A Critical Discourse Analysis of Intersectional Identity Construction in Women's Football

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My PhD thesis will offer the first academic investigation into the role of language in intersectional identityconstruction in professional women's football discourse using Critical Discourse Analysis. Specifically, Iwill address the following questions: What role does language play in creating and maintaining identitiesin women's football media? How does women's football interact with broader cultural issues concerningidentity? How do athletes and journalists use language to position themselves in these discussions?I will conduct four qualitative case studies involving the English and American national teams, and teamsin the highest division English and American leagues: Arsenal and Manchester United in the FA Women'sSuper League and Utah Royals and Portland Thorns in the NWSL. This study will include the constructionof a data set foregrounding the underrepresented perspectives of female footballers via Twitter posts andinterview responses, whilst also featuring sports journalism from British media across the politicalspectrum including The Guardian, MailOnline, and the BBC. The data set will surround and succeed 2019,'a breakthrough year for women's football' (FIFA 2019). As accessibility of discourse is a crucialconsideration in discussions of public identity construction and in the emancipation of marginalisedgroups at the heart of this study, this data set will draw from publicly available online sources (Lazar2008; Fairclough 2014). I will adapt a multidisciplinary approach to analysing this diverse data set,combining key critical discourse analytical approaches (Fairclough 1995, 2003, 2014; Lazar 2008, 2014)with van Leeuwen's (2008) legitimation strategies and Wodak and Koller's (2008) conceptualisations ofthe public sphere