Representations of language education in English and French Canadian newspapers

This article examines the salience and content of representations of language education in a corpus of English and French Canadian newspapers. Findings suggest that English-speaking Canadian newspapers foreground official language education issues, in which public schools are represented as the primary means by which Canadians can gain equal access to social resources. In contrast, French Canadian newspapers do not foreground language education issues; in the few cases where these are discussed, the focus tends to be specifically on immigrant acquisition of French. Since representations of these issues reflect beliefs and attitudes towards languages, the paper concludes that they also reveal the successes and failures of discourses concomitant with Canada’s language policy

Language ideological debates about linguistic landscapes: the case of Chinese signage in Richmond, Canada

In 2013, Richmond city council was presented with a petition calling for the regulation of all language signs, drawing national attention to the amount of Chinese-only signage. The signage debate has become well-known in Canada as a result of the media, which has provided a platform for debate through online reader commentary. By applying concepts from linguistic landscapes, language ideologies and nationalism in addition to analytical tools from SFL, we employ critical discourse studies to examine how representations of and responses to language signage in online news commentary contribute to the construction of in-groups and out-groups in the Canadian context. Findings show that stereotypical representations of ethnicity and culture are represented as a threat to the Canadian status quo. Also, contradictory ideologies of Canadian official bilingualism are employed to justify discrimination against Chinese language speakers. Findings suggest that language ideologies remain deeply tied to understandings of Canadian nationhood and belonging

Language ideologies and discourses of national identity in Canadian newspapers: a cross-linguistic corpus-assisted discourse study

PhDThe idea that Canada consists of “two solitudes” (MacLennan, 1945), according to which the two dominant (English and French) linguistic groups live in separate worlds with little interaction or communication, has also received attention in sociolinguistic circles (e.g. Heller, 1999). This thesis examines this claim further, by comparing the content of English and French Canadian newspapers. More specifically, the thesis compares how English and French serve different purposes in three coexisting conceptualisations of national identity in Canada: Quebec national identity, English Canadian national identity, and pan-Canadian national identity. In each corresponding national identity discourse, the nation and its language(s) are imagined differently. With a corpus of 7.5 million words in English and 3.5 million words in French, the thesis employs corpus linguistics and discourse analysis tools to test the salience of these ideologies and discourses, as well as to compare and contrast findings across languages. Adopting the theoretical framework of language ideologies (e.g. Woolard, 1998; Milani and Johnson, 2008), it seeks to contextualise languages with regard to discourses of national identity. In other words, the thesis compares and contrasts language ideology findings within the three discourses examined. More specifically, three research questions are addressed: (1) How do the French and English Canadian media discursively represent languages and language issues in the news? (2) How do these representations differ? (3) How do the different representations relate to understandings of national identity in Canada? The findings indicate that French and English serve predominantly different purposes, thus helping to reinforce the image of a Canada comprising “two solitudes”.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canad

Domestic work = language work? Language and gender ideologies in the marketing of multilingual domestic workers in London

The hiring of domestic workers – normally female – in the globalised economy involves assumptions and expectations not only about the so-called ‘natural’ female instinct for childcare and cleaning, but also about language use and transmission. Domestic worker agencies play an important role at the interface between the public sphere (where the languages are normally valuable) and the home (the workplace of domestic workers). An examination of the skills discourses used in the marketing of domestic workers reveals tensions between the language and gender ideologies underpinning this juncture. Using corpus linguistics to examine London-based domestic worker agency websites, findings reveal highly traditional and conservative notions of language and gender underpinning contradictory arguments about the supposedly advantageous nature of multilingualism

Mapping the language ideologies of organisational members: a Corpus Linguistic Investigation of the United Nations’ General Debates (1970-2016)

Supranational and international organisations have long experienced difficulties in implementing multilingual policies, and this is, in part, due to a lack of activism on language matters by their membership (Author, forthcoming; Kruse & Ammon, 2018). The aim of this paper is not only to highlight the importance of investigating language ideology within the field of organisational language policy, but also to scrutinise the language ideologies particular to an influential body of institutional members. Using the United Nations as a site of exploration, and the UN General Debates Corpus (Mikhaylov, Baturo and Dasandi, 2017) as a dataset, this paper traces if and how issues of language have preoccupied the deliberations and work of UN member states over the course of 46 years, and if these discussions align with organisational policy. Using corpus linguistics, the paper maps the ideological landscape and language policy discourses across time, identifying a paucity of discussion over almost five decades. The paper argues that attention to the absence of references to language problems/language policy in the organisation is just as important as an exploration of language problems themselves. If organisations wish to make changes to language policies, and/or prioritise policy implementation, they would do well to attend more closely to the language ideologies of their membership and/or to reasons for their apparent inattention to language issues

Food fight: conflicting language ideologies in English and French news and social media

Although social media provide new opportunities for minority language use and communication, the extent to which they differ from mainstream news media requires more investigation. This paper addresses this issue by comparing French and English language ideologies in Canadian news media and on Twitter. These ideologies are investigated using a specific case study where an Italian restaurant owner in French-speaking Canada was challenged for using Italian words on a menu. This generated extensive media coverage and Twitter activity. A corpus-assisted discourse study sheds insight on the complex dynamics of language politics and how they play out on different media platforms. It also indicates that minoritised groups are under growing pressure to translate linguistic cultures into English and globalised, market-driven contexts

Manufacturing dissent : the discursive formation of nuclear proliferation (2006-2012)

This paper draws on the conceptualisation of 'discursive formation' to examine the particular configuration of the ‘objects, subjects, concepts and strategies’ (Foucault, 1972) which constitute ‘nuclear proliferation’ between 2006 and 2012. While previous studies have mostly explored the discourse of nuclear proliferation through the analysis of newspaper texts, few have considered corpora from different sites or considered the changes, transformations and contradictions that take place when meanings are delocated from one site and relocated in another. Elements of poststructuralist discourse theory, critical linguistics and corpus linguistics are brought together to consider how events were constructed within two corpora: UNSC resolutions and newspaper articles published in prominent UK and US broadsheets. WordSmith Tools (Version 5) was used to analyse word frequencies, statistical patterns of keywords, word collocation profiles and concordance patterns. Results indicate that the most salient lexical items refer to actors, strategic actions and technologies. As these constituents of nuclear proliferation are delocated from the political sphere and relocated in the public sphere, three discursive strategies unfold: personalisation, normalisation or exceptionalisation, and reification