Critical Discourse Analysis of British University Information Materials

Abstract

The present study aims to examine how university information materials produced by British universities construct and reflect the changing social value of education within contemporary promotional culture. To achieve this, the study applies Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to a selection of university information  texts. It explores how language is strategically employed to promote particular institutional identities, shape prospective students’ expectations, and position higher education within an increasingly competitive market. Linguistic analysis indicates that the social value of education is being changed to something which can be
offered as a commodity, thus leading to the consumerisation of education. The study demonstrates that university information materials function as ideologically charged texts in which university priorities are enacted through linguistic choices. The analysis reveals that education is discursively constructed through carefully chosen lexical, grammatical, and rhetorical strategies. At the lexical level, the materials are characterised by a high frequency of positively evaluative nouns and adjectives which present universities in an aspirational and persuasive manner. Furthermore, abstract nouns replaced concrete descriptions of pedagogical practice leading to a discourse of promise while providing limited detail about students’ actual educational experiences. At the grammatical level, the analysis identified a key preference for nominalisation, particularly in references to learning, assessment, and institutional responsibility. These nominalised constructions obscure agency by removing teachers and students from the clause. As a result, complex educational practices are described as technical processes, thereby limiting the visibility of student effort, commitment, teacher involvement, and shared responsibility. Taken together, these results illustrate how promotional discourse reframes students as consumers and universities as providers of marketable experiences and outcomes. The study therefore highlights the importance of linguistically informed analysis in exposing the ideological assumptions embedded in apparently neutral university communications and showing how these linguistic features contribute to the broader marketisation and consumerisation of higher education.