A diachronic corpus-pragmatic approach to democratization

Abstract Democratization is often invoked as an explanatory factor for diachronic linguistic developments. We believe that at the root of democratization often lies the pragmatic negotiation of power relations, whereby a more democratic use of language can reduce the distance between addresser and addressee. This article examines the evolution of power relations in the New York Times editorials from 1860 to 1979 as represented in COHA. After a quantitative analysis of the evolution of three pragmatic variables that index democratization, the study offers a qualitative analysis with the aim of anchoring them to the situational context of newspaper editorials, especially regarding the power relations negotiated in this register over time. This paper also examines the impact of socio-historical events on the evolution of power relations and shows that they are intimately linked.