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Part of
Diachronic Developments in English News Discourse
Edited by Minna Palander-Collin, Maura Ratia and Irma Taavitsainen
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 6] 2017
► pp. 241–265

Chapter 13
Astride two worlds

Emergence of Italian-American identity in the Massachusetts immigrant press

This paper explores the emergence of Italian-American identity and its correlation with changes in format, content, and language over the course of the first five decades of the twentieth century in La Gazzetta del Massachusetts (The Massachusetts Gazette), a weekly newspaper published in Boston, but intended for the Greater New England Italian community. A representative longitudinal sample of 528 equally-spaced issues between 1903 and 1949 reveals patterns that are suggestive of an evolving population and an ethnic community’s changing attitudes toward its ancestral culture and relationship with its homeland. Findings relate to prior work in the areas of the Italian immigrant language press, sociology, cultural assimilation and preservation, as well as studies of identity construction through language.

Keywords: immigration, news discourse, Italian, English, code switching, assimilation, cultural preservation, identity construction
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Purpose and background of this study
  • 3.Previous work and theoretical considerations
    • 3.1Assimilation studies
    • 3.2Ethnic identity as expressed through language choice
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Analysis of Data
    • 5.1Preliminary remarks and overview
    • 5.2Format
      • 5.2.1Decade 1
      • 5.2.2Decades 2 and 3
      • 5.2.3Decade 4
      • 5.2.4Decade 5
    • 5.3Content
      • 5.3.1Decade 1
      • 5.3.2Decade 2
      • 5.3.3Decade 3
      • 5.3.4Decade 4
      • 5.3.5Decade 5
    • 5.4Language
      • 5.4.1Language as self-identification of the community
      • 5.4.2Language used in reference to others
      • 5.4.3Emergence of English in Italian text
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
    • 6.1Format
    • 6.2Content
    • 6.3Language
    • 6.4Evidence for assimilation and the role of the Gazzetta
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.6.13rya
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