Framing Inequality, Uncertainty and Instability: A Corpus-based Analysis of ‘Precarious’ Derived Nouns

Abstract

This paper presents lexical research on the noun affixation stemming from the adjective precarious, semantically defining individuals’ insecurity and uncertainty in facing disparity in life and professional status. The analysis of the derived nouns precarity, precariousness, precariat, and precarization aims to offer valuable insight into the evolving nature of the English lexicon. These terms, rooted in discussing social and economic instability, have gained prominence in contemporary discourse, particularly in academic and media contexts. Their increasing usage reflects a broader societal concern with issues entailing inequality and precarious living and working conditions. Employing a corpus-based approach, the study examines their frequency of occurrence and contextual use as keywords in context (KWIC) along with the collocational patterns within the large language corpus The British National Corpus 2014 (BNC2014). An interdisciplinary exploration thus combines quantitative corpus linguistics with qualitative discourse analysis to uncover how precarious and its derived nouns frame inequality, uncertainty, and instability in contemporary societal discourse. The following research questions arise: 1) How frequently do the adjective precarious and its derived nouns precarity, precariousness, precariat, and precarization occur in BNC2014, and what collocates co-occur in the different contexts they are used? 2) How do precarious and its derived nouns contribute to framing inequality, uncertainty, and instability in academic or mainstream discourse? By addressing these questions, the study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the linguistic mechanisms that construct and intersect public realities, offering insights into the interplay between language use and societal change.