Electronic deconstruction: Revealing tensions in the cohesive structure of persuasion texts

This article introduces a corpus-based procedure for revealing tensions in a text which seeks to persuade an audience into a particular point of view on a particular topic, tensions which may otherwise be difficult to see; the text is thus deconstructed and loses credibility. I refer to this corpus-based, critical approach to revealing tensions in such texts as Electronic Deconstruction. In drawing on corpus linguistic method for this end, as well to help reduce interpretative bias, the article bears resemblance to Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis. However, in two crucial respects it is different. This is because: i) its corpus-based, deconstructive focus is cohesion in a text which seeks to persuade an audience into a particular point of view and ii) it takes its theoretical stimulus from the work of Jacques Derrida.