Dr. Isabela Fairclough
School of Humanities and Social SciencesSubject Areas: English and Linguistics
Isabela’s main research interests are in critical discourse analysis and argumentation theory (pragma-dialectics and informal logic), especially the modelling and critical evaluation of public deliberative practice and the study of argumentation in institutional contexts. Her recent publications (including Political Discourse Analysis, Routledge 2012) have investigated political discourse in the UK in the context of the post-2008 economic crisis.
Isabela is research active within the area of language, linguistics culture and society and is a member of the Research Unit for Speech and Language.
Isabela has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Lancaster (2004) with a thesis on the contribution of public intellectuals to the legitimation of liberalism in the transition from communism in Eastern Europe. Between 1992-1993 she held a Horia Georgescu postgraduate research scholarship in linguistics and philosophy of language at the University of Oxford (Somerville College) and from 2008 to 2011 she was Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Lancaster.
Membership of professional and learned bodies
- Member of ISSA (International Society for the Study of Argumentation)
- Member of ILIAS (International Learned Institute for Argumentation Studies), Amsterdam
- Member of PSA (Political Studies Association), UK
- Member of BAAL (British Association for Applied Linguistics)
- Member of IPra (International Pragmatics Association)
Research Activities
In Political Discourse Analysis (Routledge 2012) and other recent publications, Isabela has focused on the analysis of practical reasoning and deliberation in political texts (policy documents, parliamentary debates, online discussion forums). She has developed the analytical framework of critical discourse analysis by drawing on argumentation theory and on John Searle’s (2010) theory of the construction of social/institutional realityProjects
Isabela is currently involved in the research project ‘Practical argumentation in the European energy and climate debates’ (2015-2017). Principal Investigator: Dr Marcin Lewinski, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, New University of Lisbon.These are populer book :
