‘Who’s to Pay for Brexit?’ A Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of Online Communications by European Banks

The present work considers the impact of Brexit on the international banking sector. Brexit has the potential to compromise London’s leadership among the global financial centres and to trigger panic and financial instability. In times of uncertainty, banks should thus make careful use of language to reassure their customers. This study explores how some of the largest European banks, namely BNP Paribas, Santander, Deutsche Bank, and ING, reacted to Brexit in their online communications. Results are compared with Brexit information published online by the Big Four UK banks (HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, and RBS). The analysis focuses on how the banks represent and recontextualize the British withdrawal from the EU and attempt to preserve their financial stability. The investigation takes a critical discourse analytical approach, also integrating principles from crisis communication theories in management and the study of popularization. Corpus linguistic tools support the study to identify and compare discursive trends. The analysis reveals differences in the strategies chosen by banks to address their stakeholders. British banks generally aim at offering customer support, reassuring the markets, but also exploring new global trade possibilities. By comparison, EU banks tend to convey financial knowledge imbued with political evaluations and frame Brexit as a source of crisis and uncertainty.