A corpus-based ideological analysis of netizens’ comments about childfree on TikTok

The childfree lifestyle has become a recent topic of debate on social media especially TikTok. In discussing childfree lifestyles, netizens on TikTok often express wide range of opinions, which reflect the ideologies they hold. Although several research has examined the childfree lifestyle across various fields and through different theoretical lenses, few studies have methodologically combined corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis (CDA) to investigate this issue. Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate lexical choices used by netizens on TikTok about the childfree lifestyle, which reflects how netizens construct meanings and ideologies toward this issue. This study used a mixed-method approach by combining quantitative corpus linguistic analysis and qualitative analysis. The data were collected from TikTok comments under videos related to the childfree topic. The analysis was conducted by identifying frequent lexical items and classifying them into semantic categories using corpus tools LancsBox. Furthermore, van Dijk’s ideological square was used to analyze how lexical choices reflect underlying ideologies in the discourse. The findings reveal that lexical choices are dominated by three main semantic categories. First, women’s roles which include words such as “woman” (1522), “parent” (1120), “mom” (919), “mother” (901), “pregnant” (245). Second, parental burden which include words such as “kid” (5340), “child” (3360), “money” (225), “time” (787), “raise” (208). Third, emotions which include words such as “happy” (654), “enjoy” (316), “great” (179), “miserable” (241). The results also show that childfree individuals tend to construct positive representations of their own group by emphasizing freedom and happiness, while portraying motherhood negatively through expressions of burden and emotional struggle. This aligned with liberal ideology, which prioritizes individual choice, in contrast to pronatalist ideology that emphasizes reproduction as a social obligation. Overall, the study demonstrates that language plays a significant role in shaping ideological perspectives and social representations in online discourse.