice before they have been made aware of what ‘The Charter’ – itself
made to sound important through the use of the definite article and a lack of any
specification - entails. In this section, the word ‘choice’ frequently occurs in the sort of
unmodified, unexplicated form that is indicative of the ideological variety of choice (as
observed in the discussion of 1966-74). Early on in the section, the party outlines what the
Citizen’s Charter will do - the first two bullet-points reinforce the importance of choice:
“The Citizen's Charter:
•
widens popular choice;
•
helps people to exercise that choice in a properly informed way”
Here, the pre-modifying adjective ‘popular’ provides the only detail of the type of choice
being discussed, with the demonstrative ‘that’ in the second bullet-point simply referring
back to the ‘choice’ in the first. The adjective ‘popular’ suggests that the choice in question
will be favourable and/or available to many, but does nothing to explain exactly what it will
entail: the reader can only assume that it will affect public services, which the preceding
paragraph has identified as the subject of the charter. However, the notion of the
quantifiabiity/malleability of the ideological form of choice is used (“widens”), implying that
‘more is good’.
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A subsequent sub-heading in the Charter section again makes use of coordination to place
the word ‘choice’ in reputable company: “KNOWLEDGE, STANDARDS, CHOICE”. Here, not
only do the positive connotations of two other ‘goods’ rub off on the idea of choice being
discussed, but the use of a list of three suggests completeness. Atkinson (1984: 57) notes
that such structures, often used in political language, “have an air of unity or completeness
about them”): the implication is that these three qualities combined form a complete whole.
The Charter aims to imbue public services with these three, essential qualities. Their
significance is later explained:
“There will be more information about standards and performance; clear
standards set within public services which are still shrouded in mystery; more choice
built into public services and proper complaints procedures introduced”
Here, the quantifier ‘more’ again evokes the idea of quantifiability/malleability. In this
manifesto, the significance of the ideological concept of choice to the provision of public
services is stated quite explicitly, indicating that the Conservatives are now confident about
the concept’s appeal.
During this period, the word ‘choice’ is used by the Conservatives in relation to a broad
range of public services, most notably ‘Education’ and ‘Health and care’, the latter of which
is talked about in relation to choice in each of the four manifestos during this period. The
‘Rights’ category also occurs in each document, indicating a desire to emphasise the
importance of the ideological concept of choice for the public. On the other hand,
‘Consumer choice’ – referred to seven times in the Conservatives’ 1992 manifesto – does not
occur even once in their 1997, 2001 and 2005 manifestos. This may suggest that the concept
of consumer choice is now naturalised to the point of being a given – readers/consumers are
so accustomed to having a choice of goods and services in the private sector that it is no
longer regarded as a vote-winner: the way to attract readers’ attention now is to offer them
a more general, ideological sense of choice, allowing them similar benefits in the public
sector as they are accustomed to in the private sector. From their embrace of the ideology
of consumer choice in the post-war years, the Conservatives have now moved on to apply
the same theory to the sort of services traditionally provided by the state.
As mentioned above, Labour usage of the word ‘choice’, while still trailing Conservative
usage, rose significantly in 2001, and again in 2005. One important observation to make is
that a large number of Labour uses of the word ‘choice’ do refer to the readers’ electoral
choice rather than a more ideological version of choice: in 2001, 11 of 28 uses of the word
‘choice’ refer to the upcoming election, with the figure at 16/36 for 2005. While this may at
first seem to undermine the significance of the rapid uptake suggested by Figure 3, the raw
figures do still suggest a significant increase in the prevalence of the ideological concept of
choice in Labour manifestos: in 1992, there are just 2 instances of the ideological sense of
choice; in 1997, 5 instances; in 2001, 17, and in 2005, twenty. Election on election, the
ideological sense of choice is clearly becoming more prominent. Furthermore, the
combination of both ideology-laden and standard uses of the word ‘choice’ is significant in
itself: readers are reminded of their own, traditional type of electoral choice at the same
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time that they are presented more and more by the new ideological sense. Together, these
two different uses create a sense of enfranchisement, where the freedom to choose
amongst providers of public services begins to be equated with that ultimate absolute good,
democracy itself. In the 2001 manifesto, the word ‘choice’ is used multiple times in single
sentences to underline the importance of the reader’s decision: “That is the choice: to make
progress or to dismantle the foundations laid. And with the state of today’s Conservatives,
the choice is stark”, “The choice is clear: for an ambitious and confident Britain, Labour is the
choice”. In the 2005 manifesto, structures containing the word ‘choice’ are repeated
frequently, reminding the reader of their duty and the suitability of Labour for government:
many sections conclude with a paragraph headed “The choice for 2010”, which frequently
contains the oppositional structure “The choice is forward with new Labour…Or back to a
Tory government/with the Tories”. While readers are reminded of the choice they already
have between parties, they are made promises of choice in various public services and
reminded of its importance in tackling problems:
•
•
•
•
“We will give patients more choice” (2001)
“We will continue to promote housing choice” (2001)
“We will develop a system…extending quality and choice for local students” (2005)
“the best way to tackle exclusion is to give choice and power to those left behind”
(2005).
While Liberal usage of the word ‘choice’ is fairly low throughout the 1992-2005 period, some
instances of the word in their 2005 manifesto are of considerable interest. Four of the six
uses of the lexical item in this manifesto provide the only examples of self-aware and/or
critical discussion of the concept of choice to be found anywhere in the data. Each of these
unusual uses appears in a section called “Putting Patients First”, attributed to Paul Burstow,
the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Health. First off, Burstow notes the
embracing of the ideology by the Conservatives and Labour: “Labour and Conservative
politicians talk about ‘choice’ – but health care isn’t like choosing a supermarket or a pair of
shoes”. Here, the use of scare quotes around the word ‘choice’, and the attribution of
discussion of this concept to the other two main parties, serves to distance Burstow/the
Liberals from the ideological sense of choice, while his suggestion that a concept useful in
the private sector is not necessarily relevant to the public sector neatly pinpoints and
critiques the change in politicians’ conception of the word. Burstow goes on to state that “I
believe that choice has a place in the NHS, but I don’t subscribe to the false idea that choice
will solve all its problems”, arguing that someone with a serious health problem, being taken
to hospital, would not want to be informed that “if they could have had the choice there’s a
hospital fifty miles away with better funding and better equipment”. This passage
demonstrates the more complex meaning of the word ‘choice’ in recent manifestos: when
Burstow states that he does not “subscribe to the false idea that choice will solve all [the
NHS’s] problems”, he is criticising the modern ideological concept of choice; in his example
of the patient being taken to hospital, he uses the word ‘choice’ in the more traditional
sense – as representing the options available to someone, from which they can then make a
selection (in this case, between different hospitals). Here, the insertion of the ideological
sense of choice into a public service leads to the creation of various (not necessarily
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desirable) options for a citizen. While it could be claimed that this criticism of the ideological
form of choice is the view of just one member of the Liberal party, its prominent positioning
(on the sixth page) of such a significant document – together with the relative statistical
paucity of the word ‘choice’ for the Liberals during this period – suggests that Burstow’s take
on the concept of choice may be representative of that of the party as a whole.
2010
While each party’s use of the word ‘choice’ clearly declines between 2005 and 2010, a more
detailed consideration of Labour’s usage of the term suggests that the decline may not be as
dramatic as the graph at Figure 2 suggests. As noted in the 1992-2005 section, the word
‘choice’ was frequently used in a prosaic sense by Labour to refer to voters’ electoral choice:
in 2005, 20 instances had to do with the ideological sense of choice, while a substantial
number, 16, simply referred to the choice between the parties. However, in the 2010
manifesto, the usage of the ideological sense in comparison to the more traditional sense is
much greater: 18 to 1. This suggests that the ideological concept of choice is still a valuable
concept to the party. Indeed, as well as frequently discussing the concept as a ‘Right’, Labour
makes use of it in discussion of ‘Education’ and ‘Health and care’. However, the uses
categorised as ‘Government policy’ and ‘Public services’ are unusual in one significant sense:
unlike in the vast majority of instances in the data, the choices discussed in these examples
are attributed to the actions of the party itself or the Conservatives, rather than groups
among the readers:
•
•
•
“We have made our choice in ways that put the greatest burden on those with the
broadest shoulders”
“The question at this election is whether people think the choice we made was the
right one”
“The poverty of the Tory vision is summed up by their false choice between an
alliance with the United States and one with Europe”.
These uses highlight the then Labour government’s apparent achievements, emphasising the
decisive role they played in ensuring certain policy outcomes.
Also of significance in the 2010 data is one particular area in which the Conservatives do use
the ideological concept of choice. While it is no longer used in discussion of ‘Education’ or
‘Public services’ generally, as it frequently was previously, 6 of the 8 instances of the word
‘choice’ in the Conservative manifesto occur in relation to ‘Health and care’. The relative lack
of ideological choice in the 2010 manifesto would seem to suggest that the Conservatives
deemed it of little political value for this election; however, its continued significance in
discussion of ‘Health and care’ hints that the party believes that the term is still of use in
making their plans for this particular public service sound favourable. The majority of
instances here appear in pledges, further suggesting that the party believes that the word
‘choice’ can play an important role in selling health policy:
•
“We will give patients more choice and free health professionals from the tangle of
politically-motivated targets that get in the way of providing the best care”
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•
•
“We will…give mothers a real choice over where to have their baby, with NHS
funding following their decisions”
“We will decentralise power, so that patients have a real choice”.
In the light of subsequent Conservative pledges to make changes to the NHS, the use of the
ideological concept of choice in relation to ‘Health and care’ in the 2010 manifesto seems
significant. Furthermore, the clustering of the term in discussion of this particular area of
public policy in this one manifesto suggests a future in which the ideology represented by
choice – having perhaps become naturalised both for the Conservatives and for the public –
needs less explicit reference now, except where planned policy changes require some
strengthening of the ideology.
4.2. Linguistic pattern analysis
Explication of choice
One of the notable aspects of use of the word ‘choice’ in the early manifestos is that it tends
to be explicated, e.g. in the traditional sense of ‘a choice between x and y’ or as a decision
that has been taken, as in ‘x has made the choice of y’. The parties tend to detail the nature
of the choice being discussed:
•
“There need be no choice for Britain between Europe and the Commonwealth”
(Liberals, 1950)
•
“the Commonwealth Prime Ministers welcomed the free choice of India, Pakistan
and Ceylon to join the Commonwealth” (Labour, 1950)
•
“We are faced with the choice between world co-operation and world annihilation”
(Labour, 1955).
In other instances, the post-modifying structure ‘of x’s choice’ is used, giving a clear
impression of the nature of the choice involved:
•
•
•
“We respect the views of those...who would wish to support one or other of the
smaller parties of their choice” (Labour, 1945)
“Every effort should be made to help parents to send their children to schools of
their own choice” (Conservatives, 1950)
“We exist as a Party to defend the rights of the individual...to associate with others
of his own choice” (Liberals, 1955).
Similarly, the idiomatic phrase ‘freedom of choice’, and derivations thereof, are used
frequently. Again, it can be assumed that the reader will be well aware of the meaning of the
word ‘choice’ in these instances (generally, choice between goods and services in the private
sphere):
•
“It will be our aim to make an early reduction in taxation in a way that will... permit
free individual choice” (Conservatives, 1945)
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•
•
“the freedom of choice of consumer and worker alike is being narrowed”
(Conservatives, 1950)
“we insist on... freedom of choice for consumers” (Conservatives, 1955).
In later years, one aspect of the shift towards choice is the way the word is
frequently given comparatively little explication. ‘Choice’ frequently occurs as a head noun
with no modification, as one might expect with more readily recognisable ‘goods’ such as
freedom, democracy or liberty. In the following examples, the reader is given comparatively
little indication as to what options the choice in question might present:
•
•
•
“The British instinct is for choice and independence” (Conservatives, 1987)
“We want government to promote choice because, without our help, many people
are denied the choices that should be theirs” (Labour, 2001)
“We will extend choice – a Conservative government will give individuals more
control over their own money and over the public services we all depend on”
(Conservatives, 2005).
Quantifiable/malleable choice
In much of the early data, the word ‘choice’ is talked about as a singular entity in a certain
situation – “Then the choice of schooling for children can be more flexible and less worrying
for parents” (Conservatives, 1959) – or as a general concept – “It will be our aim and
purpose to make an early reduction in taxation in a way that will stimulate energy and
permit free individual choice” (Conservatives, 1945). However, one aspect of the transition
towards the ideological meaning of choice is the way it is more frequently described as
something quantifiable, or malleable:
•
“Liberals believe in...Providing greater choice for the individual” (Liberals, 1979)
•
“Conservatives aim to extend as widely as possible the opportunity to...exercise real
choice in education” (Conservatives, 1987)
•
“We will give patients more choice” (Labour, 2001).
The quantifiers ‘more’ and ‘greater’, for example, are frequently used in pledges (as in the
Liberal and Labour examples above), and trigger a presupposition that the present amount
of choice available is less than that which could be made available. The implicature arising
from this presupposition is caused by a flouting of the Gricean maxim of quantity, since it is
stating the obvious to say that it is theoretically possible to provide more choice. The
resulting implicature in the context of a manifesto is that this must be desirable. Likewise,
verbs such as ‘extend’ and ‘expand’, used in a similar context, serve to give the impression
that the current breadth of choice is less than is desirable, as in the Conservative example
above. As choice becomes established as an absolute good, it is advantageous for the parties
to present it as though it could be increased or expanded, giving them something more to
offer to voters.
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‘Real’ choice
One pre-modifier that occurs frequently before ‘choice’ is ‘real’. This adjective is first used
alongside ‘choice’ in the Liberals’ assertion that “The main opposition to the overwhelming
popular demand for electoral reform comes from...those MPs who fear that if voters had a
real choice they would not be re-elected” (1979). In this particular example, ‘real’ is clearly
being used to add weight to the implicature that voters do not currently possess the sort of
‘choice’ worth having. However, the use of ‘real’ in later manifestos is rather more difficult
to pin down, seemingly implying the existence of some sort of ‘fake’ choice:
•
“Conservatives aim to extend as widely as possible the opportunity...to exercise real
choice in education” (Conservatives, 1987)
•
“Our priorities are...Real choice in health care” (Liberals, 1992)
•
“we will extend real choice to parents over how they organise their parental leave”
(Labour, 2010).
By stating something that the reader might reasonably be expected to assume, i.e. that the
choice being discussed is real, the parties are saying more than they need to, thereby
flouting the maxim of quantity: this creates the implicature that such a thing as unreal choice
must also exist. This particular way of framing choice suggests that the parties, as well as
having to compete to provide greater amounts of choice than their rivals, now also have to
compete to ensure that the breadth of choice they provide is also seen to be the most
genuine.
Pledges and ownership
Perhaps unsurprisingly, one type of construction in which the word ‘choice’ frequently
occurs is the pledge structure. Pledges are, of course, typical of the political manifesto, the
purpose of which is to persuade the reader to vote for a particular party at an election:
pledges and promises of new or altered policies are a common way of offering the reader an
incentive to back the party concerned. Most commonly, these occur in material action
processes, with the party as actor and the policy as the direct object, while (groups amongst)
the readership are sometimes included as an indirect object. As references to the future are
necessarily modal, the use of the future epistemic ‘will’ allows the parties to be “almost
categorical” about the possibility of what they are predicting (Jeffries, 2007: 184), and it is
worth noting that conditional clauses noting the necessity of first being elected are rarely
used. In the 1987 Conservative manifesto, the word ‘choice’ is commonly used as a direct
object in these pledge structures, suggesting that the party is now confident of its potential
appeal to readers:
•
•
•
“we will increase parental choice”
“We will continue...to give people greater choice and responsibility over their own
lives”
“we will liberalise the laws on liquor licensing so as to increase consumer choice”.
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Another way in which readers’ (potential) ownership of an ideological form of choice is
emphasised is through pre- and post-modification. In the 1987 manifestos, the
Conservatives use a pre-modifying adjective to identify a particular ideological type of choice
they will be providing (“we will increase parental choice”), and the Liberals use a possessive
pronoun to stress that potential students will be able to determine exactly when they take
advantage of a Liberal policy (“The Alliance plans...To guarantee a period of free further
education based on Open University levels of funding for everyone over 18 to be taken at a
time of their choice”). This means of attributing ideological choice to certain social groups is
used to particularly strong effect later on by the Conservatives in their 1997, 2001 and 2005
manifestos, with sections given headings and subheadings outlining who will benefit from
the choice-providing policies detailed:
•
“Choice and Security for Families” (1997)
•
“Choice for GPs and patients” (2001)
•
“Choice for parents” (2005).
Coordination
One way in which the parties are able to present the ideological concept of choice as an
absolute good is through placing it in close proximity to other, more conventional, goods. By
placing the word ‘choice’ in coordinated noun phrases with other nouns such as ‘freedom’,
‘support’ and ‘power’, the parties ensure that the (more obvious) favourability of these
concepts rubs off on ideological choice (our emphasis in each example):
•
•
•
“Self-reliance underpins freedom and choice” (Conservatives, 1997)
“Families: Choice and support at work and at home” (Labour, 2005)
“I believe in low taxes because...they put power and choice where it belongs: in your
hands” (Conservatives, 1992).
While the majority of coordinates are other, general goods (‘diversity’, ‘access and
participation’, ‘security’), there is also a group of more business-related terms that are used
in coordination with the word ‘choice’. The presence of the term in close proximity to words
such as ‘competition’, ‘high standards’ and ‘ownership’ seems symbolic of the adoption of
private sector ideology in the public sector. Notably, it tends to be the Conservatives who
use these sorts of terms alongside the word ‘choice’ (our emphasis):
•
•
•
“Wherever possible, we are widening competition and choice in public services”
(1997)
“The high standards, real choice and genuine diversity which we have introduced will
produce the best results for all our children” (1997)
“A government committed to the principles of choice, ownership, responsibility and
opportunity” (1992).
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5. Conclusions
5.1. The future of choice
The sharp decline in the use of the word ‘choice’ in 2010 brings an end to a clear pattern of
increasing use by the Conservatives and Labour. Coming on the back of four successive
elections in which each of these two parties’ use of the word never dipped below that in the
last, it seems reasonable to dismiss the notion that the decline is simply down to chancei.
While there is no single obvious reason why the use of the word/political concept should
have become so much less frequent, knowledge of the nature of the relationship between
politics and the media and the political context of the 2010 manifestos does suggest several
possible explanations.
Firstly, it is possible that the ideological concept of choice is going, or has gone, out of
political fashion. It could be significant that, of the two parties who really embrace the
concept, the Conservatives have seemingly been the first to move away from it. Having
made more and more frequent use of it from October 1974 to 2005, the concept may simply
have become a tired one for the party – perhaps one that has been replaced by a new
ideology or buzzword. It could also be possible that the Conservatives were conscious of
Labour’s taking up of the concept in the 2001 and 2005 manifestos, and decided to move
away from the ideological idea of choice themselves: the party may have decided that choice
no longer evoked simply Conservatism in the way it once did. On the other hand, it’s
possible that the ideological concept of choice has simply become naturalised to the extent
that the Conservatives, and perhaps the other parties, no longer feel that it is necessary to
mention it explicitly to the same extent
One highly significant new subject for the parties’ attention in 2010 was the recent financial
crisis. Given the apparently parlous state of the nation’s economy, it seems natural that the
parties might choose to put the brakes on their policy of ‘expanding’ and ‘widening’ choice.
Instead, we might expect the focus now to be on ‘cuts’ apparently aimed at reducing the
national deficit. Indeed, one interesting aspect of the 2010 manifestos is the large number of
occurrences of the word ‘choices’ in the Labour and Liberal manifestos. As with the use of
the word ‘choice’ in relation to decisions the party had made/aimed to make in Labour’s
manifesto, the making of choices is a process portrayed as being acted out by the party in
question: “The Manifesto reflects the tough choices that we will make to secure Britain’s
future in a way that is fair for all” (Labour), “A Liberal Democrat government will be straight
with people about the tough choices ahead” (Liberal). These ‘choices’ will affect the sort of
ideological choice promised in previous manifestos in a negative way. It is also worth noting
that these type of ‘choices’ are frequently pre-modified by the adjective ‘tough’, enabling
the parties to portray them as a burden that they have to bear. One view of the move from
the ideological sense of choice to ‘tough choices’ would be that the process of privatisation
often hinted at through the use of the word ‘choice’ in previous manifestos is now being
justified by the need to make ‘cuts’ to state spending: ideologically-driven choice is no longer
needed as an excuse for the continued shrinking of the state.
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Bearing in mind the apparent decline in usage of the ideological sense of choice, it will be of
interest to see whether the concept continues to become less significant, or whether it is
embraced once again. By the time of the next general election, Britain’s economic standing
allowing, it is conceivable that politicians may again use the concept of choice to woo voters
tired of the preceding years of economic austerity and cutbacks to public services. On the
other hand, a new concept or concepts may take the place of choice in that time: for
example, a political idea such as the Conservatives’ ‘Big Society’ – much discussed in their
2010 manifesto – could provide a more new-fangled equivalent; certainly, the ‘Big Society’
message so far seems to suggest that the citizen should work to create their own choices for
themselves, rather than wait for them to be provided by the state or an ongoing process of
privatisation. Indeed, one possible replacement for choice is power. The word ‘power’ occurs
more frequently in the Conservatives’ 2010 manifesto than in previous years, often in
pledges similar to those observed in discussion of choice:
•
•
•
“we will redistribute power from the central state to individuals, families and local
communities”
“our new ‘community right to buy’ scheme will give local people the power to
protect any community assets that are threatened with closure”
“we will…give parents the power to save local schools”.
These examples suggest a rhetorical switch from promising to give people choice to pledging
to give them the power to make their own choices.
5.2. Small corpus studies: some observations
The purpose of this article has been to use a combination of corpus and critical stylistic
methods in order to study and explain patterns and changes in the use and meaning of a
particular word in a particular type of discourse. The use of computer corpora tools to
compile the data provided a complete overview of the use of the word ‘choice’, and the
means to compare its relative significance in different texts over time. Being able to pinpoint
each and every use of the word ‘choice’ quickly and reliably made it possible to compile
concordances and thoroughly analyse each piece of data using a variety of critical stylistic
techniques, allowing us to then pick out the most significant and interesting patterns in its
usage.
The objective overview of the use of the word ‘choice’ itself produced a fascinating picture
of its use in British politics. The graphs produced provide a clear indication of the changing
significance of one word, and in themselves offer strong backing to the argument that single
words can be of great importance in allowing political institutions to appeal to readers.
Closer analysis through critical stylistic techniques, and the simple categorisation of
concordances according to the subject matter to which the word ‘choice’ was being applied,
made it clear that not only did the word change in significance according to how much it was
used, but also in its very meaning. Different uses of pre- and post-modification, in particular,
indicated the altering of the word’s meaning, its traditional significance being expanded to
include a new, ideological aspect.
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The opportunity to undertake a more rigorous, diachronic study of a finding from previous
research has made it possible not only to shed light on the way a particular word has taken
on new meanings, but also to back up the findings of the previous research and strengthen
certain arguments frequently made in similar studies regarding the significance of seemingly
small aspects of language used by influential institutions. The findings here could encourage
similar studies of other terms believe to be of significance (either through intuition or
resulting from studies of key words). Furthermore, a future study could focus on the use of
the word ‘choice’ in a different type of political text. For example, the results of this study
suggest the continuing significance of the ideological concept of choice in discussion of
health care: a study concentrating on speeches delivered on the subject of the health
service could offer a more detailed account of the significance of the concept in the political
discourse surrounding this specific public service. Other possibilities could include an
analysis of the significance of choice ideology in discourse within parliament, perhaps
allowing for further conclusions to be made as to the extent to which it is an ideology
employed mainly for the benefit of voters.
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Baker, P. (2009) Contemporary Studies in Linguistics: Contemporary Corpus Linguistics.
London: Continuum
Hardie, A. and Evert, S. (2011) The IMS Open Corpus Workbench. Available at:
http://cwb.sourceforge.net/
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i
We are not making a claim for statistical significance here, as the raw figures are too small to make
such tests meaningful.
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