“Don’t Call me Woke!”. Tracing the pragmatic and emotive trajectory of the word of our era

This paper investi gates the fl uctuati ng atti tudes and emoti onal responses to the adjecti ve ‘woke’ viewed through the lens of Briti sh news discourse. The study seeks to understand how recent newspaper coverage surrounding the noti on of woke culture and its linguisti c referents has infl uenced the semanti c and pragmati c shift s of ‘woke’. The analysis is based on a self-compiled corpus of Briti sh newspaper arti cles featuring the contested term and is conducted both quanti tati vely and qualitati vely. The polarisati on of Briti sh newsbrands (quality vs. tabloids and left -leaning vs. right-leaning) seems to play a pivotal role in determining the way in which ‘woke’ is implemented within the text: either as part of journalisti c discourse, as metadiscourse, or within reported discourse. The collocati on analysis uncovers the discourses that most typically characterise news reporti ng on ‘woke’ highlighti ng diff erent atti tudes and representati ons. Having identi fi ed fi ve key news narrati ves on wokeness, two mini case studies criti cally assess how multi modal features contribute to and reinforce the meaning-making process, confi rming the current polarised and ideologically loaded usage of ‘woke’.