Expressing conflicts. Semantic patterns typifying letters in the British press

This study analyses the most frequent semantic patterns used in a corpus of letters published in the British press to express conflictual situations during the 1857-58 uprisings in colonial India. While the letters provided first- hand information of the dramatic events being experienced, they shaped the news and the readers’ opinions by expressing uncertainty and anguish deriving from the circumstances which in turn generated a sense of anxiety in the readers and public, more in general. The methodology adopted is a mixed one. Firstly, it starts with a corpus assisted approach focusing on the relative most frequent keywords and their recurring semantic patterns related to place and the actors involved in the events. Secondly, the emerging data are interpreted qualitatively through discourse analysis, in order to highlight how meaning is construed in communicating dramatic events.