The “legitimation” of hostility towards immigrants’ languages in press and social media: Main fallacies and how to challenge them

Andreas Musolff

doi:10.1515/lpp-2018-0006

Article

The “legitimation” of hostility towards immigrants’ languages in press and social media: Main fallacies and how to challenge them

Andreas Musolff
Andreas Musolff graduated from Düsseldorf University and is Professor of Intercultural Communication at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UK). His research interests focus on Intercultural and Multicultural Communication, Cultural Metaphor Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis. His publications include monographs – Political Metaphor Analysis – Discourse and Scenarios (2016), Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust (2010), Metaphor and Political Discourse (2004) – and co-edited volumes – Metaphor and Intercultural Communication (2014), Contesting Europe’s Eastern Rim: Cultural Identities in Public Discourse (2010) and Metaphor and Discourse (2009).

Published/Copyright: September 21, 2018

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From the journal Lodz Papers in Pragmatics Volume 14 Issue 1

Abstract

On the basis of internet forum and press media data, this article studies the expression of hostile attitudes towards multilingualism and multiculturalism in the context of debates about immigration. The forum data are drawn from the BBC’s Have Your Say website, which is a moderated forum that excludes polemical and abusive postings. Nevertheless, it still seems to provide its users ample opportunity for airing strongly anti-immigrant attitudes. The narratives in which these attitudes are being expressed are exemplary stories of the posters’ supposed encounters with the use of foreign languages in the street, in the workplace or at school. This presence of foreign languages in the British public sphere is evaluated as being (at least) problematic and is “explained” as a result of mass immigration, which serves to reinforce the scenario of a culture mix that will destroy British “home” culture. Media coverage of immigration partly supports such vilification of multilingualism and multiculturalism, and the reports and comments often seem to be drawn from similar narrative-argumentative templates as those of the discussions on Have Your Say. In conclusion, we argue that counterspeech informed by Critical Discourse Analysis has to develop alternative narratives and figurative scenarios that question the bias against linguistic and cultural diversity.

Keywords: Internet forums; language myth; monolingualism; multilingualism; super-diversity

About the author

Andreas Musolff

Andreas Musolff graduated from Düsseldorf University and is Professor of Intercultural Communication at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UK). His research interests focus on Intercultural and Multicultural Communication, Cultural Metaphor Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis. His publications include monographs – Political Metaphor Analysis – Discourse and Scenarios (2016), Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust (2010), Metaphor and Political Discourse (2004) – and co-edited volumes – Metaphor and Intercultural Communication (2014), Contesting Europe’s Eastern Rim: Cultural Identities in Public Discourse (2010) and Metaphor and Discourse (2009).

Acknowledgement

The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme under REA grant agreement no. 609305.

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Published Online: 2018-09-21

Published in Print: 2018-06-26

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2018-0006

Keywords for this article

Internet forums; language myth; monolingualism; multilingualism; super-diversity