Chapter 1
A comparative analysis of the keyword multicultural(ism) in French, British, German and Italian migration discourse
This chapter looks into discourses about migration in four European countries through the lens of cultural keywords (cf. Williams 1983; Bennett et al. 2005; Wierzbicka 1997); using Corpus Assisted Discourse Analysis, it compares the use of the keywords multicultural and multiculturalism. The study is based on corpora from British, French, German and Italian newspaper articles covering the time span 1998–2012, collated from one conservative and one left-liberal national newspaper in each language.
Across the languages, the results show that the adjective multicultural is mostly descriptive of a state of affairs, typically without negative evaluation, and that the noun multiculturalism is associated with abstract concepts and points to a more negative discourse prosody, indicated by collocates such as ‘failure’.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background: Previous literature relating to multicultural/ism in the UK, France, Germany and Italy
- 3.Data & methodology
- 4.Analysis
- 4.1Frequency
- 4.2Collocations
- 4.2.1Collocations of multicultural
- 4.2.2Collocations of multiculturalism
- 4.3Word forms in comparison
- 5.Discussion and conclusion
-
Appendix
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
References
References (57)
References
Allievi, Stefano. 2013. “Immigration, religious diversity and recognition of differences: the Italian way to multiculturalism.” Identities 21 (6): 724–737.
Aprile, Sylvie, and Stéphane Dufoix. 2009. Les mots de l'immigration. Paris: Belin.
Barats, Christine. 1999. “Immigration : carrefour de la suspicion (discours présidentiels et juridiques).” Mots 60: 43–58.
Baker, Paul. 2004. “Querying keywords: Questions of difference, frequency and sense in keyword analysis.” Journal of English Linguistics 32 (4): 346–359.
Baker, Paul. 2006. Using corpora in discourse analysis. London, New York: Continuum.
Baker, Paul, Costas Gabrielatos, Majid KhosraviNik, Michal Krzyżanowski, and Tony McEnery. 2008. “A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press.” Discourse & Society 19 (3): 273–306.
Bennett, Tony, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris.2005. New Keywords. A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Malden, Oxford, Carlton: Blackwell.
Bednarek, Monika, and Helen Caple. 2012. News discourse. London, New York: Continuum.
Bednarek, Monika, and Helen Caple. 2014. “Why do news values matter? Towards a new methodological framework for analysing news discourse in Critical Discourse Analysis and beyond.” Discourse & Society 25 (2): 135–158.
Bond, Emma, Guido Bonsaver, and Federico Faloppa. 2015. Destination Italy: Representing Migration in Contemporary Media and Narrative. Oxford etc.: Peter Lang.
Bonnafous, Simone. 1991. L'immigration prise aux mots, Les immigrés dans la presse au tournant des années 80. Paris: éditions Kimé.
Benson, Rodney. 2013. Shaping Immigration News. A French-American Comparison. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Brunner, Otto, Werner Conze, and Kosellek Reinhart. 1972–1997. Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. Stuttgart: Klett Cotta.
Evert, Stefan, and Andrew Hardie. 2011. “Twenty-first century Corpus Workbench: Updating a query architecture for the new millennium.” Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2011 conference. University of Birmingham.
Farrar, Max. 2012. “Multiculturalism in the UK: A Contested Discourse.” In Islam in the West. Key Issues in Multiculturalism, edited by Max Farrar, Simon Robinson, Yasmin Valli, and Peter Wetherly: Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Felbick, Dieter. 2003. Schlüsselwörter der Nachkriegszeit 1945–1949. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
Gabrielatos, Costas, and Paul Baker. 2008. “Fleeing, sneaking, flooding: A corpus analysis of discursive constructions of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press, 1996–2005.” Journal of English linguistics 36 (1): 5–38.
Gallissot, René, Mondher Kilani, and Annamaria Rivera. 2001. L'imbroglio etnico in quattordici parole-chiave (Vol. 235). Edizioni Dedalo.
Hart, Christopher. 2010. Critical discourse analysis and cognitive science: New perspectives on immigration discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jeffries, Lesley, and Brian Walker. 2018. Keywords in the Press: The New Labour Years. London: Bloomsbury.
Jung, Matthias, Thomas Niehr, and Karin Böke. 2000. Ausländer und Migranten im Spiegel der Presse. Ein diskurshistorisches Wörterbuch zur Einwanderung seit 1945. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Kilani, Mondher. 2001. “L’ideologia dell’esclusione. Note su alcuni concetti-chiave. In L’imbroglio etnico in quattordici parole-chiave,” edited by René Gallissot, Monher Kilani, and Annamaria Rivera. Bari: Dedalo Edizioni. 9–36.
Kymlica, Will. 2012. Multiculturalism. Success, failure, and the future. Washington DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Mahlberg, Michaela. 2007. “Lexical items in discourse: Identifying local textual functions of sustainable development.” In Text, discourse and corpora: Theory and analysis, ed. by Michael Hoey, Michaela Mahlberg, Michael Stubbs, and Wolfgang Teubert. London: Continuum. 191–218.
Maneri, Marcello, and Jessica Ter Wal, J. 2005. “The criminalisation of ethnic groups: An issue for media analysis.” Forum qualitative sozialforschung/forum: Qualitative social research 6 (3). Published online: [URL] (last access 03/04/2017).
Maneri, Marcello. 2011. “Media discourse on immigration. The translation of control practices into the language we live by.” In Racial Crimialization of Migrants in the 21st Century, ed. by Salvatore Palidda. Farnham: Ashgate, 77–93.
Mautner, Gerlinde. 2009. “Checks and balances: How corpus linguistics can contribute to CDA.” In Methods of critical discourse analysis, ed. by Ruth Wodak, and Michael. Meyer London: Sage. 122–143.
Née, Émilie, and Marie Veniard. 2012. “Lexical discourse analysis: Toward a revival using a semantic approach?” Langage et Société 140: 15–28.
Niehr, Thomas. 2004. Der Streit um Migration in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, der Schweiz und Österreich. Eine vergleichende diskursgeschichtliche Untersuchung. Heidelberg: Winter.
O’Halloran, Kieran. 2010. “How to use corpus linguistics in the study of media discourse.” In The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, edited by Anne O’Keeffe, and Mike McCarthy, 563–577. London: Routledge.
Ossewaarde, Marinus. 2014. “The national identities of the ‘death of multiculturalism’ discourse in Western Europe.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 9 (3): 173–189.
Schnapper, Dominique. 2015. “Quelle politique multiculturelle?” Le Débat 186 (4): 111–121.
Schröter, Melani. 2013. “Die kontrastive Analyse politischer Diskurse. Skizze, Verkomplizierung und Ausblick.” In Politik als sprachlich gebundenes Wissen. Politische Sprache im lebenslangen Lernen und politischen Handeln, edited by Jörg Kilian, and Thomas Niehr, 91–105. Bremen: Hempen.
Sinclair, John. 1991. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stötzel, Georg, and Martin Wengeler (eds.). 1995. Kontroverse Begriffe. Geschichte des öffentlichen Sprachgebrauchs in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
Strauß, Gerhard, Ulrike Haß, and Gisela. Harras. 1989: Brisante Wörter von Agitation und Zeitgeist. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
Stubbs, Michael. 2010. “Three concepts of keywords.” Keyness in texts,ed. by Marina Bondi, and Mike Scott, 21–42. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Sciortino, Giuseppe, and Asher Colombo. 2004. “The flows and the flood: the public discourse on immigration in Italy, 1969–2001.” Journal of modern Italian studies 9 (1): 94–113.
Teubert, Wolfgang, and Anna Čermáková. 2007. Corpus Linguistics. A short introduction. London: Continuum.
Teubert, Wolfgang. 2010. Meaning, discourse and society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Triandafyllidou, Anna. 1999. “Nation and immigration: A study of the Italian press discourse.” Social identities 5 (1): 65–88.
Triandafyllidou, Anna. 2002. “Religious Diversity and Multiculturalism in Southern Europe: The Italian Mosque Debate.” Sociological Research Online 7 (1) [URL] (last access 03/04/2017).
Veniard, Marie, Charlotte Taylor, Andreas Blätte, and Melani Schröter. 2016. Evaluation of Communities in Migration Discourse. Paper presented at Critical Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines 2016. Catania. Italy.
Vollmer, Bastian. 2014. Policy discourses on irregular migration in Germany and the United Kingdom. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wengeler, Martin. 1995. “Multikulturelle Gesellschaft oder Ausländer raus? Der sprachliche Umgangt mit der Einwanderung seit 1945.” In Kontroverse Begriffe. Geschichte des öffentlichen Sprachgebrauchs in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, edited by Georg Stötzel, and Martin Wengeler, 711–749. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
Wengeler, Martin. 2003. Topos und Diskurs. Begründung einer argumentationsanalytischen Methode und ihre Anwendung auf den Migrationsdiskurs (1960–1985). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1997. Understanding cultures through their key words: English, Russian, Polish, German, and Japanese. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 2006. English: Meaning and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 2010. Experience, evidence, and sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Raymond. 1983. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wodak, Ruth, and Salomi Boukala. 2015. “(Supra)National identity and language: Rethinking national and European migration policies and the linguistic integration of migrants.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35: 253–273.
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Štěpánek, Daniel
2023.
Phenomenological-Sociological Approach to Research Possibilities in Relation to Language and Culture in Migrants Working Environment. In
The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Problems,
► pp. 1 ff.
Cantone, Katja F.
2020.
Immigrant minority language maintenance in Europe: focusing on language education policy and teacher-training.
International Multilingual Research Journal 14:2
► pp. 100 ff.
Taylor, Charlotte & Dario del Fante*
2020.
Comparing across languages in corpus and discourse analysis: some issues and approaches.
Meta 65:1
► pp. 29 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.