‘The significance is in the selection’: identifying contemporary keywords

Research on socially influential but problematic ‘keywords’ (as investigated in Raymond Williams’s pioneering study 'Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society', 1976/1983), has always found the issue of selecting headwords for inclusion and analysis particularly difficult. This article examines what makes a word a suitable candidate for treatment as a keyword in Williams's sense. A ‘keyword selection’ activity is reported, in which members of a group of scholars each nominate words in the published 'Keywords' for removal from future editions, as no longer causing problems in discussion of culture and society, then propose alternative words that increasingly do cause such problems. General characteristics of ‘keywords’ are described, and criteria identified that may assist further 'keyword' investigations.