Abstract
This paper introduces the Palestine/Israel United Nations Resolution Corpus (PIURC), a data set comprising UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions related to the Palestine/Israel conflict. The corpus provides a valuable resource for analysing the role of the UN in shaping the discourse around this conflict. The paper details the data selection process, limitations, and potential extensions of the corpus. It demonstrates how standard corpus linguistic and text analysis methods, including the analysis of word frequency and text dispersion, can reveal key patterns such as lexical frequencies and thematic variations, offering insights into the evolving discourse on human rights and geopolitical issues. The PIURC enables future interdisciplinary research, contributing to a deeper understanding of the United Nations' role in the Palestine/Israel conflict and its broader implications. Potential extensions to the corpus include incorporating resolutions from Special and Emergency Sessions of the General Assembly, as well as texts in languages other than English. These additions would enhance the data set's comprehensiveness, further supporting nuanced analyses of the UN's discourse and decision-making processes in this and other geopolitical contexts.
References
1. Anthony L. AntConc (Version 4.3.1) [Computer software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University; 2024. Available from: https://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/AntConc
2. Brezina V, McEnery T, Wattam S. Collocations in context: A new perspective on collocation networks. Int J Corpus Linguist. 2015;20(2):139-173. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.20.2.01bre
3. Brezina V, Platt W. #LancsBox X [Software]. Lancaster University; 2024. Available from: http://lancsbox.lancs.ac.uk
4. Brezina V, Timperley M. How large is the BNC? A proposal for standardised tokenisation and word counting. In: International Corpus Linguistics Conference; 2017 Jul 20-22; University of Birmingham.
5. Crawford E, Lukin A, Mowbray J. Terminology of the law of warfare: A linguistic analysis of state practice. J Int Humanit Legal Stud. 2023;14:197-222. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1163/18781527-bja10080
6. Egbert J, Wood M. The corpus of United States state statutes - design, construction and use. Appl Corpus Linguist. 2023;3(2):1-5. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acorp.2023.100047
7. Falk R. How international law evolves – norms, precedents and geopolitics. In: Cuddy B, Kattan V, editors. Making endless war: The Vietnam and Arab-Israeli conflicts in the history of international law. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; 2023. p. ix-xviii.
8. Goldfarb N. A lawyer’s introduction to meaning in the framework of corpus linguistics. BYU Law Rev. 2017;2017(6):1359-1417. Available from: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol2017/iss6/6
9. Gries ST. Analyzing dispersion. In: Paquot M, Gries ST, editors. A practical handbook of corpus linguistics. Cham: Springer Nature; 2020. p. 99-118.
10. Halliday MAK, Hasan R. Language, context and text: Aspects of language in a social semiotic perspective. Geelong: Deakin University Press; 1985.
11. Halliday MAK, Matthiessen CMIM. An introduction to Halliday’s functional grammar: 4th ed. London: Arnold; 2014.
12. McEnery T, Hardie A. Corpus Linguistics: Method, Theory and Practice. Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press; 2011.
13. Mouritsen SC. Corpus linguistics in legal interpretation - an evolving interpretive framework. Int J Lang Law. 2017;6(2):67-89. Available from: https://doi.org/10.14762/jll.2017.067
14. Phillips JC, Egbert J. Advancing law and corpus linguistics: Importing principles and practices from survey and context analysis methodologies to improve corpus design and analysis. BYU Law Rev. 2017;2017(6):1589-1620. Available from: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol2017/iss6/12/
15. Solan LM. Corpus linguistics as method of legal interpretation. Int J Semiotics Law. 2020;33(2):283-298. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-020-09707-8
16. Solum LB. Triangulating public meaning: Corpus linguistics, immersion and the constitutional record. BYU Law Rev. 2017;6:1621-1682. Available from: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol2017/iss6/13
17. UN Charter. United Nations. Available from: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text
18. United Nations. UN Special Session [Internet]. New York: United Nations; [cited 2024 Dec 30]. Available from: https://research.un.org/en/docs/ga/quick/special
19. United Nations. United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library [Internet]. New York: United Nations; [cited 2024 Dec 30]. Available from: https://digitallibrary.un.org/
20. von Billerbeck S. No action without talk? UN peacekeeping, discourse, and institutional self-legitimation. Rev Int Stud [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2024 Dec 30];46(4):477-94. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/S026021052000011X

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2025 Annabelle Lukin, Izabella Rosa Malta, Rodrigo Araújo e Castro, Tamer Morris, Alexandra García Marrugo, Emily Crawford