Thematising Multilingualism in the Media

This volume analyses the complex relations between multilingualism and the media: how the media manage multilingualism; how multilingualism is presented and used as media content; and how the media are discursive sites where debates about multilingualism and other language-related issues unfold. It is precisely this inter-relatedness that we want to flag up when we talk about “thematising” multilingualism in the media. More specifically, the focus of this volume is on the empirical and theoretical opportunities and challenges posed by the thematisation of multilingualism in the media. The volume, originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Language and Politics 10:4 (2011), presents a number of case studies from a variety of linguistic, media, political, social, and economic contexts: from print-media debates on trilingual policies in Luxembourg to “new media” discussions about the “sexiness” of Irish or the “national” value of Welsh; from issues of linguistic “authority” and “authenticity” in an American television programme to Wikipedia’s multilingual policy and practice.

Nikolas Coupland, Cardiff University:
Kelly-Holmes and Milani have provided a valuable synthesis of critical sociolinguistic research on mass media, but also a range of stimulating original new frameworks and perspectives. The volume is a theoretically rich interpretation of what media 'do' with linguistic diversity and multilingualism, based on well-chosen case studies. It is a persuasive demonstration of why sociolinguistic theorising must orient to mass media, and why media research needs sociolinguistics.