The interpretation of a text usually starts with finding what is striking. Keyword analysis is a widely used corpus linguistic method that helps identify words as possible carriers of prominent topics in a text.
It identifies words with signifi- cantly higher relative frequency in a target text when compared with a reference corpus. However, as our analysis of the Russian opinion portal Sputnik Czech Republic reveals, examining keywords alone does not produce an explicit ac- count of discourse ideology in a text.
Focusing predominantly on the image of Russia reflected in Sputnik, this study not only demonstrates the importance of a multi-level, quantitative approach to text, but also the importance of discourse functions of morphosyntactic units.