Citizenship Under Debate: A Corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of Australian Citizenship Legislative Inquiries 2007–2017

This research explores how public submissions shape Australia’s citizenship language rules. It finds that language tests, often seen as neutral, actually reflect deeper political beliefs. By studying over 500,000 words from public submissions between 2007 and 2017, I identify how arguments around language shift—from focusing on national identity to prioritising economic goals. I use tools from linguistics and political science to uncover these changes. The study shows who gets heard in policy debates and why.